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Lord
How Often Should I Forgive
Someone Who Sins Against Me? Seven Times?
Scripture
21 Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”
22 “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!
Observation
Forgiveness
is a gift! If you wrong someone and you hurt him or her and they forgive you
then what they did was give you a “gift of forgiveness”. You did it. You were
wrong. And instead of hating you, resenting you, getting even with you, or
hurting you back, they gave you a gift called “forgiveness”.
How
many times do we forgive before we can finally hate them, hurt them, write them
off, divorce them, shoot them, or at least kick them to the curb? Simon Peter
might have had one of the other disciples in mind when he asked Jesus this
question or maybe it was even having trouble with his wife, who knows, but it
was someone that had wronged him a lot!
You
and I can hold a grudge, we can stay angry, and we can even fume with
resentment. We can refuse to grant or give the gift of forgiveness. It is our
choice. But when we refuse to forgive something happens and that something that
happens is something that happens to us and not to the person we refuse to
forgive. We become a damaged, ugly, distorted, angry, critical spirit that no
one enjoys to be around.
Always
remember that “hurt people” hurt people.
The
only way to deal with the “hurt” and to get rid of it is to gift the person
that wronged you the gift of forgiveness!
Lord,
how many times do I have to forgive the sorry rascal? How many times? Seven times?
No,
Seventy times seven!
Can
I also mention that refusing to forgive someone allows that person to control
you? It seems strange but it is true!
Application
I will try my best to give the gift of forgiveness
quickly and not hold on to and nurse a grudge.
Prayer
Daily Bible Reading: 1 Chronicles 14,15; Psalm 132; Matthew 18
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