The thing that grabs my heart and pulls me back to the goodness of God is that He is never bothered by me and He never tires of me.

When I’m sick of me, He’s not. When I’m frustrated with another, He’s not. When I think there’s no way through, He stands at the door and knocks, waiting for me to get dressed in my armor so he can show me The Way. God is way kinder and wiser than me. I always need whatever it is He has.

In Him is the fullness of life for my life.

After ten years of ministering to God, in the unique way that Revelation Wellness does, the one thing I know is this; the battle for which I was born is freedom. 

My childhood home was a minefield of needs and expectations. If a condition didn’t get met, you could expect someone to know about it, and somebody needed to rectify the situation pretty darn fast. Emotional or physical payment always felt due. Everyone in my home kept an emotional checklist you could refer to if someone was stepping out of line and owed you something like a chore you never completed or an apology you never gave. At a young age, I learned how to fudge my balance sheet with the added oomph of an emotional outburst, so the odds of getting what I wanted were ever in my favor.

You can see how fitness was a natural fit for a check and balance keeper like me. 

When it comes to my love for fitness, nothing gives me greater joy than seeing a person frozen, stuck in fear and shame finally shake off the shackles of worldly expectations. People who shake off their disappointment in man by shimmying into a pair of spandex and workout shoes for a time of letting their body talk shuns the voices of decent as they take up space. Few things on earth embody freedom from our ledgers of expectations, like moving freely while offering everything to God, our King. I’ve never seen an accountant with an office on the dance floor, have you?

Faith, hope, and love have room to move and breathe in those who cut free from their list of unmet needs.

The biblical word for freedom has a meaning, AND it is attached to an action. Freedom means “to relieve, release, let go, set free.” Its action is forgiveness.

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive and you will be forgiven; give and it will be given to you.” – Luke 6:37

Just like our body depends on the air we breathe, our ability to live a free life, abundant and joyful life intensely depends upon our ability to forgive – to cancel accounts and set others free. 

Forgiveness is a gift from God, a weapon of warfare and healthcare, that the follower of Jesus MUST learn to use. All we need is time for basic training, until like a Jedi knight with a lightsaber of forgiveness on our side, forgiveness is ready for a quick draw and use.

A free person is ready to forgive as quickly as the offense comes, and they stay prepared to train their pain by using the weapon of forgiveness.

So how do you know if you are a Jedi for Jesus? A trained up, free and forgiving person. You know you are if:

1.You refuse to take hold of offense – As soon as someone does something to mess with your emotional balance sheet, you know it’s too costly to your free and clear bottom line to pick up that debt of offense.

2.You always choose to assume the best, even when someone’s at their worst – You believe that everyone is doing the very best they can. You remember that nobody hopes and dreams of being a liar, a thief, or a murderer when they grow up. Life is hard, and people grow hard. Hard people don’t need more vitriol or revenge. Hard people need an encounter with God’s grace, and you can be that person who gives them the gift of gracious assumptions. Assuming the best in others is the best way to live.

3.You can empathize with another in need – You know that everyone has needs and is operating out of a place of need, and this includes yourself. That what causes the quarrels among us are the desires within us (James 4:1.) You desire to meet another’s need and not walk by a person who bleeds.

4.You know people are never your enemy – In Ephesians 6, Paul reminds us that we don’t fight flesh and blood but the powers of darkness at work among us. People are never your enemy. Satan, the enemy of God and goodness, is the enemy. You side with “The Force” and quickly pick up your lightsaber to fight the right fight of faith.

5.You bear fruit – A forgiving person is like a fruit tree, in a garden grove, surrounded by other fruit trees, intermingling and sharing in an underground root system for survival and growth. Just as a fruit tree produces fruit and not battery acid, a forgiving person knows they can only do one thing in a moment of pain, and that is to press into their healthy root system and draw out more fruit!

6.You clean your messes quickly – This is where an old habit of keeping accounts of what you’ve received and what is owed comes in handy, except now you keep short accounts with anyone you offend. (GASP! Yes, free people can still make a mess. You are not a cyborg. You are a human with desires in you that, if not under the Holy Spirit’s influence, can cause offense, leaving you in need of forgiveness). If you have done something to hurt another, you are quick to notice you made a mistake, a mess, and you are quick to ask for forgiveness. You are quick to clean up your spilled milk in someone else’s aisle four.

7.You’re teachable – Since you’re still here, reading this post, you can most likely check this one off your list. You’re doing it right! You are willing, wanting to learn, and checking yourself to see if you are truly free.

8.You want more God – Heaven is your real home. While here on earth, you have one mission – to bring more heaven to earth. More heaven on earth requires more God in you. More God in you is like a spiritual Teflon on you. When you have more God, no offense sticks to you.forgive

To dig deeper into this topic, check out our Forgiveness Training free resource, or listen to Podcast #291: Forgiveness Training – 7 Steps