Welcome to let Jesus be your doctor, the true path to healing for body and soul. - I want you to imagine, just for a moment, that you are carrying a backpack, and inside this backpack, there are stones, not, you know, small pebbles, heavy, jagged, really dense pieces of granite, and you carry this backpack everywhere. I mean, you take it to work, you wear it while you eat, you even sleep with it strapped to your chest. - Yeah, it never comes off. - Exactly. And over the years, the straps have dug so deeply into your shoulders that the ache has just, well, it's become your baseline reality. - You don't even remember what it feels like to walk without it. - Right, you don't. Now, imagine realizing that there is no lock on those straps. - Oh, wow. - Imagine discovering that no one is actually forcing you to carry this weight. You are the one choosing every single morning to pick it up and put it on. - That is a really heavy realization. - It is, and today's deep dive is gonna ask you to do something that sounds incredibly simple, but, well, it might actually be the most difficult, excruciatingly hard thing a human being can attempt. We are going to explore the profound spiritual mechanics of putting the backpack down, of dropping the stones. - And we are entering a space today that really requires us to be very still, to listen not just with our intellect, but with an open, quiet spirit. - Yeah, I think we really need to slow down for this one. - Absolutely. We are exploring the third installment of a remarkable audio series titled, Let Jesus Be Your Doctor. And this specific source text is called Forgiveness and Libertation. - Such a powerful title. - It really is. And the core premise we're investigating here is the idea that releasing our bitterness, truly letting go of the deep, agonizing resentments we harbor against those who have wronged us, is not merely, you know, a polite moral suggestion. - Right, it's not just about being a good person. - No, it is an absolute non-negotiable requirement for physical and spiritual healing. The framework we are looking at, posits that our grudges actively block what it calls the healing stream. - The healing stream? - Yes. In the original German context of some of these mystics, it's known as the Hyalstrom Gut, the healing stream of God. It is described as a literal, tangible flow of divine energy, of peace and of restorative power. The healing stream, it brings to mind water flowing through a parched landscape. - Yes, exactly. - But, you know, water cannot flow through a closed fist. - It cannot. - And it certainly cannot flow through a heart that is calcified by anger. When I first encountered this material, I was just struck by how it immediately addresses the invisible burdens we carry. - We so often think of healing in just, well, clinical biological terms. - We think of prescriptions or therapies, surgeries, and obviously those are vital. - Of course they are. - But this paradigm suggests there is an underlying architecture to our suffering, a spiritual mechanic. - Yes. - Our emotions, particularly our resentments, are not just passive feelings floating in our minds, they are active forces. - Yeah, really are. They are binding our energy. - They are damning up the river. - Exactly. They act as a literal dam. The water is there. The divine presence, the restorative energy of God, is constantly pressing against the barriers we erect. - It's waiting. - But it is not something we have to beg for. It is an ever-present reality. But our stubborn refusal to forgive acts as this dense, impenetrable wall. - The wall of stones. - Yes. And as long as that wall remains in place, the soul on the other side of the remains dry, exhausted. - Man, be sick. - But before we can even begin to dismantle that dam, the source material forces us to completely recalibrate our understanding of the word forgiveness. - It does. It really challenges our definitions. And this is where the real friction begins. Because the very first thing this framework insists upon is a clarification that shatters our typical excuses. - What does it say? - It states plainly and unequivocally, forgiveness is not forgetting. - Forgiveness is not forgetting. - Right. I want us to just sit with that for a second, because the fear of forgetting is, I mean, it's the primary reason we cling to our anger. - Absolutely. - When someone hurts us, especially if it is a profound betrayal or a deep trauma, an act of malice, our psychological defense mechanism just flares up. - We better protect ourselves. - We do. We believe that if we forgive them, we are validating their action. We think we are being asked to develop spiritual amnesia. - Right, to erase the history of our own pain. - Exactly. To hand our abuser a clean slate, essentially saying, well, what you did didn't matter. - Which is a horrifying thought. - It is. - It violates our innate sense of justice. It feels like a complete betrayal of our own wounded inner child. - Yes, it really does. - But the beauty of this spiritual framework is that it does not ask for a lobotomy. It does not demand that you pretend the wound never happened. - Thank goodness. - Right. Instead, it defines forgiveness as a letting go into God's hands. - Letting go. - It is fundamentally a transfer of jurisdiction. When we refuse to forgive, we are pointing ourselves as the supreme judge, the jury, and the executioner of the person who wronged us. - We construct a whole courtroom in our minds. - Exactly. We drag the offender in, we read the charges, we strike the gavel, and we demand restitution. - And holding that gavel is utterly exhausting. - Oh, it drains everything from you. - Because the trial never ends, we just keep relitigating the same injury day after day in the theater of our own minds. - Precisely. And the text points out a devastatingly difficult truth. - It shows. - Peace only returns to the human heart in the exact place where we surrender the need to be right. - The need to be right, wow, that is the ego's ultimate defense. I mean, my ego screams that I was wronged. My ego has the receipts. - It kept a detailed ledger. - An itemized list of every cruel word, every selfish action, every betrayal, and my ego