Unforgiveness
How to Break the Stronghold
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How I use Scripture: unless quoted directly with quotation marks (““) the chapter and verse references are where you can find the foundational verses for yourself in the Bible. I encourage you to read them yourself. My job is to bring alive the treasures of scripture, from the new and the old, to help you study and seek God for yourself. I have added parentheticals to the KJV verses to emphasize to the reader the point being made, rather than leave it to the reader to figure out on their own.
This is the duty of the Scribe (writer) / Teacher (explainer) (Matthew 13:52 KJV).
** Substack says this article is too long to render in email, a link back to the website should be provided to view the entirety.
Unforgiveness is a Device of the Devil.
A Stronghold. An Imagination.
Unforgiveness Blocks Final Salvation.
This is not a doctrine, it’s what the Lord has given me to teach. For those in unforgiveness, this message will be as terrifying as it was for me.
Jesus Christ was a Prophet to fear. The writers after him described Jesus as God’s love toward mankind. But he made a whip to cleanse the Temple. Jesus spoke as God in the Gospels and what he said publicly were the words of his father, the words of the prophets of old, as Moses said he would speak, Deuteronomy 18:18. His most important warning is never taught in church today. The warning about unforgiveness is ignored.
“When a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD has not spoken, but the prophet has spoken it presumptuously (has sinned): thou shalt not be afraid of him.” Deuteronomy 18:22
Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and he is “That Prophet.” All his spoken words are the words of God. Therefore his words are to be feared and we should be afraid of him, for he will carry out his word as it is written.
“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Matthew 10:28
The modern Gospel of Love is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
“Jesus Christ the same yesterday (OT), and today (NT), and forever.”
Hebrews 13:8
The end goal is for man to return to Holiness so that he can love. But man is not capable of godly love at the point he begins in repentance. Peter tells us love is the last thing added to man in the sanctification process. God is Love, as John said, but we have a long way to go in repentance to undo what the devils have done before we get there. We are born in the flesh as a brood of vipers, the children of our father the Devil. And there is no love in Satan. Godly love must be added to us. Unforgiveness is the stronghold Satan builds to stop your progress.
Therefore, there will be gnashing of teeth when people who believed they were saved find out they were not saved at all. God gives everyone time to come to repentance for ongoing sins in their lives, but in the end, if you don’t deal with unforgiveness, you won’t enter eternal life. Stephen understood, and his last words were to forgive.
Jesus’ last words were to forgive so that any grudge he may have had in his flesh was extinguished before he left his body. His wrath for the Judgment was stored up long ago against Israel and Jerusalem and the Satanic peoples of the past.
I don’t make the rules. God does. And His judgments are always right.
Buckle up. If you are living in unforgiveness you are living in a demonic stronghold of many sins. It is like a wall whose mortar is fear and pain.
You mean I have to forgive abuse or rape or murder? Yes. You don’t need to engage with the person, but you need to break the Stronghold. The emotions will be repaired and changed over time after you forgive.
Unforgiveness is of the natural man, not the spiritual man.
Old Testament
“Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the LORD.”
Leviticus 19:18
New Testament
“Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge stands before the door.”
James 5:9, Matthew 18:34 in a parable.
Spiritual Things
“It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63
When Jesus Christ began to teach spiritual truths, then people began to be offended and fall away. Beginning with John 7:1, the Jews sought to kill him. The heart that believes enough to keep believing until the understanding of the hard teachings comes is the heart drawn by the Father. Only the born-again spirit in the man profits, not the flesh. This is the meaning of becoming a living sacrifice, Romans 12:1. Obedience and repentance are the way out of the trial that comes to cause repentance.
“But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” John 6:64-65
“…present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Romans 12:1
The sin of unforgiveness is probably the place in your life where you will truly feel like repentance is causing you to lay your body on the altar as a living sacrifice. If I thought of the person I had to forgive, I was unable to say the words. I could not do it and God was not helping me to repent. It was something I would have to do on my own, as you will have to do on your own. There are some keys to learning to unlock the Strait Gate and to break down the stronghold.
