Forgiveness Comes Before Healing By Dr Michelle K Strydom
All the passages below are taken from Dr Michelle K Strydom book, “Healing begins with the Sanctification of the Heart---No Disease is Incurable.” The fourth edition is published in 2013 and it can be downloaded free in the link below:
Forgiveness – A Necessity for Healing
A man who was bitten by a dog went to the doctor because he started experiencing strange symptoms. After examining him, the doctor said to the man, “I’m sorry, it’s too late – you already have rabies.” The man nonchalantly replied, “I thought as much,” He then pulled out a pen and paper and began furiously writing something. Curious, the doctor said to him, “Don’t tell me you are writing out your will now? You should have done that long ago!”
The man explained, “No I’m not writing out my will, I’m writing a list of the people that I want to bite before I die!” The man in that story had bitterness and unforgiveness! As you read through this chapter, begin to think about who it is that has hurt you, harmed you, abused you, humiliated you, falsely accused you, lied about you or made you feel unworthy. What happened in the past that still creates feelings of pain, anger, rage, resentment and bitterness when you remember it?
Hebrews 12:15, “Exercise foresight and be on the watch to look [after one another], to see that no one falls back from and fails to secure God’s grace (His unmerited favor and spiritual blessings), in order that no root of resentment (rancor, bitterness, or hatred) shoots forth and causes trouble and bitter torment, and the many become contaminated and defiled by it.”
Bitterness, like battery acid, corrodes and eats away at your soul. It poisons first your mind and then your body with disease.
This is a teaching on bitterness as explained by Henry Wright in his book “A More Excellent Way. A Teaching On The Spiritual Roots of Disease”:
Bitterness is a principality and under it and answering to it are seven spirits that reinforce bitterness:
- Unforgiveness
This is how bitterness first gets a foot hold. You begin to keep a record of wrongs and you carry un-forgiveness in your heart. You say to yourself, “I am not prepared to forgive you and I am going to remember what you did to me.” You think on all the wrong things that have been done to you and every time that person’s face comes to your mind, that high octane ping goes off inside of you. This unforgiveness invites the next six spirits to become a part of your life: - Resentment
Resentment develops as you continue to meditate on that record of wrongs and fume and steam internally over it. The thorn tree that I spoke about in the chapter “Essential Background Knowledge of Disease from a Medical Perspective” is beginning to grow in your brain and secrete chemicals that putting your body into a toxic state of dis-ease. Those chemicals are carrying negative emotion and that is you have that bad feeling in your gut every time that person comes to your mind. Resentment keeps the unforgiveness in place. - Retaliation
After the resentment has been simmering for a while, the steam builds up and you start thinking of ways to get even with that person. They must pay for what they did. - Anger
Un-forgiveness, resentment and retaliation has been building up and now you are very, very angry. The pressure cooker is really going and adding fuel to the fire. This anger is both seen and felt. - Hatred
Now that you are angry, hatred gets a foothold. You are saying, “I remember what you did to me. I have really been meditating on it and I really resent it. I’m going to get even with you and make you pay.” At this stage hatred begins to say, “You do not deserve to exist. There is no room on this earth for you and me to both be at the same place at the same time.” Hatred starts to go into the elimination mode. - Violence
Hatred fuels violence. Violence says, “Before I eliminate you, you are going to feel my pain.” Violence is anger and hatred in action. It can take the form of verbal, emotional, physical or sexual abuse. - Murder
Once violence erupts, the final fruit of bitterness is murder. This can be literal physical murder, premeditated murder which is murder of the heart or murder with the tongue which is gossip, slander or character trashing. When hatred, violence and murder are in a person’s life, they feel they are justified and that person is going to pay the price. Unfortunately the person does not realize that by this stage the devil has managed to get in and alter his body chemistry, causing diseases like cancer that are resulting in death of his own body.
If any one of these seven areas that answer to bitterness are present, the preceding ones are usually also there, and if they are not dealt with, all the rest will surely come. For example, if the person has hatred in his heart, un-forgiveness, resentment, retaliation and anger will also be there. You will not be able to remove bitterness from your life until you deal with un-forgiveness, resentment, retaliation, anger, hatred, violence and murder behind it.
Why is Bitterness Sin?