demands that the universe acknowledged my righteous victimhood. - Of course it does, that's human nature. - But this paradigm argues that you cannot hold the gavel and receive the healing stream at the same time. - You really can't. - You have to step down from the judge's bench, you have to resign your commission, you have to take the case file with all its undeniable evidence of how badly you were hurt, and you have to hand it over to a higher court. - You have to release the other person from your personal jurisdiction. - To understand the deep structural necessity of the surrender, the series turns to the expansive writings of Bertha did. - Ah, yes, Bertha did. - She was a German woman living in the mid 20th century. She was a seamstress actually, someone with very little formal education. - Right. - But over the course of decades, she received thousands of what she described as inner locutions. - Messages dictated to her spirit. - Exactly, revelations what she simply wrote down. And regardless of how one views the origin of these writings, the theological and psychological insight contained within them is, well, it's staggering. - It truly is. She uses incredibly specific language to describe the dynamic of unforgiveness. - And we need to look at her words very carefully today to understand the architecture of our own suffering. - I do. - I wanna hear exactly how she frames this, because if we are going to dismantle the ego's courtroom, we need to understand the alternative. What does she actually say about what happens when we refuse to let go? - Well, she provides an image that completely upends our normal way of thinking. In one of her dictations, she writes this, "Forgiveness releases the tie to the imperfect." - The tie to the imperfect. - Yes, she continues. As long as you do not forgive, you hold the other and yourself prisoner. But as soon as you love and forgive, my light flows into you. - Let's just, let's look at that first phrase. "Forgiveness releases the tie to the imperfect." - The profound statement. - When someone commits a wrong against us, that action is a manifestation of human brokenness. - Right. It is an expression of flaw, of sin. - With a severe limitation in their capacity to love, it is by definition the imperfect. - Exactly. - So when we hold onto our grievance against that action, we are literally tying ourselves to it. - We are tethering ourselves. - We take a spiritual rope, and we bind our own soul to the ugliest, most degraded moment of another person's existence. We tether ourselves to the imperfect. - That entirely shows the visual, doesn't it? - It really does. For most of my life, I've viewed holding a grudge as holding a shield. - Oh, wait, I protect yourself. - Yeah, I believed my anger was a protective barrier. If I stay angry at you, I will never let you close enough to hurt me again. - Right, your resentment is your armor. - Exactly. - But this writing suggests it isn't a shield at all. It's a chain. - It is a chain, a chain that drags you down to the exact vibrational and spiritual frequency of the offense itself. - You cannot rise above a situation while you are actively tethered to it. - You simply can't. - Yeah. - And this leads into the second part of her profound observation. As long as you do not forgive, you hold the other and yourself prisoner. - The tragic irony of resentment, I have spent so much time thinking about the specific metaphor, the imagery of the prison. Let's really build this out. - Please do. - If someone betrays me, I build a prison for them in my mind. I construct a dark, cold, windowless cell. - A bleak place. - I drag them inside. I slam the heavy iron door shut, and I turn the key. I have trapped them in my anger. - You are the warden. - I am the warden. I am in control. But here is the terrifying reality of that mental architecture. - Who does it? - If I lock someone in a prison of my own resentment, I cannot just go live a free, joyous life. - No, you can't. - I have to make sure they stay in there. I have to pull up a small wooden stool and sit directly outside that cell door day and night to stand guard. - You are bound to that hallway. - I have to constantly check the lock. I have to constantly feed them my anger just to keep the memory of the offense alive. - It takes so much energy. - It does. If I am spending my entire life sitting in a dark hallway, guarding the door to my enemy cell, well, doesn't that mean I am exactly as trapped as they are? That is a brilliant haunting expansion of Dodes phrasing. The warden is just as confined by the architecture of the prison as the inmate. - Yeah. - Your entire existence becomes circumscribed by the parameters of your grievance. You cannot explore the breath of your own life. - You can. - You cannot experience spontaneous joy. You cannot walk in the light of the sun because you are trapped in the damp basement of your own soul, standing guard over a ghost. - Guarding a ghost. - Wow. - You are expending massive, unquantifiable amounts of psychological and spiritual energy keeping that door locked. You are actively depleting your own life force, your own house drum. Simply to maintain a state of perpetual punishment for someone else. - And the only way out. I mean, the only way to ever see the sun again is to open the door. - As soon as you love and forgive, my light flows into you. - It operates like a law of spiritual physics, nature of whores of vacuum. - Exactly. When you finally take the key, when you turn it in the lock, when you swing the heavy door open and allow the prisoner to walk out, suddenly the cell is empty. - Your hands are empty? - Yes. You are no longer clutching the key. You are no longer holding the weapon. - And into that newly created space, the divine light immediately flows in. - Because you cannot be filled with the light of God while your hands are full of chains. - The terrifying trade-off. We have to drop the chains to receive the light. We have to let the offender walk free in order to walk free ourselves. - It is the only way. - But why is it so agonizingly difficult? I mean, even when we understand the logic, even when we see the prison and realize we are trapped in it, why do we still prefer