‘Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as Yehovah forgave you’ Ephesians 4:32 (NKJV)
It is likely that wherever you live, your government has a health strategy. Updated annually, the document will set out government health targets to decrease obesity and tobacco consumption, and to increase regular exercise and healthy eating habits. They want people to be fit, for life. The word ‘health’ contains very broad terms of reference, including physical health, women’s and men’s health, sexual health, mental health and developmental health. One thing, however, which governments generally omit from the document, is something which impacts on people’s daily wellbeing – spiritual health. It is that part of you that has to do with your consciousness of Yehovah, which is undoubtedly neglected in its entirety by many, yet frequently needing remedial attention by everyone! A forensic psychiatrist, who was an advisor to the Government, was asked what makes people do such awful things that they are regarded as monsters by society. He explained that though each case was complicated, most of the perpetrators could neither forgive what had previously been done to them, nor seek forgiveness for their own hearts. He went on to say that an unforgiving spirit, or an unforgiven life, wrecks not only the lives of the most hardened criminals and their victims, but also the life of the ordinary man on the street. Forgiveness is vital, he added, not only for spiritual health, but also for emotional and physical health. Vengeance and justice can seem right, in the light of wrongs committed against you, but the Bible says that you are to live differently. When you forgive, the prisoner that you set free is yourself! Choose freedom by choosing forgiveness.