Romans 12:19-21; “Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave the way open for [God’s] wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is Mine, I will repay (requite), says the Lord. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head. Do not let yourself be overcome by evil, but overcome (master) evil with good.”
Isaiah 54:17: “No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue that rises up against you in judgment you shall show to be in the wrong. This [peace, righteousness, security and triumph over opposition] is the heritage of the servants of the Lord [those in whom the ideal Servant of the Lord is reproduced]; this is the righteousness or the vindication which they obtain from Me [this is that which I impart to them as their justification], says the Lord.”
Zechariah 2:8 says that he who touches you touches the apple of God’s eye. When somebody wrongs you, those two scriptures above are God’s promise to you so long as you keep your heart right with Him. When you choose to forgive and overcome evil with good, you open the way for God’s wrath and you allow Him to repay the evil that was done to you and to be your vindicator. However when you put yourself in God’s shoes and become your own vindicator and the judge of others, you are in disobedience to scripture and you will reap the consequences of that:
Matthew 7:1-3, “ Do not judge and criticize and condemn others, so that you may not be judged and criticized and condemned yourselves. For just as you judge and criticize and condemn others, you will be judged and criticized and condemned, and in accordance with the measure you [use to] deal out to others, it will be dealt out against you. Why do you stare from without at the very small particle that is in your brother’s eye but do not become aware of and consider the beam of timber that is in your own eye?”
There are worse consequences to bitterness than diseases such as cancer – you put yourself in danger of spending eternity in hell because God gave a very clear warning in His Word that if you will not forgive others, He will not forgive you.
Forgiveness – The Missing Link
Mark 11:22-24, “And Jesus, replying, said to them, Have faith in God [constantly], Truly I tell you, whoever says to this mountain, Be lifted up and thrown into the sea! And does not doubt at all in his heart but believes that what he says will take place, it will be done for him. For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will get it.”
We have all been taught this scripture many times in churches all over the world today where they say that believing will guarantee receiving. If you confess it, provided you have enough faith, you will get it. There are so many Christians who have become so confused and disillusioned with the faith messages and name it and claim it teachings because it is still not working. When the person in this church circus is not receiving the object of their belief, they are simply told that they did not have enough faith. . .and then you talk about hopelessness! Faith isn’t even the issue. It is not working because this scripture has been taken out of context. If you want to understand the intent of the author you have got to read Mark 11:22-24 in context. If you are going to apply the Word of God, apply the whole Word of God, not just the part that feels good. There’s more to the Bible than promises and blessings – there’s also conditions and there’s reproof. What has happened to us in the healing ministry is we have hung our hat on a few scriptures to the exclusion of the rest of the Truth in the Word.
How many times have you tried to pray the prayer of faith and speak to your mountain and claim God’s promises and you never received anything? Did you ever wonder why? Well I hope by this point in your journey through this book that you are beginning to understand why. I’m going to show you the missing link to receiving which is found in the verses following Mark 11:22-24 and it is taught by very few people anywhere in the world because they are so busy preaching about God’s blessings and His promises.
Mark 11:25-26: “And whenever you stand praying (praying what?. . ..speaking to the mountain as it says in Mark 11:22, not doubting in your heart, believing that those things which you say shall come to pass and you shall receive the things that you are believing for), if you have anything against anyone, forgive him and let it drop (leave it, let it go), in order that your Father who is in heaven may also forgive you your [own] failings and shortcomings and let them drop. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your failings and shortcomings.”
(*Note: In the NIV translations of the Bible, Mark 11:26 has been taken out – I explain why on page 101)
So verses 25 and 26 in Mark 11 are a continuation of verses 22 to 24: In context these scriptures say, “And when you stand praying, forgive.” This is never attached to the faith sermons and “Name it and Claim it” teachings. There are no conditions being offered except that you must have enough faith.
Without mastering this issue of forgiveness, I am wasting my time trying to help you get well from your biological and psychological diseases. Forgiveness is a big missing link in healing. I will tell you emphatically that forgiveness is a prerequisite to all healing. There’s just no way around it.The promise of healing and divine health is yours as a child of God (Isaiah 53:5). However, with every promise God has a condition. You can’t claim His promises without being prepared to meet His conditions. I explained to you in the chapter “Essential background knowledge of disease from a Biblical Perspective” that the condition for healing is repentance. Repentance involves asking God to forgive you for the sin that caused your disease. When you repent to God for serving the sin that caused your disease, do you think He will forgive you and heal you? The answer is – it depends. You see, God’s forgiveness for you is conditional. The Bible tells you very clearly that you cannot ask God to forgive you, if you are not prepared to forgive all those who have hurt you and wronged you. Unforgiveness is a major block to healing and it is one of the reasons why our churches are filled with disease.