the dark familiar dampness of the cell to the light of liberation? - That's a great question. - Why do we fight so hard to hold onto the stones in the backpack? - To answer that, the source material dels even deeper into breath of dead's revelations. There is a specific message referred to as Kungeb, number 5428. - Kungeb. - Yes, Kungeb is simply the German term used in these circles for a divine proclamation, a message given from the spiritual realm to humanity. - Right. - This particular Kungeb is a profound, unsparing exploration of the stark contrast between our human reality and the divine ideal. It functions as a mirror. - A mirror. - And looking into it requires a terrifying amount of humility because it diagnoses our condition with absolute precision. - I would love to hear how that message reads because if we're going to diagnose the illness that keeps us in the prison, we really need to see the symptoms clearly. - The message is framed as God observing human behavior. It states, you humans let enmity rule too often. You cannot yet give love to your enemies and forgive their guilt. You are still full of anger against them. - Wow. - It goes on. You do not wish them well, even if you were framed from evil wishes. You do not exercise the necessary patience and flare up when you are insulted. - Let's pause right there, that line. You do not wish them well, even if you were framed from evil wishes. - It cuts right to the heart of it. - It really does. That is the diagnosis of the modern polite civilized soul. - Yes. - We like to think of ourselves as good people because well, we aren't actively plotting revenge. - We aren't slashing tires or poisoning drinks. - Right, we maintain this veneer of civility. But in the deep, quiet, unlit corners of our hearts, we certainly do not wish them well. We harbor a quiet, simmering bitterness. - We really do. When we hear that the person who hurt us has suffered a setback, a tiny, dark part of us rejoices. - We hope they stumble. - We hope they fail. We tolerate them from a safe distance, but our inner posture toward them is completely frozen. - We mistake the absence of outward retaliation for the presence of forgiveness. - Oh, that is such a trap. - But the spiritual realm does not judge by outward appearances. It judges the frequency of the heart. - And this revelation makes a deeply uncompromising claim about this state of being, doesn't it? - It does. It says that if we exhibit these traits, if we let enmity rule our internal landscape, if we harbor that quiet anger, if we flare up defensively at the slightest insult, then we live therefore not yet in the following of Jesus. - That is a piercing uncomfortable metric. - It completely strips away the illusion of our own righteousness. - It does. We inattend the services. We can recite the creeds. We can perform all the outward rituals of faith. But if the inner landscape is dominated by a lack of patience and a secret ill will toward those who have wronged us, we have fundamentally missed the path. - The true path is entirely internal. Entirely internal. - Yeah. - And this text gives us the ultimate metric for what walking that path actually looks like. It says, love has not yet become so powerful in you that it leaves no room for a hostile thought. - Leaves no room for a hostile thought. - No room. - I have to be honest. When I encounter a standard like that, my immediate reaction is to push back. - It's natural to resist that. - I wanna grapple with this realistically. Is that actually possible for a human being? - Tunting question. - Living in this incredibly chaotic, abrasive, deeply flawed world where people are constantly colliding with one another causing real damage, is it truly possible to reach a state where there is literally no room left for hostility? - It sounds like a standard for angels. - It does, not for people with mortgages and traumas and expouses and betrayals. - Right. - It implies a soul that is so densely packed, so saturated with love that an angry thought tries to enter and just bounces off the surface. - It deflects. - How do we even begin to approach that? - Well, it sounds impossible because through sheer human willpower, it is impossible. - That makes sense. - We cannot simply grit our teeth and force ourselves to become completely devoid of hostility. We cannot whitenuckle our way to divine love. - No, we really can't. - But the revelation provides the key. It identifies the root cause of our constant hostility. It tells us exactly why we are so easily offended and so quick to build prisons. - What is the cause? - It says, you do not see the brother in your neighbor. - You do not see the brother. - That is the crux of the human dilemma. When we look at the person who heard us, what do we see? - We see an obstacle. We see an enemy. We see a competitor for resources. - We see a threat to our safety or ego. - Exactly, but we do not see a brother. We do not see a profoundly lost, deeply flawed fellow child of God who is almost certainly acting out of their own unhealed wounds. - Their own terrifying insecurity. - Their own profound spiritual blindness. - That requires a monumental shift in perception. It means looking past the sharp edges of their behavior and seeing the frightened child underneath. - It's like seen through a completely different lens. - Yeah, if a sick person in a hospital ward completely delirious with fever and pain lashes out and strikes you, you don't take it personally. - No, of course not. - You don't build a lifelong resentment against them. You recognize that their violence is a symptom of their profound sickness. You feel pity, not wrath. - That's a perfect analogy. - If we could truly see the deep paralyzing spiritual sickness and the people who abuse and betray us, - Well, the anger would dissolve into compassion. - It would. - But getting our eyes to adjust to that light is so difficult. - It is the hardest work a soul can do. And to force that shift in our perception, this spiritual framework presents what we might call the ultimate mirror. - The ultimate mirror. - It lays out the divine condition for our own existence. This next passage portrays the voice of God speaking directly to the human soul, laying bare the reality of our relationship with the divine. - I'm listening. - And yet, I shall forgive you your guilt, although you act just as hostly toward me. My love for you is immense. And the earnest plea for forgiveness lets you become free of your guilt. But then it introduces a hard, unyielding boundary. - What is the boundary? - It says, "But I set a condition that you also forgive your debtors if you want to obtain my forgiveness. