One day in a Bible class I was asked what Jesus had to say about forgiveness. We did a quick search through the Gospels and discovered that without exception Jesus connected the forgiveness of our sins with God's command that we forgive those who sin against us.
This thought came back today as I did the Gospel reading in the Treasury of Daily Prayer. Jesus tells the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matt. 18:21-35). The king called in his servants to settle their accounts. One servant had run up a massive debt. The master was going to collect the debt by selling him and his family and all he had. The servant begged and pleaded for his master's patience. The master extended mercy to the servant and forgave the debt.
You probably know the rest of the story. The servant then encountered a fellow servant. This servant owed a smaller amount of money. But no mercy was given and the servant was thrown in prison.
Word got back to the master and his anger was off the charts, so to speak. He told the unforgiving servant, "You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?
The result? The master had the unforgiving servant jailed "until he should pay all his debt." Get that? How will he pay off his debt if he is in prison? He can't! Punished forever because of an unforgiving heart.
Then Jesus concludes the parable with these words: "So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from the heart."
So that's that. Forgive as you have been forgiven. But you say the hurt is so deep, the sin against you so great that you can't forgive. What do you do?
Ask the Lord to help you do the thing you can't do. Ask the Lord to help you overcome the hurt. Ask the Lord to help you see your sins and how God has had mercy on you. Ask the Lord to enable you to do what seems impossible.
If you have to, ask for God's help again and again and again. You want nothing to stand in the way of the Lord's forgiveness and mercy toward you.
Forgive our sins, Lord, we implore, That they many trouble us no more;
We, too, will gladly those forgive, Who hurt us by the way they live.
Help us in our community. To serve each other willingly.
LSB - 766:6