Jesus said in Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive people their trespasses [their wreckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], your Heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their trespasses [their wreckless and willful sins, leaving them, letting them go, and giving up resentment], neither will your Heavenly Father forgive your trespasses.”
Imagine the condition your life would be in if God refused to forgive you? You would be cut off from a relationship with Him and everything in your life would be a miserable mess of poverty and disease – spiritually, mentally, emotionally, financially and physically. We like to think that we can stay angry with other people and yet go to God and receive forgiveness for our sins. But the Lord tells us in Matthew 6:14-15 that this is not so. God’s forgiveness for you is in direct relationship to how you forgive your brother.
Jesus taught us how to pray in Mathew 6:12, “Father forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven (left remitted and let go of the debts and have given up resentment against) our debtors.” God is a God of mercy (Psalm 57:10; Psalm 86:15) and this issue of forgiveness is very important to Him. Henry Wright teaches that as a believer you will not get anything from Heaven that you are not prepared to give away to others. So if you want to have forgiveness, you are going to have to give it away also. God tells us repeatedly in His Word that if we want mercy, we have to give mercy.
Mathew 5:7: “Blessed (happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous – with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favour and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions) are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy!”
Mathew 18:21-22: “Then Peter came up to Him and said, Lord, how many times may my brother sin against me and I forgive him and let it go? [As many as] up to seven times? Jesus answered him, I tell you, not up to seven times, but seventy times seven!”
I don’t know about you but I am personally very glad that God does not put a limit on how many times He forgives me. How many times have you done the same wrong thing at least seventy times seven, and God still forgave you for it? We are often willing to keep receiving and receiving forgiveness from God, but it is amazing how little we want to extend forgiveness to others. We freely accept mercy, yet it is surprising how rigid, legalistic and merciless we can be toward others, especially if they have wronged or hurt us in some way. Yet the Bible says that the debt we owe God is much greater than any debt anyone may owe us.
Matthew 18:23-35, “Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a human king who wished to settle accounts with his attendants. When he began the accounting, one was brought to him who owed him 10 000 talents (probably about $10,000,000], And because he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and everything that he possessed, and payment to be made. So the attendant fell on his knees, begging him, Have patience with me and I will pay you everything. And his master’s heart was moved with compassion, and he released him and forgave him [cancelling] the debt. But the same attendant, as he went out, found one of his fellow attendants who owed him a hundred denarii [about $20 dollars]; and he caught him by the throat and said, Pay what you owe! So his fellow attendant fell down and begged him earnestly, Give me time, and I will pay you all! But he was unwilling, and he went out and had him put in prison till he should pay the debt. When his fellow attendants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and told everything that had taken place to their master. Then his master called him and said to him, You contemptible, and wicked attendant! I forgave you and cancelled all that [great] debt of yours because you begged me to. And should you not have had pity and mercy on your fellow attendant, as I had pity and mercy on you? And in wrath his master turned him over to the torturers (the jailers), till he should pay all that he owed. So also My heavenly Father will deal with every one of you if you do not freely forgive your brother from your heart his offenses.”
It is sometimes very difficult to forgive someone, especially when they have abused, repeatedly hurt or offended us. If there is someone you are having a hard time forgiving, remember God’s mercy and grace and forgiveness towards you. As you have received forgiveness, you are called to extend forgiveness. Unforgiveness is a luxury of the flesh. It makes your flesh feel good at the time, but it will literally destroy you spiritually and physically. It is a luxury you cannot afford to have. If you want to hold onto your offense, resentment and un-forgiveness – you must also be prepared to hold on to and live with your illness. Many people can’t understand why their prayers for healing aren’t answered. . .yet they have un-forgiveness in their heart. There are people who go up for prayer every Sunday after church, month after month, year after year and still can’t get free of their bondage. They have fasted and prayed but the harder they try the more bondage they find themselves. Their prayers seem to be hitting a brick wall and the skies of heaven seem to be closed to their prayers.