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. You shall bear him no grudge." - Let me stop you right there. Because this is where I really struggle. And I know many listeners will too. - It's a challenging passage. - I set a condition. I have always been taught. And I have always wanted to believe that divine love is entirely unconditional. - Yes. - The idea of agape love is that it expects nothing in return. It flows freely regardless of merit. But this language sounds explicitly transactional. - I see what you mean. - It sounds like God is a toll collector on the bridge to peace. Saying, "I have this massive gift of forgiveness for you, but I'm gonna hold it behind my back until you prove you've done the work and forgiven your neighbor." - I can definitely feel that way. - It feels like God is holding out on us. How do we reconcile the concept of unconditional divine love with this very strict explicit condition? - That is perhaps the most vital theological tension in this entire discussion. It mirrors perfectly the terrifying petition hidden right in the middle of the Lord's Prayer. - Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. - Exactly. We are literally asking God to use our own standard of forgiveness against us. - It's just terrifying. - It is. But we have to reframe how we view this condition. This is not God being petty. This is not a transactional deity with holding a reward to punish bad behavior. - Then what is it? - It is, once again, a spiritual law of physics. - Walk me through the mechanics of that. How is a condition a law of physics? - Think about the nature of a stone. - Okay. - A heart that is hardened against a neighbor, a heart that refuses to see the brother that insists on standing guard outside the prison cell. It's a heart that is turned to stone. - It has calcified. - It has closed its pores to protect itself from further pain. Now, imagine dropping that stone into a river of pure life-giving water. - The water surrounds the stone completely? - Yes. The river is immense. It is unconditional. It flows over and around the stone without any hesitation. But then the water cannot penetrate the stone. - Ah. - The interior of the stone remains completely dry no matter how long it sits in the river. - So it's not that the river isn't flowing. - Exactly. God's forgiveness, the highest from the healing stream, is constantly raining down upon us. It is unconditional in its giving. - But your capacity to receive it is entirely dependent on the permeability of your own heart. - Yes. If you are clutching the throat of your enemy, your hands are not open to catch the rain. - If you have built a dense roof of bitterness over your head to protect your ego, you will remain entirely dry in the middle of a torrential downpour of grace. So the condition is not a punishment. It is simply a description of reality. You must become a conduit. - Grace must flow through you to your enemy in order for it to fully reside in you. - That's beautifully said. If you block the exit, you block the entrance. You become a stagnant pond instead of flowing stream. - And the text explains the actual practical mechanics of how this flow, when we finally allow it to pass through us, reverses the cycle of pain in the world. - It observes a very simple truth. It says, "Every hostile thought is not suited to awaken reciprocal love." - Which seems so obvious when stated out loud. - But we live our lives as if the opposite were true. - We really do. We yell at our spouses, hoping that our volume will suddenly make them agree with us and feel deep affection for us. - Right. - We post vicious hostile takedowns of our political opponents online, somehow believing that our hostility will awaken a desire for unity in them. - And it never works. Hostility only ever breeds more hostility. It just arms the other person for the next battle. - It is a closed loop of human misery. - It is. But then the text offers the antidote, the mechanism for breaking the loop. - What does it say? - It says, "The love, however, that you showed your enemy, "awakens also in him, impulses that lead to the good." - When you return love for hostility. - Yes. When you offer unmerited forgiveness to someone who expects retaliation, you introduce a completely foreign element into the equation. - You short-circuit their defense mechanism. - Exactly. The enemy is braced for your anger. When they receive grace instead, it creates a profound shock wave in their soul. - It can awaken impulses toward the good that may have been dormant in them for decades. - By forgiving them, you become an active participant in their potential salvation. - Okay. So we have established the deep theological necessity of this. - We have. - We understand the mirror of our own need for mercy. We understand that we must drop the chains to receive the light and that our hearts must be permeable conduits for the healing stream. - Right. - But the burning question remains, how do we actually do it? - That is the hardest part. - When the trauma is real, when the betrayal is fresh, when the nervous system is screaming in a fight or flight response, how do we force our hands to open? - This brings us to a critical pivot in our deep dive. We are shifting from the profound structural theology of birth to dud to the practical internal mechanics of the process. - How do we unblock the healing stream? - The source material brings in another voice here, a man named Bruno Groening. - Bruno Groening. - He was a very well-known German healer in the years following World War II. A time when the world was absolutely shattered. - Trauma was universal. - Yes. And the need for physical and spiritual restoration was desperate. Groening's entire ministry was centered around this