Matthew 18:21-35 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
“No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!"
“Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn’t pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt."
“But the man fell down before his master and begged him, ‘Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.’ Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt."
“But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment.
“His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it,’ he pleaded. 3But his creditor wouldn’t wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.
“When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, ‘You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn’t you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?’ Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt.
“That’s what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
My Thoughts
When we read this we really want to stop at the seven times seventy part and figure out how many times we have to forgive a person that keeps on hurting us. But we can't stop at that part of the story. I couldn't help but think of how much we are each God's children. And how much harder it is to forgive people that hurt our children than it is to forgive people who hurt us. It made me think. "so each time we hurt someone, sin against someone, we hurt God. We hurt him to the core." Yet often we have a hard time forgiving one person of their "sins" against us, over and over. I could hurt 20 people. once each but that would be 20 hurts against God that I ask Him to forgive me of. Yet I can walk around with unforgiveness in my heart! We do this so often, too many times, over the smallest things.
The more I thought about this the more I though of those lines in the Lord's prayer... forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. In this perfect prayer, a prayer that Jesus told us to pray... we are only asking for forgivness as much as we forgive. We need to forgive completely if we are to be forgiven completely.
Forgivness is a must. Unforgivness seperates us from God. If we commit only one sin it can not be this one.
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