I had a lady come to me for help with a skin rash that covered her body. She could hardly live with herself for the itchiness and discomfort of it and it had been there for over 2 months. She had been to several doctors and skin specialists. They prescribed various types of anti-histamine and corticosteroid creams but nothing helped her much. I spent time explaining to her that her skin rash was a consequence of fear, anxiety and stress in her thought life. She repented of this. However, the skin rash did not go away. You see a great source of her stress had been because a man that she had trusted had squandered her money which her mother had left her as part of her inheritance. She was understandably very angry with him. However this un-forgiveness blocked her healing and I explained this to her. So she forgave the man be fore God and sent him an email telling him that she had forgiven him. Immediately the rash disintegrated to a few spots here and there on her body, and by the next morning it was completely gone.
Your Healing Hinges on Your Forgiveness
Many people have already made up their minds and have completely justified their feelings of unforgiveness or resentment. They say things like, “I have every right to…” or “It was his fault, he is so in the wrong…” Was Jesus wronged? He was the only one who never sinned and never did any wrong to anyone. He was completely right! Yet He still said, “Father, forgive them” as He died on the cross. In Acts 7:50-60 we read about how Steven was stoned to death for witnessing about God:
Acts 7:55, 59 and 60: “But he, full of the Holy Spirit and controlled by Him, gazed into heaven and saw the glory (the splendor and majesty) of God, and Jesus standing at God’s right hand;. . . .And while they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, Lord Jesus, receive and accept and welcome my spirit! And falling on his knees, he cried out loudly, Lord, fix not this sin upon them [lay it not to their charge]! And when he said this, he fell asleep in death].”
Wow! Did they do Stephen wrong? Certainly they did! He was the only one in the crowd who was right, yet as they stoned him to death, Stephen cried out to God, “Forgive them!” Wow! What I want you to understand is that it makes no difference who was right or wrong, that is totally irrelevant. What is important is that you are the forgiver. It is important that you get your own heart right with God. You don’t have to prove that you are right, you have to prove that you are willing to forgive. Your flesh wants to hold onto that un-forgiveness because it wants justice. . . but the Bible says that it is God who vindicates us (Isaiah 54:17).
You don’t have to carry someone else’s sin inside you. That’s their sin. God will be their judge. Your job is to release and forgive them. Your freedom, spiritually and physically does not depend on their resolution – it depends on your resolution between you and God. If it is possible for you to go and make peace with that person, please do so. Romans 12:18, “If possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” But if it is not possible because the person is not willing to restore the relationship or even talk to you, the person has died or you don’t know where the person is, never mind – what is important is that you get your own heart right with God.
If you have something from your past and it is not possible for you to make right with the other person, you just need to make it right with God and it is dealt with because God judges it by the integrity of your heart. You don’t have to carry the guilt any longer. If somebody is holding a sin against you it is their problem, not yours. They have to get right with God just as you do. Whether they do or don’t doesn’t have anything to do with you because you stand alone before God in the integrity of your heart. You don’t have to have it resolved with that person in order to be free.
To be able to receive complete healing of your illness, you are going to have to make peace in your heart with every person that you have ever known and have it resolved before God concerning them. You don’t forgive people who have hurt you because you feel like it. You need to forgive them as an act of your will in obedience to God and His Word. Forgiveness is not a ritual performance: You don’t need to do it from an intellectual standpoint or because it’s a law – but do it from your heart: Forgiveness is an attitude of your heart towards others in love.
Forgiveness is Not a Feeling, it is a Decision – An Act of Your Will
When you forgive others, you are not letting them off the hook, but you are giving them to God, still wriggling on the hook. You are now off the hook. When you forgive someone, you have got to separate the person from their sin, just as God separated you from your sin in His heart when He saved you. To forgive you don’t have to condone their sin. You continue to hate the sin, but you are commanded to love the person.