concept of the heist room, the healing stream. - And his assessment of how it operates is incredibly blunt. - It is, he says. When you forgive, you open yourself to the divine power, the bitterness yields, and the healing stream can flow again. - I wanna really dwell on that image of the dam because I think it accurately describes the physical sensation of unforgiveness in the body. - Let's picture it. - Imagine a beautiful rushing river of pure crystal clear water. It brings life to everything it touches. The banks of the river are lush and green. - A beautiful scene. - But right across the middle of this river, we have constructed a massive dam out of concrete blocks. - Okay. - The block is a memory of a wrong done to us. This block is the time my father belittled me. This block is the partner who lied to me. This block is the friend who abandoned me when I needed the most. - We stack them up. - We stack these blocks of self-righteous anger, meticulously. We cement them together with our tears and our demands for justice. - And what happens to the water? - The water stops. The river bed below the dam dries up. The earth cracks into brittle shards, the plants wither and turn to dust. And that dried up river bed is our own body. - It is our mind. We wonder why we are so chronically fatigued all the time. We wonder why our baseline state is anxiety. - Why we feel so spiritually dead. - So disconnected from joy. It is because the water of life is being blocked by our own massive construction project. - It is a terrifying realization that we are the architects of our own spiritual drought. But Gruning's promise is that the moment you forgive the dam shatters. - It shatters. - It doesn't say the bitterness slowly fades over time. He says he yields. It surrenders its power instantly in the face of the divine stream. - And the water rushes back in. - But here is where we hit the wall of our own biology. - Great. - The text anticipates our struggle. It knows that we are human beings, deeply governed by our nervous systems, our amygdala's, our trauma responses. - It knows that when we think of our abusers, our heart rate spikes. - Our palms sweat. - We feel profound sense of danger. - Exactly. - And so to bypass this biological roadblock, the text introduces a vital life-saving clarification. It states absolutely unequivocally. - Yes. - Forgiveness is an inner decision, not a question of feelings. - I need to repeat that, because this might be the single most important sentence in the entire paradigm. - It really might be. - Forgiveness is an inner decision, not a question of feelings. - We constantly consistently get this wrong. - We wait to feel forgiving. - We believe that true forgiveness means one day, we will wake up, the clouds will part, the anger will have magically evaporated, and we will feel a warm, fuzzy, deeply peaceful affection for the person who destroyed our lives. - And because we never ever feel that warm fuzziness, because our nervous system continues to view that person as a threat. - We assume we haven't forgiven them. - We think we have failed spiritually. - But this is telling us that forgiveness has absolutely nothing to do with the fluctuating chemistry of our emotions. - Expecting to feel the warmth of forgiveness before you have actually done the hard work of forgiving is, well, it's like sitting in front of an empty fireplace. - Holding a match. - Holding a match and saying, I will like this fire as soon as I feel warm. - That is a perfect way to look at it. The action must proceed the feeling. The decision must be made in the cold. - The cold. - Forgiveness is a choice. It is a calculated, deliberate, sometimes agonizing act of the will. - An act of the will. It is a decision made in the highest centers of the soul, completely independent of the chaotic weather of the emotions. - The text explains that sometimes forgiveness simply means no longer fighting against what happened, but placing it in God's hands. - Placing it in God's hands. - It really is an administrative transfer. - I like that phrase. - It is like taking the thick, heavy file marked my grievances. A file filled with undeniable proof of how deeply you were wronged. - Taking that file. - Walking over to the desk of the divine, placing it down and saying, I am resigning from this case. I am no longer working on this. It is yours now. - You enact the justice. You balance the scales. I am clocking out. - You might walk away from that desk and still feel the phantom pain of the injury. Your hands might still be shaking. - Your heart might still be racing with adrenaline. The tears might still be falling. - But the decision has been made. - Yes. - The file has been handed over. The will has acted. Even while the emotions are screaming in protest. To solidify this critical mechanism, the source material brings in a quote from Derek Prince. - Ah, Derek Prince. - A well-known Bible teacher and theologian who spoke extensively on spiritual warfare and liberation. Prince boils it down to the simplest possible mechanics. - What does he say? - He says, "Forgiveness is a decision of the will. "When you forgive, you open the door "so the Holy Spirit can work." - Open the door. - As long as you refuse, the door remains locked and you hold yourself prisoner. - We return to the imagery of the lock and the door. - We do. But here, the focus is on the mechanism of the lock itself. The lock is not controlled by your amygdala. - It's not controlled by your trauma response. - No. The lock is controlled by your sovereign will. You possess the key. - And the staggering implication here is that God respects our free will so completely. - With such terrifying reverence. - Yes, that He will not violate it. - The Holy Spirit, the healing stream, is depicted as standing outside the locked door of the human heart, waiting. - Waiting, God will not kick the door down. - Even if kicking the door down is the only way to save us from starving to death in the dark. - He waits for our permission. He waits for us to make the agonizing decision to turn the key. - As long as we refuse, as long as we cross our arms and say, "No, I have a right to be angry. "Look at the file. "I have a right to be