A Best Friend Forever

When someone has mistreated or hurt us, it feels like we have a right to hate that person. Even if we know the Bible teaches we should forgive, sometimes we just don’t want to.

One of the ways Jesus taught about forgiveness was by telling a parable where the king represents God and the servants represent us. The king in the story wants to make sure his finances are in order, and he discovers a servant owes him ten thousand talents. A talent is worth six thousand denarii. Since a working man received one denarius a day, one talent was equal to about twenty years’ wages. This servant owes ten thousand of these, a debt of over two hundred thousand years’ wages! It’s obvious the servant cannot pay back such an enormous amount of money. When the servant pleads with the king to be patient with him, what is the king’s response? The king has compassion and cancels the debt! Why would he do that? It is in the king’s character to be compassionate. Love and mercy are who the king is.

Now, this servant whose massive debt has just been forgiven finds a fellow servant who owes him money. How much? A hundred denarii, or a hundred days’ wages. Did you notice that the second servant’s plea is the same as the first servant’s plea to the king? The first servant has the legal right to jail the second servant who can’t pay his debt, but does he have the moral right?

That is the entire point of this parable. We owed a massive debt of sin to God, the holy King of everything. We could never pay back our debt. But God forgave our debt by paying it Himself: Jesus died on the cross for our sin, and He rose from the dead to give us new life! If we’ve put our trust in Jesus and received His forgiveness, He commands and equips us to show fellow sinners the same mercy He showed us. The sin others commit against us is incredibly small in comparison to Jesus’ mercy. And His Holy Spirit is in us, transforming us to become more and more like Jesus, the forgiving King. Once we receive forgiveness from God, we have no right to refuse to forgive others. • Doug Velting

• Are you struggling to forgive someone? God sees your hurt, and it’s a big deal to Him because He loves you. It cost Jesus greatly to forgive you, but it was worth it to Him. How might remembering how Jesus forgave you and relying on His Holy Spirit help you forgive others?

• In some cases, after we forgive someone, we still need to have healthy boundaries with them. Who are trusted Christians you can talk to about when and how to put up loving boundaries?

…forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. Ephesians 4:32b (CSB)

Read Verses:

John 15:9-17; 1 John 4:7-21