Reverend Agnes Mensah-Bonsu’s keen insight into the Word of God, coupled with years of experience in ministry, marriage, and child-rearing, shines as she relays fresh perspective on the topic of forgiveness in Drop the Charges.
Though forgiveness is central to the Christian life, extending true forgiveness to an offender is often a seemingly impossible task. Mensah-Bonsu warns that bitterness heaps destruction upon us spiritually, emotionally and even physically. She states that “bitterness is more devastating than betrayal” because it is, in essence, a self-inflicted prison in which we lock ourselves. Here the flow of God’s Holy Spirit ceases in our lives as we are tormented by our own thoughts. If we remain in this state, Satan eventually has an open door into our lives through which he brings destruction.
Mensah-Bonsu uses intriguing and often startling current stories of forgiveness and betrayal to drive her points home. She also takes us through the Bible–from Cain to Joseph, David and Saul, and into the New Testament examples of Paul, Stephen and Jesus himself–showing us exactly what forgiveness is and what it definitely is not. Every claim she makes is more than sufficiently backed by Scripture and will leave readers humbled and convicted by book’s end. Mensah-Bonsu’s variety of illustrations includes marital unfaithfulness, murder, suicide, family feuds, and even accounts of people who have had visions of the after-life. There is truly something here to which everyone can relate.
On the downside, this book would have benefitted from thorough proofreading. There are spelling, grammatical and formatting issues. Also, the book begins strong, but a few pages in, the ideas get rather tricky to follow. This confusion is short-lived, however, as Mensah-Bonsu quickly recovers, picks up steam and finishes strong. The book’s excellent content and message make it easy to overlook its technical flaws. Drop the Charges is a must-read for a person of any faith struggling under the weight of bitterness.
Also available as an ebook.