bitter." - The door remains locked. - We remain in the suffocating darkness of our own making and the immense infinite power of God remains waiting in the hallway. - The heart must be opened voluntarily. The decision must be made by the will. - So, we make the decision. We push past the screaming protests of our ego. With trembling hands, we turn the key, we open the door, we shatter the dam. - What happens next? - Exactly. What does it actually look like in the spiritual realm when that door is thrown wide open? - This leads us to the cosmic reality of the release. The text moves us from the gritty, difficult mechanics of the decision and points us towards something vast and incomprehensible. - The sea of divine mercy. - Yes. It grounds this transition with a reminder from the ancient text of Ephesians chapter four, verse 32, a simple, profound directive. - Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. - Just as God forgave you. - There is the ultimate mirror again. - It is. - We are called to mimic the divine pattern. We are not called to forgive as humans forgive. We are called to forgive as God forgives. - But what is that pattern? - How exactly does the divine forgive? Because if I'm supposed to mimic it, I need to know what it looks like. - To answer that, the series provides a breathtaking insight from Mother Mystic, Louisa Picareta. - Louisa Picareta. - Yes. She was an Italian woman who spent the vast majority of her life confined to her bed, suffering immensely. Yet she produced volumes of writings about what she called living in the divine will. - Her physical confinement contrasts so beautifully with the immense boundless, spiritual freedom she describes. - It really does. She writes this about the nature of divine forgiveness. Whoever lives in the divine will learns to forgive as God forgives. Without measure, without memory of the evil. - Without measure. - The soul that truly loves holds nothing back. It lets everything fall into the sea of divine mercy. - Without measure, without memory of the evil. - This is where the text stretches our human comprehension to its absolute breaking point. - Because human beings forgive with a measuring cup. - We are accountants of pain. - We really are. We say, I will forgive you this much because you apologize this much, but no more. - We say, I will forgive you for what happened on Tuesday, but I am keeping what happened on Thursday securely on my ledger. - Just in case I need it for leverage later. - Right, we keep score. We keep detailed, itemized receipts of every slight. But God's forgiveness, Picaretta says, is without measure. It is a flood that washes away the ledger entirely. - And it is without memory of the evil. - And we must be careful here. This doesn't mean God has a cognitive failing. - No. - It doesn't mean the divine is ignorant of history. Without memory means God chooses as an act of sovereign will, not to bring the past into the present. - He refuses to view you through the lens of your worst mistake. - And Luisa gives us the most beautiful evocative visual for this process of release. She says, the soul lets everything fall into the sea of divine mercy. - Think about the physical reality of dropping a stone into the ocean. - You walk to the edge of the pier, you hold the heavy granite stone of your resentment and you let it go. - The ocean does not crack when stone hits it. The ocean does not fight back. - Yeah. - The ocean does not reject the stone. - It simply opens, absorbs the heavy weight and swallows it whole. The stone sinks down into the crushing lightless depths, completely engulfed, completely hidden from view. - And within seconds, the surface of the water returns to perfect undisturbed colonness. - It is as if the stone never existed. - That is the sea of divine mercy. We are invited to take our heavy jagged stones of resentment, our bitter memories, our desperate demands for justice and simply drop them into the sea. - Just let them fall. You don't have to throw them with all your might. - You don't have to ceremoniously launch them. You just have to uncurl your fingers and let gravity do the work. - Let the immense unfathomable depth of God's mercy swallow the pain. - But here is where the text introduces a beautiful, almost dizzying paradox. - Yes. - If we drop the stone into the sea, if God forgives without memory of the evil, does that mean the past is simply erased? Does it mean the trauma never happened? - The text is very clear. It says that God calls us into the light not to erase the past, but to transform it. - Not to erase the past, but to transform it. That is a profoundly crucial distinction. - A deeply necessary one for anyone who has suffered real abuse. - We cannot erase history. The hurt happened. The betrayal occurred. - The trauma is real and it has shaped the architecture of your life. - If we try to pretend it didn't happen, we are not practicing forgiveness. We are practicing delusion. - We are gaslighting ourselves. - But the divine light does something far more miraculous than simple erasure. It transforms. It transfigures. When we drop the injury into the sea of mercy, the injury ceases to be a source of poison and becomes a source of profound wisdom. - It ceases to be a heavy anchor dragging us down into the dark and becomes a testimony to the unbelievable power of grace. - The very wounds we carry, the scars of our deepest betrayals are transfigured into the exact places where the divine light enters us. - And where it can shine out to heal others. The past is not gone, but it's powered a harm us. It's powered to dictate our future is completely neutralized. - It is alchemy, turning the lead of our trauma into the gold of our compassion. - But why do we do this? Why do we go through the agonizing, ego-crushing process of opening the hand, dropping the stone and turning the key? - The text is remarkably almost shockingly blunt about our motivation. - It says, we do not forgive because the other person deserves it. - I think we need to let that echo in the quiet spaces of our minds. We do not forgive because the other person deserves it. - They might be completely unrepentant. They might be terrible people who continue to do terrible