Becoming holy through sanctification, the shedding of the old man, and the renewing of the mind, is the work God calls us to do. It is the fruit of repentance. It is the fruit of obedience. Looking into the Word is like looking into a mirror. The Law shows us our sin, and the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin (we know with our conscience it is sin).
Key #1
God works one sin at a time, for our benefit, and when we don’t repent, the trials stay hard, and they repeat, at the same point, until we do repent. We need to give him permission to override our mental processes because God has given us free will to choose, a sovereign free will that he will not override unless he has verbal permission to do so.
The Character of Christ, Luke 6:27-36
Joseph is the type of Christ in Jacob’s family Tree. Joseph’s brothers asked him for forgiveness after Jacob died, but Joseph forgave them all long before they had asked. It is documented in Genesis 41:51 when he named his son Manasseh.
The words ‘forget’ and ‘forgive’ are first used with respect to Joseph forgetting all the evil his brothers put upon him and Jacob ordering his sons to ask Joseph to forgive them. Joseph is the type of the forgiving Christ, and he forgave all before the Cross, therefore, God is telling us that we have the ability to forgive as well, and in fact we must, even if it seems impossible, you must forgive in order to be forgiven. As you are transformed in your mind, you will be able to forgive. I’m going to give you the pattern to break the Stronghold.
The Spiritual Man. Reinforced in Peter’s first epistle.
27 “But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you {with spiritual ears},
28 Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. {when you have been abused, this is the first thing you must do}
29 And unto him that smites thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that takes away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.
{Job 16:10, Lamentations 3:30, Matthew 5:39-40}
30 Give to every man that asks of thee; and of him that takes away thy goods ask them not again. {don’t ask for your goods back}
31 And as you would that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise.
32 For if you love them which love you, what thank have you? for sinners also love those that love them. {what reward in heaven is there for you?}
33 And if you do good to them which do good to you, what thank have you? for sinners also do even the same. {what reward in heaven is there for you?}
34 And if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank have you? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again. {what reward in heaven is there for you? asked three times, three witnesses}
35 But love you your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and you shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. {We are to imitate Christ, and we can, but not if we are living in unforgiveness. It gets in the way and the Spirit of God will not work with it}
36 Be you therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.
Luke 6:27-36
We Don’t Know Our Hearts
Unforgiveness is a tricky and deceptive stronghold.
1 Corinthians 2:9-14
“9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (Those who keep his commandments, John 14:15, 15:10.)
10 But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.
11 For what man knows the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knows no man, but the Spirit of God. {In your flesh, you understand pleasure and pain, but you cannot know the source of your motivations; God recognizes we don’t know our own hearts}
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
13 Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
14 But the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
1 Corinthians 2:9-14
Paul is teaching what he has learned by the Spirit, and hoping those hearing have spiritual ears to understand. Verse 11 says in your flesh, you understand pleasure and pain, but you cannot know the source of your motivations.
Unforgiveness is a tricky and deceptive stronghold.
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins {motivations}, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”
Jeremiah 17:9-10
We do that which we know is wrong, even though we don’t want to do it, Romans 7:15. Caused by a mind bent toward sin from the Fall and demons that must be cast out.
Unforgiveness is a Stronghold, a Device of Satan
You can’t break a stronghold unless you know how it is made.
2 Corinthians 2:7-11 Having Compassion on the One Who Wronged You
“7 So that contrariwise you ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.