It doesn’t just stop at forgiveness, Jesus calls us much higher than that: Luke 6:27-38, “But I say to you who are listening now to Me: [in order to heed, make it a practice to] love your enemies, treat well (do good to, act nobly toward) those who detest you and pursue you with hatred, Invoke blessings upon and pray for the happiness of those who curse you, implore God’s blessing (favor) upon those who abuse you [who revile, reproach, disparage, and high handedly misuse you]. To the one who strikes you on the jaw or cheek, offer the other jaw or cheek also; and from him who takes away your outer garment, do not withhold your undergarment as well. Give away to everyone who begs of you [who is in want of necessities], and of him who takes away from you your goods, do not demand or require them back again, And as you would like and desire that men would do to you, do exactly so to them. If you [merely] love those who love you, what quality of credit and thanks is that to you? For even the [very] sinners love their lovers (those who love them). And if you are kind and good and do favors to and benefit those who are kind and good and do favors to and benefit you, what quality of credit and thanks is that to you? For even the pre-eminently simple do the same. And if you lend money at interest to those whom you would hope to receive, what quality of credit and thanks is that to you? Even notorious sinners lend money at interest to sinners, so as to recover as much again. But love your enemies and be kind and do good [doing favors so that someone derives benefit from them] and lend, expecting and hoping for nothing in return but considering nothing as lost and despairing of no one; and then your recompense (your reward) will be great (rich, strong, intense and abundant), and you will be sons of the Most High, for He is kind and charitable and good to the ungrateful and the selfish and the wicked. So be merciful (sympathetic, tender, responsive, and compassionate) even as your Father is [all these]. Judge not [neither pronouncing judgment nor subjecting to censure], and you will not be judged; do not condemn and pronounce guilty, and you will not be condemned and pronounced guilty; acquit and forgive and release (give up resentment, let it drop), and you will be acquitted and forgiven and released. Give and [gifts] will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will they pour into [the pouch formed by] the bosom [of your robe and used as a bag]. For with the measure you deal out [with the measure you use when you confer benefits on others], it will be measured back to you.”
Something is missing when you say that you forgive those who have hurt and offended you and go no further. Joyce Meyer once asked the Lord, “Father, why is it that people come to our church services and pray for the ability to forgive, and yet in just a short time they are right back again still having the same problems with bitterness, anger, and hypersensitivity?” The Lord showed her that these types of people are not doing what He instructs in His Word. You see, God tells us in His Word to forgive others – but He does not stop there. He goes on to instruct you to love and bless them. In this context, the word “bless” means to “speak well of”. So one of our problems is though we pray and try to forgive those who offend us, we turn right around and curse them with our tongue or we rehash the offense again and again with others. Sorry, but this will not work! It is not enough to merely say that you forgive others; you must be careful not to curse them or speak evil of them even if you think they deserve it.
To work through the process of forgiveness and enjoy the peace and wholeness in health that you seek, you must do what God tells you to do, which is not only to forgive, but to go beyond that: Jesus challenged you to pray for them, bless them, speak well of them and love them. Why? Because by doing so, you bless not only them, but yourself too! Jesus said in Luke 6:35 that your reward for your obedience in this area will be great, rich, strong, intense and abundant, good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over. . .this includes your physical health.
Hating those who hurt you is like drinking poison yourself, but hoping that your enemy will die. Obviously anyone who did that would only be destroying himself. Why spend your life angry at people who probably do not even know or care that you are angry? These people are going on enjoying their lives while you are thoroughly miserable. You don’t have to allow somebody else’s sin to ruin your life. Release them, forgive them, let the offense go, let it drop. Have the same attitude that Jesus had toward His enemies. By doing this, you will experience wonderful freedom, peace, good health and God will show Himself strong as your Vindicator.
When you have bitterness and un-forgiveness you have a memory in your brain that looks like a thorn tree. Those thorns secrete toxic chemicals that make you sick. They also prevent you from being able to renew your mind because science has shown that you cannot build a new healthy memory over a toxic thorn tree.2 That is why you cannot recover from a disease, regardless of what disease it is, if you have toxic thorn trees of unforgiveness in your brain. That is why unforgiveness is a major block to healing. However when you choose to release that bitterness by truly forgiving the person from your heart, you grow a new healthy memory or lush tree. This lush tree produces healthy chemicals that flow through those old thorn trees and literally physically removes those thorns. The memory will still be there so you will still remember what the person did to you but it won’t affect you. You’re no longer carrying the burden of hurt, hate and bitterness in your life. That high-octane ping will be gone and it will not cause sickness in your body.
