Stop Fuming, Start Forgiving!

In chapter 18 of Matthew's Gospel, Jesus told a parable about forgiveness. A certain king wanted to settle accounts with his servants. One of them owed the King $10,000. The kind and generous king wrote off the debt—just cancelled it—without taking a tax deduction. The servant should have been grateful. Instead, the same servant had a neighbor who owed him $100. Instead of imitating the king and forgiving the $100, the ungrateful servant demanded the neighbor pay. The neighbor said, "I can't pay right now. Please give me a little time."

"No," said the servant, and had the neighbor put in debtor's prison.

Well, when the king heard about this, he called that ungrateful servant before him and reamed him out. He said, "You are an ungrateful fool! Because you refused to be as forgiving toward your neighbor as I was toward you, I am reinstating your entire debt. You will stay in prison doing hard labor until you pay off the whole thing."

Jesus concluded by saying, "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart" (Matt. 18:35).

Why is it so hard for us to forgive? Well, it's because the evil one is a good salesman. He hates forgiveness because he knows that if he can persuade us not to forgive even one person, our own forgiveness from God will be cut off. Therefore, the devil whispers very persuasive lies to us.

First, the devil suggests we church folks are not really sinners; therefore, we don't need to be forgiven. He tells us the real sinners are the dope peddlers, car thieves, adulterers and terrorists. Our sins, by comparison, are relatively small and benign, almost cute.

The Greek word for sin in The Lord's Prayer literally means "debt." Surely none of us can claim that he or she has perfectly fulfilled his or her duty to God and to all persons. Sin is a universal disease that infects all of us. The Bible is correct in declaring, "All we like sheep have gone astray" (Isaiah 53:6).

Scarcely a day goes by that all of us need to forgive and be forgiven. Let me give you a common example. If you have been married for as long as two months, and if you have even below-average intelligence, you know there are certain subjects you should not bring up in conversation with your spouse, because those subjects aggravate or even hurt. Perhaps your spouse served half-baked ham to your parents; perhaps he wrecked the car because he was distracted by his cell phone. Maybe he was supposed to be watching your children, but he got so engrossed in a ballgame on TV that he didn't notice them wandering outside into the street. A neighbor retrieved the child and, of course, told you about it.

Something devilish within us is inclined to dredge up those hurtful memories and use them as sledge hammers against the very people whom we love most. As soon as we utter some unwise, hurtful statement, the angel of our better natures whistles and whispers, "Oh no, Brother (or Sister), you have messed up now!" If we treat the people we love most that way, just imagine how foul we can be toward people we don't even like! Don't believe for a moment that we church folks are not sinners.