FORGIVENESS
Author: Sakkie Parsons
Translated from Afrikaans
Translator: Robin Barker
Something that we sometimes have a big problem with, is forgiveness
I want to share with you what our Lord showed me one day, but first you must please read the following verses.
MAT 18:21-35
21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.
24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.
25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’
27 The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.
31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.
33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive a brother or sister from your heart.”
Let us read the following verse again:
MAT 18:21 Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive someone who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Now, as my ’Pa (father)’ would say:
“A mighty surprise.”
Because, as I understand, Jesus says that He has to continually do it.
MAT 18:22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Then, so that Peter and you and me are not left to misunderstand, so that we now can make a mathematical sum and then precisely know when we can say that we have now forgiven, Jesus tells us a parable (story).
In the story the king rights off another man’s debt and when you right off someone’s debt, then for all practical purposes you undertake to carry the full cost, or you pay the debt to you out of your own pocket. That is precisely what this king did.
He wrote off the man’s debt, or paid the debt himself from his own pocket.
That is precisely, or almost exactly what Jesus did.
I said, almost exactly, because you see Jesus did much more –
He did not pay for our sins out of His own pocket, He paid our debt out of His own body and he did not hold back anything, yes literally nothing was held back.
On Golgotha His body was even further crushed when they nailed Him to the cross.
Then for the last time He was humiliated, when the King of kings with His shame exposed was crucified, while the last bit of blood was still able to flow out of Him and then He gave His life for both you and me.
Do you know what He looked like as He walked to Golgotha?
Let’s read:
ISA 53:1-7
1 Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by others, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
7 He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
Now that He has done all of this for you and me, the King comes and He says, that he has written off our debts and He then expects us to do the same for those nearest to us.
MAT 6:14 For if you forgive others when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
MAT 6:15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.EPH 4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
COL 3:13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord for-gave you. (TNIV)
COL 3:14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
If I do not do what our Lord has asked me to do from His Word, then the weight of my non forgiveness will become so heavy, that it will pull me into hell.
Look at the feelings in your heart towards other people and do not allow your feelings towards those people possibly keep you out of Heaven, because it is also written:
DE 30:19 his day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live …
Greetings,
Sakkie