{Go against what your natural mind tells you unless it gets worse for both parties. Those who need to be forgiven are locked in a cage of pain and fear, just as the person they harmed is also in a cage of pain and fear, and Satan holding the cattle prod to produce more loathing toward each other.}
8 Wherefore I beseech you that you would confirm your love toward him. {please tell me that you have love toward this person to confirm that you have learned what I taught you says Paul.}
9 For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether you be obedient in all things. {getting past unforgiveness is part of obedience and Paul wants to know if his teaching was adequate help to them}
10 To whom you forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ; {we are allowed to forgive sins of others in Jesus Name, even if we don’t have any participation in those sins. Paul is layering the situation with his own forgiveness of the problem hoping the Spirit will move and help them forgive}
11 Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.”
Key #2
Unforgiveness is a Device of Satan, His Advantage Over Us
We are to have compassion for those who harm us and forgive. We bow down in prayer against their demons and turn them over to God. We are free, we’ve side-stepped Satan’s strategy to snare us, and God will repay them. We are to ask him to bless the person, and perhaps he will save them.
Satan builds these strongholds through real-life experiences and mental tortures and uses the demons in people to attack you, uses the generational demons in your bloodline to destroy your family relationships, and then in your flesh you believe you cannot forgive because of the fear and pain of losing control, usually over others, it is an imagination that keeps God from helping you, and in this Satan does have an advantage over you.
A lifetime in church only to go to hell because you refused to forgive, whitewashing yourself in the Gospel of Love, which is not the Gospel of Christ. This is why Paul was adamant about forgiving. I can testify that when you break the stronghold and God changes how you think and feel because you have obeyed, you will not regret it, things from the past no longer come to mind.
You don’t need to interact with those who hurt you but after some years, you won’t even care if you have to speak to them on the street. Because Satan is no longer poking your spiritual infirmities with his cattle prod of reactions.
Paul is now coming to them in the spirit of Christ, in his meekness and gentleness to help them pull down their strongholds mentioned in Chapter 2 about the unforgiveness stronghold or any other stronghold of sin built by Satan:
2 Corinthians 10:1-7
“1 Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you:
2 But I beseech you, that I may not be bold when I am present with that confidence, wherewith I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.
3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;)
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.
{God will be watching and testing his work in you, and you will need to examine yourself also and continue in repentance to ensure the sin of unforgiveness is driven out of you. You may experience many rounds of testing, we are more broken then we know. You will feel like a living sacrifice as your emotions are stripped and your heart is remade on the Potter’s Wheel. Sometimes being crushed in the process.}
7 Do ye look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's.” {not so fast there believer…}
{Your actions outwardly do not satisfy God. Telling yourself you are Christ’s and its all going to be okay, is not adequate to deal with unforgiveness. You must be honest with God in prayer. You will be tested until the roots of this stronghold are dealt with and every root of bitterness has been cut off.}
2 Corinthians 10:1-7
The Lord’s Prayer Reminds Us to Repent of Unforgiveness
“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Matthew 6:12
Debts = sins; Debtors = those who sin against us.
“For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matthew 6:14-15, Luke 11:4
How Many Times Per Day to Forgive
Compare Matthew and Luke
“21 Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Luke 17:3
22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.”
Matthew 18:21-22
“3 Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him.
4 And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him.
Luke 17:3-4
Luke writes if the offender asks for forgiveness, then you must forgive seven times per day; Matthew writes that you must forgive seventy times seven, 490 times per day. Joseph forgave all before he was asked to forgive at the time his eldest brothers were in their 60s and 70s. As your sin is forgiven I tell you, the sins of others against you will not bother you as much, but if you don’t deal with the stronghold, you will never get past unforgiveness to have compassion on sinners. Until then religion will rule your life because the character of Christ will still not be formed in you.
Not everyone has a stronghold of unforgiveness. But if this is a sin in your life, you must defeat it. The following is the scripture that tells how God will revoke your salvation if you refuse to forgive.
The Wicked Servant Had God’s Forgiveness Revoked - Salvation Revoked
Matthew 18:32-35
32 “Then his lord, after that he had called him, said unto him, O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:
{You asked me for Salvation and I forgave you all your sins}
33 Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?
