By inference, He didn’t mean stop at 491. Jesus said, “ No, seventy times seven.” Four hundred and ninety. Peter asked the Lord, “If a person sins against me, how many times shall I forgive him? Seven times?” (a perfect number). Remember Matthew 18:15, “G o tell him secretly, and if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.” When Adam and Eve sinned against God in the Garden of Eden, God didn’t sit in Heaven saying, “Well, I’m going to wait, and if perhaps they come to Me, I might be persuaded to forgive them.” God came to the Garden and said, “ Adam, Adam, where are you?” It wasn’t the voice of a detective, but a brokenhearted God, seeking the one who had sinned against Him, ready to forgive. Isn’t that what God has done for us? “ We love Him because He first loved us,” 1 John 4:19 says. You should be so anxious to forgive, you chase them down and catch them in order to forgive them. After I’ve gotten my pound of flesh, then perhaps I’ll forgive.” Forgive freely. None of this, “I’m going to teach them how much I’ve been hurt. His forgiveness is free, spontaneous, and quick. To forgive as Jesus forgave, it must be offered: As His follower, you will experience a little personal Gethsemane and Calvary if you truly forgive someone who has deeply hurt you. Jesus is the model, and He paid the price: redemption through His blood. But an unforgiving spirit, rancor, and hostility drive away the lost. People can sense the fellowship, the love of God in a church. One of the earliest church fathers, Tertullian, once said that because of the love for one another among believers, he imagined the pagan world was looking on them, saying, “ Behold, how these Christians love each other!”īelievers’ love for one another is one of our strongest witnesses. Possibly the church’s greatest evangelistic outreach is the love we have one for another. He wins a victory when you fail to forgive. Have you ever been in a church where there is a church fuss or fight? The devil had rather start a falling out within a church than sell a barrel of whiskey any day. When your children fuss and fight, it disgraces you as their parent, does it not? If bitterness, unforgiveness and grudges reside in your heart and the hearts of other believers, this brings disgrace upon the Lord. Unforgiveness brings consequences-consequences that damage the name of Christ. Think about what happens when people who represent the name of Jesus live with broken relationships. When you forgive, you heal a broken relationship and you gain back a brother. ![]() A brother is a precious thing to have and a terrible thing to lose. If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother.” The first of these Scriptures says, “ be reconciled to your brother.” The second says, “ Thou hast gained thy brother. Jesus again says in Matthew 18:15, “ Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. ![]() Jesus tells him, “ Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way first be reconciled to thy brother, then come and offer thy gift.” Matthew 5:24. Our Lord talks about a worshipper who brings a gift to the temple, but then remembers there’s a problem between him and someone else. We saw the grace factor, the guilt factor, and the grief factor. In Part One we also saw how we can forgive-a description of how we can do it. So we must consistently and continually forgive. They are new every morning” Lamentations 3:22-23. Remember, “ The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. No, He forgives us every day, for each day we have sinned and need forgiveness. God didn’t just forgive us once, and that was it for all time. We saw that God compels us to forgive because, first, He has forgiven us, and secondly, if we are to have His nature and be conformed to His image, we must extend mercy to others the same way He extends it to us every day. ![]() In Part One, we looked at the reasons why every believer must come face to face with the difficult issue of forgiveness-and how we can come to forgive, even when we have been greatly wronged.
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