And you're trying to forgive them.

And maybe they're doing something over and over and over and you're trying to forgive them.

I have a lot of people say to me, they'll say "Jimmy, I keep saying the words, but my heart doesn't change, I still feel wounded, I still feel angry."

It's very common.

So here's how to forgive.

And the first thing is you have to give the person a high value.

Many times when we've been hurt, sometimes we say it, but a lot of times we're just thinking...

They're a jerk, they're an idiot, they're a witch, whatever.

And we give people names, and that gives us the right to devalue them.

But everyone's precious in God's sight.

Your spouse, God is madly in love with your spouse.

The people that we're angry at, God's madly in love with them.

Doesn't mean that he approves of their behavior.

I'm not saying that.

So you have to give them a high value.

The other thing too is this is what Jesus said.

Jesus said, "bless those who curse you and pray for those who spitefully use you."

Well I had a person in my life.

I'm not a hater.

But I had a person in my life that had done a lot of damage to me.

I was probably around 29, 30 years old.

And this was a man, and he had done a lot of damage to me and I hated him.

And I didn't really try to forgive him,

I just hated his guts, I wanted him to die, basically.

And it started changing my personality.

And Karen told me, my wife told me one day.

She said, your personality's changing and it was. .

I felt an oppression come over me.

Because it was, there was just this,the anger, all of that.

See, the clinical definition of depression is anger turned inward.

When you're angry and you can't process it, it will wear your emotions out.

A lot of depression is just emotional exhaustion.

Your anger on the inside of you is like putting your body on a treadmill and finally you collapse.

When you're trying to process anger and you're not getting rid of it, your emotions finally will just collapse.

Well, it affects everyone in your life.

If you're a parent, it affects your children.

It affects everybody.

So Jesus said, "bless those who curse you, pray for those who despitefully use you."

So Karen said, your personality is changing.

And so one day I was praying about this man that I hated.

And I said, "Lord, I forgive him."

And the Lord said, "I want you to bless him."

And I thought, no, I'm not doing that now.

I mean, I'm not gonna go that far.

I'm gonna forgive him.

The Lord said, "you pray for him what you pray for yourself."

You bless him.

Well, I did.

I didn't want to.

And he said, and do it every day.

So for about 10 days I prayed for that man and blessed him.

I think it was around the 10th day, my hatred turned into compassion.

Something in my heart dissolved.

And no longer, when I thought about it, my blood pressure didn't go up.

When I saw him, I didn't have that...

But, I had a compassion for him and my hatred completely resolved.

Let me say another thing to you.

Ephesians four says, "be angry, but don't sin."

Don't let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give a foothold to the devil.

And the word devil is diablos, it means slander.

Be angry, there's nothing wrong with anger.

God gets angry, okay?

But don't sin.

Don't justify bad behavior.

A lot of marriage counseling is two people doing the wrong thing and justifying 'cause the other person's doing the wrong thing.

Go ahead and be angry, that's fine.

Own your anger.

But don't sin, don't let the sun go down on it.

See today's anger is a very manageable thing.

Yesterday's anger is a very bad thing.

Especially when you had a lot of days of unresolved anger.

Let me tell you my story.

So I forgave that guy that I hated.

But my wife and I fought, for the first several years of our marriage, we fought a lot.

And I went to bed on anger, because I would yell at her, which didn't ever work, and then I'd get quiet.

I'd get quiet for two or three days.

Not talking to her, trying to punish her.

That never worked either.

But I went to bed on anger hundreds of times.

And when the Bible says, if you go to bed on your anger, you give a foothold to diablos.

What it means is, when you go to bed on anger, the devil, what makes the devil so dangerous is he's stealthy.

Remember he took the form of a serpent in the garden of Eden 'cause that's his nature, he's stealthy.

Stealthy means this.

Snakes are dangerous because you don't know they're there.

They're camouflaged, they blend in.

So what the devil does is he slithers in to your unresolved anger, your bitterness, your cynicism, whatever you wanna call it.

Contempt.

He slithers in, whispers a lie to slander your spouse, or whoever you're angry at, slithers out, you don't even know he came and went.

But he left a lie.

So after three years of marriage, here's what I believed about my wife.

She's the problem, and I married the wrong woman.

Those were deeply, deeply held beliefs that I had.

See, I'd been counseled by the devil and didn't know it.

If you're a grudge holder, you've been counseled by the devil and you don't know it.

You have deeply held beliefs about people, your spouse, and they're not true.

They're not true.

You think they're true.

You try to convince other people they're true.

You try to convince your spouse they're true.

They're not true.

The night that our marriage was healed, here's the way I would describe it.

I repented for being the jerk I was.

And it was like scales fell off my eyes.

Something fell off my eyes.

And the instant before that, I thought, you know, I'm a good person.

And Karen is the problem.

The instant after that, I thought, you know, I'm a jerk, and I am married to the sweetest woman on earth.

Honestly, because now I was seeing her through the eyes of God, not through the eyes of the devil.

When you don't process anger properly, what's gonna happen is...

And if you haven't processed anger,

I want you to consider if there's anyone in your life that you've had a grudge against for a while.

What you believe about them really isn't true.

You're under the influence, especially in your marriage.

I have to guard my heart.

So listen.

So my spouse does something wrong, and I try to talk to them about it, and they won't let me talk to them about it, I've got a devil prick my heart..

Even if they won't interact with me, before I go to bed, I've gotta say, "Lord, I forgive 'em, and I bless 'em, I bless 'em. ."

See, if you can't bless a person, you haven't forgiven 'em.

I forgive them, I bless them, Lord, and I pray that you'll protect my heart.

What this means is, God will protect your heart.

You're gonna be walking in truth, and you're gonna be walking in love, and God can work through you now to reach your spouse.

This is what happened in my marriage.

This is why my marriage was healed,

my wife, rather than reacting to me,

she turned to God, and God used her to change me.

So my encouragement to you is don't let

unresolved anger lodge inside of you.

Don't become a repository for anger.

Process it, own it, don't sin, get rid of it,

and your marriage and your life will be blessed as a result.