things. - They might never ever apologize or even acknowledge the pain they caused you. - But they're deserving has absolutely zero to do with your forgiveness. - The state of their soul is their problem. - The state of your soul is the only thing at stake here. - The text says we forgive because we ourselves should become free. - It is the ultimate act of self-liberation. - We must remember the prison. We are the ones sitting in the dark hallway. - We are the ones starving our own souls to keep the Greg alive. - We forgive to save our own lives. - And when we finally do this, when we make the cold decision of the will, when we forgive without measure, when we drop the stones into the sea, the text describes the result with stunning quiet simplicity. - It says, then liberation happens quietly, but deeply, and the soul breathes freely again. - And the soul breathes freely again. - You can almost feel the physical chest expanding as you hear those words. The crushing invisible weight on the sternum is finally lifted. - The air comes rushing into the atrophy lungs. - It happens quietly. There are no fireworks. There is no grand applause from the universe. Just the deep, silent exhalation of a soul that has finally, mercifully laid down its armor. - And this brings us to the culmination of the source material. - It does. - The text we are studying does not want to leave this as an abstract theological discussion. It does not want us to simply not our heads appreciate the beautiful metaphors. Say, yes, that is a lovely idea. And then go right back to guarding our prison self. - It demands application. It forces the issue. - It provides a direct, guided, highly practical exercise, a step-by-step process of release, designed to be enacted in real time. - And we are going to do this together right now. We are going to slow the pacing of this deep dive down to an absolute crawl. - We are going to enter the quiet space. - If you are driving, please keep your eyes on the road and stay safe. But let your spirit enter this posture. If you are at home sitting in a chair or walking outside, stop what you are doing. Give yourself the gift of these next few minutes. - The text gives us the exact physical posture required for this work. It instructs, sit comfortably, breathe calmly, breathe deeply and evenly. - Let's just do that for a moment. - Breathe in slowly, filling the lungs entirely. - And breathe out, consciously letting the tension your shoulders drop. - Breathe in the quietness of this specific moment in time. - And breathe out the frantic noise, the anxieties and the demands of the day. - Settle into the stillness. - The text begins this process of liberation in the most unexpected, yet completely necessary place. - Step one is not about the enemy. Step one is not about the person who ruined your life. - Step one is about the self. - The text gently directs our focus inward. It says, think first of yourself. - Perhaps there is something that you have not forgiven yourself for until today. A mistake, an omission, a word. - We so often find that the hardest person in the entire world to forgive is a one looking back at us in the mirror. - We carry immense crushing guilt for the things we did when we were blind, or the things we failed to do when we were afraid. - The words we spoke in anger that we can never take back. The ways we failed, the people who depended on us. - We build the darkest, coldest prison cell of all for ourselves, and we act as our own cruelest warden. - If that is you today, if you are carrying the heavy, suffocating stone of your own, deep regret, the text gives you the exact words to say. - You don't need to feel worthy of them. - You just need to speak them. Speak them quietly in the sanctuary of your own heart right now. - I forgive myself. - I let go. - I am allowed to begin a new. - Notice carefully what the text instructs next. It says, feel how mercy fills you. Not as an excuse, but as healing. - That distinction is vital for the conscience. Forgiving yourself is not a declaration that your mistake didn't matter. It is not an excuse for bad behavior. - It is not dismissing the pain you may have caused. - It is simply acknowledging the reality of your human condition. It is acknowledging that you are tethered to the imperfect. - And it is actively allowing the immense sea of divine mercy to wash over that imperfection. - You are allowing the heilstrum, the healing stream, to touch your own deepest wounds. You are putting the gavel down on your own trial. - You are allowed to begin a new. Every single breath you take is a divine invitation to begin a new. - Take another deep breath. - Breathe in that specific targeted mercy. - Breathe out the years of self-condemnation. - Now, having cleared the channel within ourselves, we move to step two. The text guides our vision outward. It says, now think of a person against whom you carry resentment or pain. Do it now. Picture their face. Picture the situation that bound you to them. - Let the memory come to the surface of your mind. Do not push it down. Do not run from it. Stand in the truth of what happened. - And here is the crucial, liberating reminder from the text. As you picture them, as your body perhaps begins to react to the memory, the text says, you do not have to feel anything. - Do not wait for a rush of affection. Do not wait for the tightness in your chest to magically disappear. - You are not generating an emotion. You're making a cold, sovereign decision of the will. - You are turning the heavy iron key in the lock. You are opening your hands to let the granite stone drop into the sea. - Speak these words softly in your heart to that person. - Even if your internal voice is shaking. Even if every fiber of your ego is screaming in protest, even if you don't feel a single ounce of warmth toward them. - Let the words themselves be the action of release. - I forgive you. - I leave you to God. - I wanna be free. - And I let you go. - I wanna be free. - And I let you go. - That is the exact precise moment. The prison door swings open. You are walking out of the dark hallway. - Yeah. - You are leaving the basement. - And you are leaving them behind securely in the hands of