Thought of the Day October 18, 2019 Forgiveness
The
famed psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger (Today in the Word, March 1989, p. 8)
once said that if he could convince the patients in psychiatric hospitals that
their sins were forgiven, 75 percent of them could walk out the next day!
"To
forGIVE means to give someone a release from the wrong that he has done to you.
It means to give up any right of retaliation."
Why do hold ourselves in such a strong bondage? Is it possible the evil one uses this stronghold to prevent from experiencing the unconditional mercy of God and showing that same mercy to others? Forgiveness does not deny the hurt nor condone it. But it recognizes that, when a person refuses to forgive, he is punishing himself and no longer the other, who goes on to live his life. The pride and anger that is at the root of non-forgiveness are like a spiritual cancer that is eating us up slowly but surely. The only way to root this cancer out is to forgive the other in your heart, ask the other's forgiveness in your heart for all the hate you have level against him/her. Ask God to forgive you as you release it to God, who already has died on the cross for this hurt and sin. Finally, ask God to bring his love into the wound of the hurt, so that healing can begin. It is a process.
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