{Shouldn’t you now have compassion on others as I had on you for the debts they cannot repay? When someone harms you it really is a debt they cannot repay, even if it is only a small harm.}
34 And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him."
{The wicked servant who did not forgive was delivered to the demons until he could repay God for all of his sin, and none of us can repay what we owe for our sin without Christ’s sacrifice for us. And the deal is he forgives us and we forgive others. To accept the deal is to agree to forgive regardless of what you think in your flesh.}
35 So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if you from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.”
{It’s not Jesus revoking your salvation, but God the Father who will revoke your salvation, if you do not forgive every sin done to you. Nothing from this world or the flesh will be allowed in heaven.}
Matthew 18:32-35
General Prayers are Hard to Get Answered with Unforgiveness
Compare Mark and Luke
“25 And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
26 But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” Mark 11:25-26
“Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and you shall not be condemned: forgive, and you shall be forgiven” Luke 6:37
By now you probably feel very condemned. Don’t feel that way. While you are under the blood there is now no condemnation, Romans 8:1. Deliverance is beyond the scope here but to break a stronghold, self-deliverance is necessary to some degree because it’s likely demons are involved. Repentance will take you to the solution and you can deal with the demons later.
My Stronghold Definition
A Satanic stronghold is a set of sin rights and soul ties that keeps you bound to others and demons and ultimately keeps you locked into the sin of unforgiveness. In your unrenewed mind, it can feel like a safe space where you retreat to hide from having to face more pain and fear. A stronghold can be mental or emotional, a set of ingrained habits around avoiding certain people or issues. This is my definition based on my experience. It is strong and it has a hold on your belief system and your actions so that you can’t get free and choose to think differently.
A Set of Sin Rights
Unrepentant sins are the building blocks in the wall of a stronghold.
The sins of the unforgiveness stronghold are usually hidden from your mind so that you don’t recognize you are doing them. If you saw them in a list, you would agree these things are sins against God. But in your actions, you believe you are entitled because look what that other person did to you and God is not against self-protection.
The failure to get free of the underlying sins that support the structure of the stronghold is the reason you can’t get free of unforgiveness.
Each type of sin in the stronghold must be identified, admitted to, and repented of in prayer before the Lord.
To Break the Sin Rights
You must identify the sins in the wall of the stronghold.
The heart must repent verbally out of the mouth for each underlying sin.
Usually, these sins must be kept in repentance for a long while. You will mourn these sins and weep over them as you work with the Lord to get free.
My repentance of unforgiveness was very hard because I could not say “I forgive,” it was impossible, my mouth refused to form the words. I opted to use my prayer time to describe what these sins were, how they affected my life, and why I wanted to get them out of my life. This was a process of me learning what my sins were and making a list of them, even though I could not yet repent. And while I was dealing with unforgiveness I didn’t know it was a stronghold until the Lord showed me in the scripture I listed above.
You’ll likely need to ask others to pray for your success to repent. The Lord wants to forgive, but he also wants you to identify the sins and understand how they affect your life. You’re trying to break down what Satan has built.
Pay attention to how others describe you. You’ve probably already heard them say, “Your problem is that you won’t forgive.” This can help you.
Ask God to give you words that describe the sins. Your born-again spirit knows what the problems are, but you need agreement in your mind that you have these sins.
Identifying the sins in a stronghold is an act of self-deliverance.
Your emotions will not change right away, so you will have to work through repentance still being hurt and angry. Your emotions will be changed as time goes forward, but you must first repent and say that you forgive.
A Set of Soul Ties
Soul ties attach your soul to your good and bad relationships and the demons in the other person.
When you have a strong attachment to someone, there is a soul tie.
Obsession with a person or object is a type of soul tie.
Marriage creates a soul tie.
Bonded friendship creates a soul tie.
Sex creates a soul tie with another person. Their infirmities and sins and their demons now influence your life, even if you never see them again. This is why all sex outside marriage is prohibited for your spiritual benefit.
