Have you forgiven someone lately? Have you said the words “I forgive you” out loud to someone who has offended or sinned against you in some way? Maybe you have forgiven them in your heart without saying the words audibly. That’s usually the way I do it, and I think how most of us do it.

It is so very easy to get out of the habit of forgiveness, particularly in the closest and most intimate relationships in our lives.

When we fail to consciously and intentionally forgive others, we open the door for the root of bitterness to take hold in our hearts. Has your spouse, child, family member, friend, or co-worker sinned against you? Is your first instinct to forgive?

It’s not mine. My first response and the first one I’ve seen in others is often to defend ourselves and attempt to justify our words or actions.

The reality is that we all struggle with forgiveness, because we all struggle with sin – our own and the sin of others. It is part of the reality of living in a fallen world.

The classic passage from our Lord on forgiving others is Matthew 18:21-35, which begins with Jesus responding to Peter’s question, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Peter thinks he’s really stretching by forgiving seven times, and Jesus essentially says to forgive an endless number of times. Jesus goes on to tell the parable of the unforgiving servant.

I encourage you to read the entire parable. It shows that forgiveness is an act of compassion. It is an act of loving others in the midst of difficult circumstances, and as this parable shows, the act of forgiving involves cancelling a debt.

When someone offends us and sins against us, our reaction is often to demand they pay for what they’ve done in some way. In verses 28-30 of the parable, the debt is a very real monetary debt, but in our everyday lives, when we are offended, we most often try to exact payment from others emotionally; perhaps with anger, or being cold towards them, or distancing ourselves from them, and maybe giving them the silent treatment or ignoring them.

There are literally hundreds of ways we come up with to exact payment from those who have caused us hurt, pain, and sorrow.

Yet Jesus makes it so very clear in his response to Peter and in the parable that forgiveness for those of us who follow Jesus is not optional. In fact, when we try to make others pay for their offense against us, we ourselves change from the victim of sin, into the perpetrator of sin, just as the unforgiving servant did.

He had been forgiven a massive debt by the king that he could never have repaid, and then he turned right around and refused to forgive a modest debt someone owed him.

The point is not hard to see; the king represents God, who forgives our massive and unimaginable debt of sins against him, and so how can we who have received such abundant forgiveness, fail to forgive those who have sinned against us in comparatively small ways.

Jesus is not saying sin against us is not serious. At times it is extremely serious, but in comparison with the forgiveness of God, it is small indeed. And when serious sin of a habitual and ongoing nature continues, the Scriptures give ways to deal with it through admonishment, church discipline, and even civil authorities (1 Thess. 5:14; Matt. 18:15-20; Rom. 12:17-13:7).

Yet, failing to be forgiving is a serious sin for believers. So serious that our eternal destiny is in view as is seen in Matthew 18:32-34.

For failing to forgive others the wicked servant is called before his master and cast into prison to pay off his own debts.

The point is made clear by Jesus in the last line of the parable in verse 35, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

This is a warning repeated by Jesus when teaching the disciples to pray in Matthew 6:12, “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” A failure to forgive indicates you do not understand the gospel at all.

When we rebel and sin against God, he doesn’t ignore our sin or minimize it. He also does not make us pay him back for it, but God takes the cost upon himself through the God-man Jesus Christ. Jesus is our substitute who pays our debts on the cross out of his love, mercy, and grace.

This is how God forgives us, who owe a debt far beyond what any mere human being could repay. This also, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is the catalyst for us to forgive others.

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
               – Ephesians 4:32