God. You are resigning your position as warden. - The divine is infinitely more capable of dealing with their soul, of enacting true justice and true mercy than you could ever be. You are stepping down from the bench. - The text offers an incredibly peaceful, vivid image here, to help our physical bodies visualize and catch up to the spiritual release. It says, breathe deeply. Let the heaviness go. Like leaves carried away by the wind. - Imagine that scene. You are standing in an open field under a massive tree in the late autumn. - Your hands are full of dead, dry, brittle leaves. - Each leaf is a bitter memory. Each leaf is a late night argument you played out in your head. Each leaf is a desire for revenge. - You have been clutching these dead things so tightly for so many years that your hands physically ache. - Just open your hands. - Feel the wind to begin to blow across the field. Watch the wind catch the dry leaves, lifting them out of your palms. - Scattering them into the air, carrying them further and further away until they disappear over the horizon. - You do not have to carry dead things anymore. They are gone, carried away by the breath of God. Your hands are finally empty. - And now, with empty hands and an open heart, we reach step three, the ultimate step, the absolute pinnacle of the spiritual mountain. - Once the stones are dropped, once the leaves have blown away, the text asks us to do something truly unfathomably radical, it asks us to bless the enemy. - It says, now place the situation itself in God's hands. Speak silently. - Lord, bless me and bless also the person I have forgiven. - Let that settle deep in your chest. Bless also the person I have forgiven. - The actively, intentionally wish ultimate good, ultimate healing and ultimate peace upon the very soul that got you harmed. - That is the complete and total annihilation of the ego. That is the death of the old self. - And that is the exact moment the damn shatters completely. - That is the moment, the house drum, the healing stream, is not just unblocked, but becomes a raging, unstoppable river of pure light. - Flooding every single cell of your physical body and your spiritual being. - The text reminds us one last time, sealing the work we have just done, thus healing begins. Not with a feeling, but with a decision of the heart. - The decision has been made, the leaves have blown away, the stream is flowing. - As we gently slowly bring ourselves back from this deep meditative space, back to the reality of the room we are sitting in. - The chair supporting us, the rhythm of our own breathing. - The text offers us a way to integrate this profound cosmic reality into our ordinary daily frustrating lives. - It acknowledges our humanity. It knows that tomorrow, or perhaps an hour from now, the anger might try to return. - A memory might flare up. - The ego will try to walk back out into the field and pick up the dead leaves again. - And so it equips us with a daily application, a simple, immediate, real-time defense mechanism. - It instructs, and whenever you feel anger or bitterness rising in you in everyday life, pause for a moment and say silently, Lord, I forgive, and I become free. - It is a spiritual reflex. The very moment the hostile thought tries to re-enter the mind. - The moment you feel that familiar tightening in your chest. - The moment you are tempted to rebuild the prison, you simply speak those words. - You drop the stone before your fingers have a chance to close around it. You remind your nervous system that you have already resigned from the case. - You remind yourself that every single act of forgiveness, no matter how small, no matter how repetitive, is a step closer to your own eternal peace. - Lord, I forgive, and I become free. - It is a breath prayer. It is a lifeline. - It is something you can whisper a hundred times a day if you need to, because in every single act of letting go, as the text promises, new life flows. The healing stream washes away the accumulated dust of the day. - We're coming to the end of our time together in this specific deep dive. - The source material we have been immersed in, episode three of Let Jesus Be Your Doctor, closes with a gentle, profound blessing for the listener. - It wishes that God's light would dissolve everything that binds us, granting our hearts true, lasting freedom. - And it offers a glimpse of what lies ahead on this journey. It promises that the next focus in the series will explore the power of faith when trust brings healing. - Because once the heart has been painstakingly clear to the heavy debris of unforgiveness. - Once the dam has been removed. - The soul is finally empty enough and clean enough to be filled with the solid immovable foundation of faith. - We look forward to exploring that profound trust with you. - But before we fade out today, I wanna leave you with a final lingering thought. A question directly inspired by this text's unyielding connection between our physical reality and our spiritual choices. - It's an important question. - We have talked extensively today about the healing stream. We have explored how bitterness acts as a concrete dam, blocking that vital life force from reaching your body and your soul. - So I want you to take a moment right now, wherever you are, and just physically scan your own body. - Pay attention to the exhaustion you're carrying today. Notice the mysterious aches in your joints. Notice the chronic tightness in your shoulders and your neck. - Notice the shallowness of your breathing. The persistent, heavy fatigue that sleep never seems to cure. - Ask yourself with radical honesty. Are some of these physical ailments actually just cold, unforgiven memories? - Are these aches simply ancient grievances that you are still stubbornly guarding in a dark, cold prison cell within yourself? - You have felt the crushing weight of them for so long. They've defined your posture. - But what would happen to your physical body tomorrow? If you finally let those dead leaves blow away in the wind tonight. - What would happen to your body tomorrow? If you've only let the leaves blow away tonight? - Breathe in the light. - Breathe out the chains. - Let them blow away.