The Power to Live Forgiven
Hint: It’s the greatest power in the universe.
Christians talk about Resurrection Power and by this they mean the power that enabled Jesus to rise from the dead.
Certainly this power can be measured against other large unfathomable seismic events such as earthquakes, volcanoes, atomic bombs, and even black holes but always it comes out on top as the greatest power in (and beyond) the universe.
Bringing life out of nothing including a dead body (like that attempted by Dr. Frankenstein) is no doubt evidence of complete god-defining power.
Now here’s the cosmic surprise.
Resurrection power and forgiveness are lashed together.
The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power operating within forgiveness.
The implications are beyond staggering.
Forgiveness is restorative.
Forgiveness power comes from God through us as we ask for it.
When we choose to forgive we are injecting life into dying or dead relationships.
Forgiveness is an outward expression of agape love, the sacrificial kind that gives up its own rights for the benefits of others even, at times, to enemies and strangers.
Forgiveness has the power to restore the mentally afflicted and drug addicted.
Forgiveness is evangelistic. No one is interested in the gospel presented by those who refuse to forgive because it indicates they are actually unbelievers.
In return, for becoming God’s instruments of grace (the combination of love and forgiveness) we enter into a continual state of enjoying God’s grace ourselves. In this way our lives are completely and permanently altered never to be the same again.
For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?
But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”
And he rose and went home.