Being a Christian comes with heavy demands. One of them is forgiveness. Jesus does not mince words in Luke 17:3-4 saying, “Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
True Christians forgive. Always. The Bible is clear about what love looks like and forgiveness is the hallmark of love. Nowhere is this more important than in our marriages. Countless times I have heard Christians say things like “I’m tired of him/her. I’m done with them.” These complaints come from things as serious as adultery but also are spoken about the littlest things like leaving clothes on the floor instead of picking them up and putting them in the laundry basket. Listen to Jesus as recorded by Dr. Luke.
Luke 17:3-4
Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
Notice anything there? Look again. “…if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”
The implication here made by Jesus is that people are going to often do the same thing over and over. And we do. All of us. Our reaction is to say, “Enough! I am tired of you doing the same thing over and over.” But Jesus says that doesn’t matter.
Most people don’t like this verse and want to argue it out. The truth of what Jesus is saying is that we are not to stop forgiving. Instead of harboring resentment towards others we need to follow our command to forgive. Become about restoration. Yes we are supposed to confront each other with our sins. Jesus did say to rebuke the sinner. But then forgive him. Then help him.
We can change marriages and relationships by simply living this out. Is it easy? No, but the true Christian is not left to fight this through alone.
I leave you with more words from Jesus that explains how to live this out.
John 14:15-17
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. “
Make forgiveness a priority in all your relationships. It will change your world.
No comments:
Post a Comment