Soul ties to demons are created through occult practices and masturbation.
The Native Americans have soul ties to what they call animal spirits and these are demon spirits.
Trans-community has a gender called “two-spirit”, this is a demon soul tie and it is likely more than one demon.
It’s possible if a demon leaves you, it will become more firmly attached to the person you shared it with.
To break a soul tie, you must repent of the sin that built it, renounce that activity, bind Satan, bind the demons by the name of the activity, and say “I break the curses and soul ties…” God has given you the power to break them.
Key #3
Some of the Sins of the Unforgiveness Stronghold to Get You Started:
Examine your unforgiveness stronghold in prayer. Here are some sins that might seem familiar to you:
Holding power over others.
Entitlement to hold power over others.
You feel it is your right to hate them because look what they did to you.
Lying to yourself about your participation in the sin you hate someone for doing to you. You are not at fault for being attacked, but check this and see if it makes sense to you. Sometimes “shame”, a demon name, keeps you from repenting or acknowledging something in yourself, that you hate the other person for doing to you.
Hate, anger, malice, and so on.
For Trauma, it’s not so simple, and it can be very hard to even examine any aspect of your unforgiveness. But it must be done. You must love God and desire salvation more than you love to hold others accountable.
A Prayer to Say When You Just Need God to Make a Way to Forgive
When the idea of repenting of unforgiveness is so repugnant to you that you can’t even say the words or even look at unforgiveness as a sin you must overcome, say this prayer:
“Lord, I want to repent, but I just can’t seem to do it, and I know that if I don’t forgive, I will not be forgiven. Lord, I need your help. Please pry this unforgiveness out of my hands, like a parent takes a dangerous thing out of the hands of their child, take Satan’s advantage over me away Lord because you said in your Word, that sin shall not have dominion over me. You told Cain in Genesis 4:7 that bringing the right sacrifice would keep sin from ruling over him. David cried to you Lord to keep him back from presumptuous sins and asked you not to allow them to have dominion over him in Psalm 19:13. You said in Romans 6:14 that sin shall not have dominion over me because I am not under Law but under Grace. Father, please help me to analyze and repent of my unforgiveness, in Jesus’ name. Take this dangerous thing from me that threatens my salvation. Lord, please separate my thinking mind from the traumatic emotions and memories that keep me from repenting, make those things seem so far away to give me space to deal with them according to your Word. Make my mental paths straight before you. I give you permission to override my sovereign will to rewire my mind in obedience to your Word.”
Allow the Spirit to bring the names of the people to your mind, and say out of your mouth that you forgive them and ask the Lord to bless them. Yes, to bless them, you do not have to have contact with them, and you don’t need to name the blessing, God will decide all that. Your emotions will be repaired over time.
Any fears or hatreds that you experience aren’t of yourself but demons who hate and fear being cast out. This was their stronghold over you. They implanted the imagination that you are unable to forgive.
You must forgive. You are not required to have a restored relationship that puts you in harm’s way or any mental trauma. Saying you forgive is obedience and love toward them. Asking God to bless them is love toward them.
Forgiveness sheds the old man. Holiness heals the body.
Peter’s epistles hold the keys to the requirements and they reinforce the words of Jesus. Read 1st Peter and ask the Lord to show you anything meant to help and instruct you.
Key #4
It does not matter in this world what Satan does to you, you must obey God. This must be your thought to overcome. Repentance is where your daily relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit is formed. Jesus said three times to pick up your cross daily and follow him. Daily means daily prayer, and following him means repentance on the narrow path that leads to life.
Unforgiveness blocks God’s blessings and healing.
Make Satan put down his cattle prod of reactions by forgiving. Forgiveness releases you from his control. Repentance of this stronghold takes time, but it is well worth the effort. You can be free.
“For with God nothing will be impossible,” Luke 1:37
God Bless You.