Healing Forgiveness

Have you received the cure for everything that ails you? Are you spreading the cure to everyone you meet?

February’s Awakening, Day 23

The practice of forgiveness is our most important contribution to the healing of the world.

 —Marianne Williamson 

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.

 —William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”

When you forgive, you in no way change the past—but you sure do change the future.

 —Bernard Meltzer 

He told them, “This is what is written: The Messiah will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Luke 24:46–47 NIV  

“Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them.” Romans 4:7–8 NIV 

            Since the greatest malady that affects all mankind is sin, it logically follows that the single most important cure for all ailments is forgiveness and the healing of the destructive and devouring nature of sin. Our bodies are dying and decaying every day from the effect of sin which has invaded and taken up residence in every cell of our being. It takes the precision of the hand of the Master Physician to remove each particle of the offending agent of sin from within us. The scalpel of His forgiveness is the only cure for the resistant malignancy that has spread and overtaken us. Thankfully, His cure is perfect and leaves no scar, yet the prior effects from the ravages of sin remain. But that will not always be so.

            Just as it is essential for us to receive His healing mercy and grace of forgiveness, it should be apparent that we need to extend that same measure of forgiveness towards all people of all the world. God has commanded us to do so and to spread His Good News. Harboring ill will towards another serves no useful purpose to us, and in fact, it damages us and controls us just like the sin we’ve just been freed from. Make a conscious effort to change the future of the world—forgive others as you’ve been forgiven.