A Lot Of Forgiveness

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?  Up to seven times?”

Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.”

Matthew 18:21-22

“Are you mad at me?”

“Yes.”

“Why are you mad at me?”

“You know .”

“No, I don’t.”

“You know!”

The thing about being human is that our humanness invades every inch of our lives including our relationships with one another.  We all make mistakes and those mistakes can hurt or offend our friends and relatives.  And, this same humanness can cause us to carry grudges against one another for years and years.  One of us is angry and the other one does not know why.  Our pride gets in the way of us doing what is right. 

Jesus said the right thing to do is to forgive.  So, we forgive – with or without an apology from those who offended us. 

And, I don’t think it hurts for us to apologize, even if we think we are right, just to clean things up so we can get on with God’s work.

Seventy times seven is a lot of forgiveness.