"HOW OFTEN MUST WE FORGIVE?"

Reading: Matthew 18:21-35

No matter how often I hear the answer Jesus gave Peter I still tend to shake my head and wonder, “How in the world can I ever live up to that!” Peter asked Jesus, “Lord, when my brother wrongs me, how often must I forgive him? Seven times?” “No,” Jesus replied,”not seven times; I say, seventy times seven times.”

Peter, like us, probably had to make an heroic effort to forgive a person even once. The second time feels like an olympic feat. To do it seven times sounds rather much, but seventy times seven times? Yes! If we want to live with God in heaven. God probably forgives us more often during the course of one single day than the sum total of times we are even given the opportunity to forgive during our entire lives. And don’t forget! Our forgiveness is supposed to be from the heart. Is Jesus serious?

Jesus is not only thinking of the good of the person forgiven. He is considering what wonders it does to the forgiver. When you really forgive someone, just imagine what it does for you. It relaxes you, it gives you peace, sunshine floods your heart. When you don’t forgive, you remain upset, angry, clouds hover over you. To forgive is Godlike; not to forgive is of the Devil. God is happy, the Devil is miserable. Which would you rather be! Maybe we had better give that seventy times seven a good try.