Dave's Diary

Prayer

Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word.

Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this prayer:

Almighty God, Your Word often confronts me with difficult and challenging truths. Help me to receive Your Word humbly and reverently, with an obedient and submissive heart. And empower me to walk in Your ways in response to Your Word. Amen.

Reading

Matthew 18:21-35

As disciples of Jesus, today’s passage is certainly one we find very challenging. Jesus commands us to relate to our brothers- and sisters-in-Christ with limitless grace and forgiveness (v.21-22).

Living in community with other fallen human beings is really difficult. My imperfections have a way of rubbing up against your imperfections until at some inevitable point irritation, frustration, hurt feelings, angry words or something similar unfolds. The likelihood of a believer nursing a grudge and building a wall of hostility and unforgiveness against a fellow believer remains high, despite our mutual commitment to Jesus.

Peter heard Jesus’ teaching about doing everything in one’s power to reconcile oneself to a fellow believer from whom one has become estranged, even to the point of enlisting the help of another believer and praying together fervently before going to seek reconciliation (Matthew 18:12-20). And when he heard Jesus teach this way, Peter thought he was being incredibly generous by suggesting that a disciple of Jesus was probably expected to forgive up to seven times. But Jesus took it off the chart with His response in v.22: “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!”

Probably seeing the look of disbelief on Peter’s face, Jesus told the striking parable in verses 23-35. The point of the parable is very simple. If you think that forgiving others up to seven times is generous, you have clearly overestimated your own goodness, and underesimated the extent to which God has been willing to extend His gracious, merciful forgiveness to you!

No human being is capable of building up a spiritual debt to me, a mere human, that comes remotely close to the spiritual debt I owe to the LORD for a lifetime of sin. God’s forgiveness of me will always vastly outweigh any forgiveness He expects me to extend towards another. And if we consider this objectively, we will realise exactly how true it is.

To be brutally honest, I think the reason we battle with this teaching so much is simple … it is pride. It is an inflated sense of my own goodness and an unwillingness to accept that I am as much a sinner as the person who has sinned against me in some way. And until I accept that this is true, nand humble myself, I will remain resistant to the call to forgive!

Contemplation

Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn one or more of these declarations over and over in your mind. Keep them in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.

As a disciple of Jesus Christ:

• I will search my heart and life and honestly admit my sins to God.
• I will call that reality to mind when others sin against me.
• I will allow the power of God’s limitless grace towards me to overflow through me to others who have wronged me.

Heavenly Father, please fill me with a fresh realisation of Your gracious, merciful forgiveness and cause it to overflow through me to anyone who wrongs me today. Amen.