In Matthew 18 Jesus tells a fascinating little story about a guy who owes the king a rediculous sum of money that would take 4000 lifetimes to repay. In danger of being sent to debtor's prison and having his family sold into the slavery the man decides to grovel before the king and beg for mercy. And amazingly this longshot stategy pays off. The king decides to be "big hearted," forgives the debt, covers the cost himself, and lets the man go free.
This is amazing grace... undeserved and unmerited forgiveness.
But then that same man goes out and finds a poor soul who owes him a much smaller amount of money: about three month's wages. Determined to get what is his and feeling entitled to operate "by the book," he shakes down the debtor and nearly strangles him. When this second man grovels and begs for mercy he receives none, and is sent to prison in the most "small hearted" fashion.
The King is pretty ticked off by this whole scenario, hauls the original man back in, dresses him down, revokes his pardon, and send him to prison to be tortured.
Now here's the point. All of us have an account to settle with God. We have managed to sin enough in our lives to fill up a pretty big book. And, if God chose to operate "by the book," and punish us for our sins we would all be toast. But God grants us mercy and forgiveness and we are set free.
How ironic that we, like the man in the story, then go out and keep a close account of all the people who hurt, offend, or wrong us. We are surprizingly lacking in mercy ourselves. We want to maintain our hurt feelings and want all our offenders punished in strict fashion for the things they have done. Some of us keep a pretty detailed book of offenses committed against us. We hold on, refer back to them often, and never forget.
Jesus says that if you live by the book, you will die by the book. The way we treat others is the way God will treat us.
Give up your book keeping. Settle accounts. Be merciful. Quit torturing yourself by an attitude of unforgiveness.
I'd be interested in situations in your life where you have forgiven someone and erased an entry in your book of wrongs.
For more Bible reading on this subject check out the following passages: Matthew 6.14-15, Mark 11.24-26, Luke 6.37, and Colossians 3,13.
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I know someone who used to literally write and keep lists of other's offenses. Funny he never kept a list on himself though. I think Jesus' admonition to take the plank out of our own eye first is a good one because that in itself is such a daunting task we never would have time to pay much attention to the mote in someone else's eye.
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