Forgiveness is part of love. It is the same as love. The difference between love and forgiveness is only in how love is directed or what love is directed to.

Forgiveness is that part of love that we can direct towards things distasteful. Forgiveness is what enables us to love in all directions. 

God's love is forgiving.

There is no sin so great that it cannot be forgiven.

God gave man freewill to make mistakes and learn and grow, and God knew beforehand all the sins that would be committed, all the errors man would make along his freewilled journey.

Repentance is the presentation of our sins to God. It is presenting our self to God, as we are, in full acknowledgement of our sins. And in request for forgiveness. 

Repentance enables God's light to shine into every dark and horrid corner of our being, and clean and lighten our self.

In repentance there is no sin that God will not forgive.

Although God's life is in all things, his spirit animates all things, is within us, we cannot keep it out, for it animates our soul, but by not repenting we keep out God's forgiveness which is God's love, we keep a part of our self away from God, we make a barrier that keeps God's love and light out of our self.

Repentance enables forgiveness to come into our self. It is like opening a cupboard door to let the light shine in. It is like inviting a cleaner into our house and showing the cleaner all our dark and dirty places, the places we are ashamed of, and then the cleaner cleans them. But if we invite the cleaner into our house and only show her the cleaner parts to clean but keep the dirty rooms and cupboards locked, then she cannot clean those places and leaves the house only part clean. But if we show her all the dirty places she will clean them and leave our house clean right through.

Repentance is our opening up to God, is showing God our wrong and dark and dirty places. Forgiveness is the cleaning and relieving light that then comes in.     

Forgiveness is relief. It relieves the weights of guilt and shame, and the ailments that accompany them. It frees us from the darkness and blindness of denial and irresponsibility, and enables us to see clearly within and without of our self.

All prayer commences with repentance. Repentance lets in God's light, right into our being, even into the darkest places to lighten them. Repentance brings connection and honesty between our soul and God. 

The nature and workings of repentance and forgiveness are the essential teachings of Christianity.

   

Thank you.

For your presence.

Love is all that matters.

It is the clear path.

Alan McDougall wrote on Apr 15^th, 2016 at 12:14pm:


It seems difficult to forgive some things. But like anything, it is easy when we know how to do it, and how it works, what it does, and why it works, and when we want to do it because we understand its benefits, and when we have understanding of how and why such unpleasant things occur, why people do what they do.

We need to study freewill and forgiveness to understand them, in order to bring them together for others, their freewill and our forgiveness. As with any study, we must put in time and effort and practice.

Some things make forgiveness easier for us to do.

One thing is a sincere apology; an apology that contains responsibility for what was done, and
acknowledgement of the effects of what was done, and humility. But that is not present often, and we must learn to forgive without it.  

Another thing is understanding of freewill and how and why people do what they do.

And another thing that enables us to forgive is the method Jesus demonstrated when being killed on the cross, when we have no strength to do it, is to ask God to forgive on our behalf. It must be a genuine request, of course, we have to want God to do it.          

   Knowledge not lived is spiritual error. To those whom are more aware, more is required of them--the greater their responsibility.

Many on this board believe love is a superior form of "like".   But to like something is to prefer it.  Usually to set it up in the world of forms (the physical world), and often oppose it to something that is disliked.  In this narrow view, everything is black and white.  love/like vs. hate.  Opposites are seen and not recognized as being polarities of something bigger.

From my own experience and that of others, Love is something far different.  Love is the groundspring of our true nature before it gets perverted or warped by ego.  Love flows from God, out to all areas of the universe and in all astral planes.  Those who allow this low to flow through them "get it," and usually their love is then magnified  (Jesus says "Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.").  I love that quote from the NT, because it seems paradoxical.  What it really means is, as you open yourself up to universal love you get more. 

The person who closes himself/herself off to God's love is usually focusing on their own ego/needs, and getting lost in the "us vs. them" mentality of the physical world.  These people need to "be right" to show that others are "wrong."  To them, that have little universal love, that turn their backs to the flow of God's love, more is taken away.  Swedenborg was shown representations of people actually facing away from heaven; deliberately acting out of ego gratification and selfishness. 

So for myself, I see love as an all pervading force of good, which we either open our inner being up to and radiate outward toward others or we close ourselves off from (and in so doing turn away from it).

But we always have a choice.  People can and usually do evolve over time.  Not in an instant.  But gradually, all who live out of selfish ego-based gratification, usually find that the grass is "browner" not greener, and eventually, they look for a more universal kind of spirituality.

M

M, one can like good acts and/or bad acts. I suppose love is more fixed than ambivalent like/dislike in that sense because harming (not "harming") someone else is not love, or that love has a strong direction rather than like/dislike zig zagging. But love is not automatically present in all dealings just because one loves. X loves the family and dislike the son's teenage rebellion period, X also hates the neighbour and like it like that.

M, to some extent is a good response, if your response was nonsense it could still be good. Both responses can be great inspiration to dig deeper.

Hey Albert

For me, engaging our ego means to serve the part of use we invest into being apart from our link to God and the universe.  Our egos are built up from childhood.  It is the perishable part of our earthly selves that sees the world as a harsh place and is so lost in the forms that reality presents to us, it makes us think in selfish oppositional ways. 

There is an old buddhist saying "no self, no more problems."  Westerners unknowingly think that this is nihilism; that if we lose the shell of our ego we would cease to be, or merge mindlessly with some grand unity of things.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Sometimes, in deep meditation, in nature, or at other points in our lives, we deeply connect to everything.  In that state, we don't have to be right.  We don't have to be better than another.  We don't look down on others.  We aren't defending anything.  We are not afraid of losing an argument.  That enlightened state is, from my understanding our true self, and the more frenetic, confrontational, ego based state is, unfortunately the way most of us operate.

When a person is able to let go of the ego, they find they live differently not because they are "trying" but because that is the only way to be.   Sacred texts be it the gospels in the new testament or Lao Tzu's writings therefore say that a good person is kind to those who are kind to them, and also kind to those who are unkind to them.  Why?  Because kindness is our nature without ego. 

M