Matthew 18:33 “And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?”
Our culture seethes with the push to make people pay for wrongs done in the past. I love justice as much as the next person, but I think sometimes we can become so fixed on righting the wrongs that we miss the deeper right: the command to forgive those who sin against us. Those who misrepresent us at best and downright lie about us at worst. Those who betray us, use us, dismiss us.
We lose the high moral ground of love and forgiveness in the trenches of self-preservation. If you are a follower of Christ, you already know this. But I’ve found knowing something is right doesn’t ensure doing it. Some truths need retelling.
Tim Keller writes in Forgive, that forgiveness is a form of involuntary suffering. We choose to bear the cost of another’s wrong. It differs from excusing or ignoring. We acknowledge the behavior, but refuse to hold it against the perpetrator. Instead, we release the situation to God.
In the parable Jesus told in Matthew 18, the unmerciful servant who refused to forgive the debts owed to him after being forgiven of his much heavier debt, knew what he was doing. But I think many people have trouble forgiving because they have never grasped the depth of God’s forgiveness toward them.
I once knew a woman who refused to forgive someone who offended her. When challenged to have mercy on her perceived offender, she might as well have been stuck in quicksand. I believe the reason she couldn’t forgive was because she had never really received God’s forgiveness for her own sins. Although she felt remorseful about past mistakes, she never really experienced the release of being forgiven. Consequently, she had no wellspring of grace to draw from.
No doubt, forgiveness is tough stuff. But the Lord will empower us to do it. You’ve probably heard the expression that the way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. Forgiveness is kinda’ like that. Pursue forgiveness one step (one bite) at a time. Begin with your thought life. Don’t clutter your mind with other people’s ugliness. Think instead about God’s mercy to you.
Forgive because it’s what he wants you to do.