Is there someone who gets on your last nerve?
How about someone you have forgiven of the same thing multiple times and yet they keep messing up?
Let’s get real. It may be easier to forgive someone from your past than someone in your present.
Peter had had it. We don’t know who had ticked him off. Peter was somewhat of a loose cannon, but he was really trying to live the way Jesus was teaching.
But he thought there must be some limit on how many times you can forgive someone. After all, after awhile, aren’t you being a doormat? How can you trust someone to be any different if you just keep forgiving them?
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven.”
Matthew 18:21-22
Peter did not have a calculator, but he immediately grasped that would be a bunch of times. Much more than he wanted. But Peter, even in his still immature state, loved Jesus. And so he continued on the journey.
We don’t have a report card for Peter, but we know he must have mastered the art of forgiveness, as he became the rock on which the church was built.
Let’s look a little closer at this issue. Someone who needs your repeated forgiveness is probably someone who is in your life or at least comes back into it again and again.
Isn’t repetitive forgiving just enabling them? No. Forgiveness does not mean you do not set boundaries for behavior. Jesus called out people when they needed it. He spoke clearly. He acted quickly and decisively. People knew where he stood.
And like a parent with a child, sometimes it took more than one time of setting boundaries to get through to people. But He used each opportunity to show love.
Forgiving like God is an interesting process. Forgiving seventy times seven was really only training wheels for Peter. The more he learned about God, the more he would understand God does not keep count of how many times He has forgiven us.
God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah,
“I will forgive their evil ways.
I will not remember their sins anymore.”
Jeremiah 31:31–34
The problem is we do remember. We have an imaginary counter. When we forgive, we remind those we are forgiving how many times they have messed up before and how grateful they should be that we are forgiving them again.
We put ourselves in a martyred position of “I don’t know why I put up with you.” And we may pronounce those words of condemnation that sink deep into a person’s soul — “You will never change.”
If they believe that, they will continue to need forgiveness over and over again.
But in God’s way of forgiveness, every time of sin is the first time. If we believe what He said through Jeremiah, then when we say to Him, “I’m sorry. I did it again,” He would say “I don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t remember that sin.”
Right after Jesus told Peter to keep forgiving, He told the story of the man whose large debt had been forgiven by The Master, but then the forgiven man refused to forgive the smaller debt of someone else.
The master was not pleased.
How many times have we been forgiven and will need to be forgiven again by God and other people?
Fortunately God is not counting … and we shouldn’t either.
