Forgiving As I Have Been Forgiven

Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you? 

Matthew 18:33 (NIV)

Living the Sermon on the Mount Through the Practical Wisdom of Jesus' Parables

I have a remarkable memory for what others owe me — and a genuinely impressive forgetfulness about what I've been forgiven. It's a peculiar gift, and not one I'm proud of. Jesus puts the two debts side by side without editorial comment — He doesn't need to. The numbers speak for themselves. What I've been forgiven is staggering. What I'm withholding is embarrassingly small by comparison. And yet here I am, holding on like it matters.

Forgiveness isn't pretending the hurt didn't happen — wounds are real and Jesus never suggested otherwise. It's releasing a debt I've been tracking carefully on a ledger that was never mine to keep. The longer I hold it, the more it costs me. The man in this parable walked out of the king's presence with an impossible debt cancelled — and immediately went looking for someone who owed him pocket change. The audacity of it is almost unrecognizable. Until I'm honest enough to see myself in him.

What if…I let the sheer size of what I've been forgiven do what willpower never could — and finally put the ledger down?

Lord, bring to mind what You've already forgiven in me — and let that be the only reason I need to release what I've been holding against someone else. I don't want to live bound to a debt You've already covered. Set me free to forgive. Amen.

Let's do this together.

Founder, IHS Global