If through reading this book, I have managed to show you that you have a disease because you have been serving sin in a specific area and you are in a place where you are ready to repent for participation with that sin, I really want God to forgive you. However it is conditional because you don’t receive forgiveness from God if you don’t give forgiveness to your brother. Therefore before you go to God to repent of the sin behind your disease, you need to do an exercise where you forgive everybody who has hurt or wronged you whether they are living or dead.
So take a moment now to be quiet and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you who it is that you need to forgive. He knows your heart better than you do, so listen and be sensitive to His promptings, as He brings the names of people to your mind. Who is it that when you think of them, that high octane ping goes off inside you, your stomach turns and the hairs on your back stand up? Release them and let them go. All the verbal abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, legalism, control, rejection and betrayal that you have suffered… let it all go. If possible, listen to track 3 on the CD in a quiet place with your eyes closed and allow the Lord to minister to your heart.
I encourage you to pray a prayer that goes something like this:
“Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray that Your Holy Spirit would minister into my life right now. Look into the depths of my heart and reveal to me where there is hardness, un-forgiveness, bitterness and resentment or anything against anybody. Please bring their names to my heart right now by the power of Your Holy Spirit. I repent to You Father for sometimes repaying evil with evil and feeling justified by it. I thought I was protecting myself when in fact I was behaving no different than the person that did evil to me. Father I repent for participating with the sin of bitterness and unforgiveness. As an act of my will in obedience to you, I choose to forgive (name the person and what they did). I am trusting you to make my forgiveness heartfelt – to forgive completely just like You do, without looking back. Please take the hardness of my heart and soften it with Your love. I pray that Your forgiveness would flow through me. Thank You for the work that You are doing in my heart right now”
You may need to forgive the church. In fact, 99% of the people in the church have been injured, damaged or hurt by spiritual leadership since they were born again. . .forgive them and let it go. If you are discouraged with the Christian church, I’d like to say that God is not the Christian church. Those pastors and leaders are just men. Often they don’t understand what being a pastor is all about because they have their own personal agendas, they are full of selfish ambition, they want kingdoms and empires, they want to rule and you became expendable to their system. Well so what, that’s their sin. God will confront them at the judgement seat of Christ, you just let it go. Don’t be discouraged by humans or stumble over somebody else’s failure. Get your eyes off people and pastors who are weak and who have failed you. Get back up and get on with God.
Note: You do not have to resolve a single issue with somebody that has victimized you in order for God to heal you, so long as you have resolved that issue between you and God concerning them. You don’t have to wait for resolution between that person and you before you get healed – that is just binding you to the tragedy and victimization.
The next area where forgiveness may be needed is that you may need to forgive yourself. Bitterness is not always about others. We can get into condemnation, guilt and shame about ourselves. We often speak of forgiving others, but do you have un-forgiveness and resentment towards yourself? Are you holding yourself guilty about an issue from the past?
If you are struggling with guilt and unforgiveness towards yourself, I recommend that you refresh your memory by reading through “The Day Sanctification Begins” on page 115 because the teaching in that section will greatly help you in this area.
Remember I explained that you need to discern the source of your thoughts (page 84)? Those feelings of unforgiveness that you have towards yourself aren’t even your thoughts and feelings. It is an accusing spirit (Relations 12:10) of self-hatred and self-rejection that accuses you to yourself with thoughts in the first person – you believed its lies and you’ve made it part of your thinking as if it was you. Remember your battle is not with flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12) and therefore your battle is not with yourself. You have to forgive yourself – you don’t have an option because the diseases that come from self-hatred and guilt lead to death and it is just not worth it to believe the devil’s lies.
I want you to say this out loud, “I am not guilty!” Some people are so deep into guilt and self-hatred that the accusing spirit attached to them will not allow them to say it because the minute they get it out and say, “I am not guilty” that lying spirit is defeated.
I encourage you to say this to yourself, “I’m not guilty. I became one with sin as if it were me and have been blaming myself and have been bitter against myself all these years. I’ve felt guilty, unworthy, ashamed and inferior and have compared myself to others. I repent Father for bitterness and unforgiveness towards myself and I forgive myself. I command the accusing spirit of self-hatred, self-rejection and guilt to be gone out of my life in the Name of Jesus.” It is as simple as that. You may need to have a renewing of the mind to apprehend that over the next month.
