**I am sharing with the Christian world in particular and the world in general a series of articles to the theme “Disease prevention through Godly Living” **
Part 2
The Bible, especially the New Testament, is full of passages that call for forgiveness. In fact, the Gospel of Christ might well be summed up as a Gospel of forgiveness, hope, love and salvation. I am citing a few passages of scripture dealing with the theme:
Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, until seventy times seven. Matthew 18: 21-22 Take heed to yourselves: If thy brother trespass against thee, rebuke him; and if he repent, forgive him. And if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying, I repent; thou shalt forgive him. Luke 17:3-4 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. Ephesians 4:31-32 When it comes to the issue of forgiveness, I must admit that it is not always easy to forgive except for the help of the Holy Spirit. One day one of my patients told me the story of how one of her best friends had literally snatched her husband from her! You may, dear reader, also be aware of similar incidents. How do you and I preach the message of forgiveness to such an injured soul? I do admit that in the short-term it may be difficult for you and I to forgive someone who has done evil against us. Still, the goal, at least in the medium and long-term, should be forgiveness. Indeed, no matter how deeply others might offend us, we are called upon by the Lord of Heaven and earth to forgive.
Of course, the Lord of Creation knew what he was talking about. He placed the immune system in our body to defend the body against the invasion of germs and other parasites. Not only does our immune system defend us against outside invaders; a strong immune could prevent the formation and spread of cancer cells in our body. Normal body cells divide in a an orderly and controlled manner. Unlike normal cell, cancer cells divide relentlessly, forming solid tumors or flooding the blood with abnormal cells.
The immune system is able to identify these abnormal cells and destroy them, in so doing prevent their spread. Thus a strong immune system does not only prevent infection, but also protects us from developing cancer.
Now it has been established by medical science that bitterness, an unforgiving spirit, hatred, cares, worry, stress, etc., can weaken our immune system—yes, the body defences. You can imagine the situation when the soldiers guarding a city go on strike and decide to retire to bed instead of confronting an invading army!
It should indeed not come as a surprise to us that bitterness, hatred, worry and an unforgiving spirit should have an adverse effect on our immune system. Do you remember the last time you felt offended by someone—your partner, brother, sister, friend, colleague? You felt so angered by the person involved that you spent the whole night grumbling over the incident. Mind you, at the time you were struggling to sleep as a result of your grumblings, the individual concerned might have been fast, fast asleep, and like myself probably snoring very deeply.
That individual might very likely wake up the next day, refreshed by the thorough sleep. You, on the other hand, may well have risen the next day with a dejected face, suffering from the effect of the poor sleep of the previous night.
The lack of sleep, should it become chronic, could lead to weakening of our defence system, which in turn could lead to become susceptible to all kinds of diseases. Dear Christian friends, let us pray the Lord to give us the needed grace to forgive those who offend against us! Those wishing to read the above and other Christian-based lessons on our health and well-being may refer to the book Christian Health Manual
