Divine Intentions: God’s Plan For Your FutureSample

THE FORGIVENESS FACTOR

You are never more like your Savior than when you forgive. There is also healing in the act. Your restoration is not complete until you forgive those who have wounded you. 

In Matthew 18, after Jesus teaches His disciples what to do if a brother or sister in the church sins, Peter asks Jesus how often he should forgive someone who sins against him. “Seven times?” he wonders. Why does he ask this? Maybe Peter has been hurt by someone who claimed to follow Jesus. His question is interesting because he turns forgiveness into a mathematical equation. Peter probably feels like he is being generous by offering to forgive someone seven times. 

Then Jesus causes the math to go crazy. “No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!” Some translations say seventy-seven times, but others say Jesus pushes the forgiveness quotient to an exhausting 490 times. Poor Peter must have been dumbfounded. But Jesus is saying, “Stop trying to count offenses and stop measuring forgiveness.” Rather than giving us a baseline number of how many times we must show grace, Jesus was telling us that forgiveness is a never-ending circle of receiving and giving grace. We breathe in His forgiveness and we breathe out forgiveness to others. Forgiveness is a lifestyle, not an event. 

If you have been hurt deeply, you may have to forgive daily. It may take weeks or even months for your mind and emotions to catch up with your intentional choice to forgive. We must forgive, even if it takes us 490 times—or more. Eventually, the mental scenarios of revenge will come to an end. The urge toward self-preservation will fade. Payback will be replaced by pay it forward.

When it comes to God’s grace, trust the process. You will be restored when you refuse to take revenge. God is your protector and your justice; you do not have to be in charge. Mercy will ultimately triumph over judgment. Embrace your Savior’s math and become an endless forgiver. 

Forgiveness is not about letting someone get away with what they have done; it’s about transferring the responsibility for dealing with what happened to God. He is the only one who can truly administer justice.