Saeed Abedini on Forgiveness After Persecution and What Worship Looks Like in His Ministry Today

Forgiveness often sounds simpler in a sermon than it feels in real life. Saeed Abedini, a pastor and religious freedom advocate, has spent decades talking about it, and he treats it less as an idea to admire than as a practice to keep up.

For Abedini, the timing matters most. He does not wait until he feels ready.

“The minute I get persecuted, I’ll forgive,” Abedini says. “Otherwise, as much as the pain stays, it can cause you problems.”

It is a direct, practical rule, and it shapes both how he lives and how he ministers to others. Abedini, an Iranian-American pastor, spent more than three years in prison in Iran before his release in January 2016. He is the author of the book The Truth, and more than 26 years into his ministry he continues to preach and speak. Those experiences are part of his story, but the question he returns to now is a simple one: what do you do with pain once it arrives?

Saeed Abedini on Forgiving Right Away

Most people think of forgiveness as the end of a long process. Time passes, feelings soften, and eventually someone feels ready to let go. Abedini describes the opposite order. In his account, the decision comes first, and the feelings are allowed to follow.

His reasoning is practical. He says that pain that stays can cause problems, and that is why he does not want to carry it any longer than he has to. Forgiveness, as he describes it, is not a favor to the person who caused the hurt. It is a way of not letting the hurt keep working on the person who suffered it.

That idea resonates well beyond ministry. Many people carry a grievance for years because they are waiting for an apology, an explanation or a change of heart that never arrives. Abedini’s approach removes that wait. It does not ask whether the other person deserves forgiveness, and it does not require the pain to disappear first. It asks only that the one who was hurt choose to release it.

It is also a discipline rather than a one-time event. A person who decides to forgive once may need to decide again when the memory returns. For Abedini, that is part of the practice, and it is why he talks about forgiveness as something he does rather than something he has completed.

Letting Go and Making Room for the Holy Spirit

For Abedini, forgiveness is closely tied to prayer and to faith. When he talks about what lets a person truly release pain, he points to the Holy Spirit.

“Clean your heart from the pain of persecution by the gain of more Holy Spirit,” he says. “He is the key.”

In his telling, letting go is not only about getting rid of something heavy. It is also about making room for something else. Pain that is held occupies space, and clearing it, in his words, allows a person to receive more of the Holy Spirit. The relationship is two-sided: the heart is cleaned, and the person gains something in return.

This is where faith gives his message its particular shape. Many approaches to forgiveness describe it in terms of peace of mind or emotional health. Abedini describes it as a spiritual exchange, and he presents it as a personal conviction drawn from his own experience rather than as a formula for everyone. What he offers is a testimony about what has worked in his life: forgive quickly, return to prayer, and look to the Holy Spirit as the source of strength.

That posture does not minimize what people go through. If anything, it takes persecution seriously enough to name it as painful and then asks what the person wants to do with that pain. His answer is consistent, and it is the one he gives to others who ask.

What Saeed Abedini Hopes People Experience at His Events

The same outlook shapes the way he approaches speaking and ministry today. Asked what he hopes people take away when they attend, Abedini does not describe a program or a list of lessons. He describes an experience.

He recalls a recent seminar where attendees told him the way he presented the Gospel was deeper than anything they had heard before. In his account, people said it reached a level they had not encountered elsewhere. What stayed with him was not praise for the delivery but the sense that something had touched them.

That is the response he hopes for everywhere he speaks. He wants people to be touched in a way that feels new, with what he describes as a fresh sense of God’s presence and a deep intimacy with the Holy Spirit. It is a personal hope, expressed in his own words, and he is clear that the goal is closeness rather than performance.

For listeners who are used to more formal expressions of faith, that kind of closeness can feel unfamiliar. Abedini’s aim is to make room for it. He is not trying to impress an audience. He is trying to help people encounter something they can feel before they leave.

One Practice, Two Results

On the surface, forgiveness and worship can look like separate parts of Abedini’s ministry. One is about releasing pain, and the other is about experiencing God more deeply. In his own account, they are closely connected.

Forgiveness clears the heart, and that clearing makes space for the closeness he hopes people will find. A person who is carrying resentment has less room to receive anything new, and a person who has let it go has more. In that sense, the discipline he practices personally is the same one he hopes to encourage in those who come to hear him.

It also explains why his message stays simple. He does not offer a complicated method. He points to a few steps that he says have worked for him: forgive immediately, keep praying, and trust the Holy Spirit to do what willpower cannot. The simplicity is part of the appeal, especially for people who are tired of advice that sounds good but is hard to apply.

Abedini’s ministry today is built around that idea, and he continues to share it through preaching, speaking and his YouTube channel. For him, the invitation is the same whether the audience is a gathering of believers or a person facing a personal hurt: deal with the pain now, make room for something better, and let faith do the rest.

After more than two decades of ministry, he has not changed his answer. As he puts it, the Holy Spirit is the key.

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Adam Regan: Deputy Editor

Features and account management. 7 years media experience. Previously covered features for online and print editions.

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