Are you angry with God? The amount of people who have unforgiveness towards God the Father is incredible. Many people are harbouring resentment and bitterness toward God because they blame Him for a disappointment or tragic situation or for something that did not work out the way they expected. The devil wants you to blame God because He wants to create a rift and a separation in your relationship with Him. This will steal your joy, love and passion for Him, and it opens the door to the devil in your life. If you have anger, un-forgiveness and bitterness in your heart against God, give it up and let it go. He is not guilty, He is a good Father. God is your friend, not your enemy. Do not turn away from the only One Who can help you and give you life, real peace and joy.
If you are angry or have been upset with God, I encourage you to pray this pray with me so that you can be released from the harsh results of un-forgiveness and bitterness that you may have directed toward Him: “God, I have held anger against You. I know that You have done nothing wrong, and I am in need of Your forgiveness. But I believe that my saying, “I forgive You” will help me to let go of un-forgiveness that I have misdirected towards You. I forgive You. My problems are not Your fault. You are my answer.”
You have got to come to the place where you forgive God, yourself and others before you ever go to the Throne to repent and ask for healing of a disease.
It is important to understand that these prayers given here are just a guide to help you. If you are just doing this to go through the motions because you want your healing for selfish reasons and you are using this as a system or mechanism, you are wasting your time. God is not interested in rote words – He’s looking into your heart and that is where your repentance and forgiveness must come from.
Ephesians 6:6, “Not with eye service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.” KJV
Matthew 18:35, “So also My heavenly Father will deal with every one of you if you do not freely forgive your brother from your heart his offences.”
Remember, God’s perfect will is not healing, it is prevention of disease. If you want to enjoy the abundant life of divine health that Jesus died to give you (John 10:10; Isaiah 53:5), you have got to continually practice a habit of forgiveness. I am not going to die because of other people’s sin. I refuse to take other people’s sin into my life any longer. I have decided to forgive all sins of all humans all the time. I don’t care what you say or what you do to me or don’t do to me – I’m going to forgive you and that makes me a doer of the Word. [630-639]
-----------------------
Dr Michelle K Strydom has summarized her ideas from her book into 22 video tapes below. I would recommend that you listen to tapes 21 and 22 if you do not have the time to listen to all the tapes.
No Disease is incurable by Dr Michelle K Strydom
No Disease is incurable Session 1—Your amazing Brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZTWNnQg9eI
No Disease is incurable Session 2—Introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C20yXJ6rAto
No Disease is incurable Session 3—The 3 Stages of Stress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZJClWqvWDE
No Disease is incurable Session 4—Allergies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxG39FELwS8
No Disease is incurable Session 5—A Journey through the Bible to find out the cause of Diseases
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSFXXQDpwRM
No Disease is incurable Session 6—Low Self-Esteem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgVXgcQIKqA
No Disease is incurable Session 7—Relationship Breakdowns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xf62plCGQ4w
No Disease is incurable Session 8—The Great Physician
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BktYSx9Vc0Q
No Disease is incurable Session 9—God’s Perfect Will is that you don’t get sick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2qOqv1-AUU
No Disease is incurable Session 10—The Great Deception of Prescription Drugs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DDVeCBuJ9M
No Disease is incurable Session 11—Discerning the Source of your thoughts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuzr5AoB4WA
No Disease is incurable Session 12—Why we need Sanctification after Salvation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFVvOgvjlas
No Disease is incurable Session 13—Life Threatening Mindsets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMD-17q3-9g
No Disease is incurable Session 14—Genetically Inherited Diseases
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8MLvSr9pAg
No Disease is incurable Session 15—An Intelligence that Defies Imagination Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdFCrYuna_w
No Disease is incurable Session 16— An Intelligence that Defies Imagination Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b1zH3X5bek
No Disease is incurable Session 17—Discover your incredible Potential—who you are in Christ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3-9kkYUcvs
No Disease is incurable Session 18—The Healing Power of Forgiveness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpAIbBlwyK0
No Disease is incurable Session 19—Dealing with Fear, Anxiety and Stress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_mxnBr6VaI
No Disease is incurable Session 20—The Gift of Miracles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxPnrCAIBTo
No Disease is incurable Session 21—How to Detox your Brain Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06qt-7Dk0C4
No Disease is incurable Session 22— How to Detox your Brain Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf61UrSFyKs
My Inward Journey 