Forgive and Forget

We do not realize the truth that God had already forgiven our sins... We need to accept His total forgiveness... and believe that He has delivered us from the bondage of sins, vices, and the spirit of darkness in our lives.

In the Gospel of our Lord according to Matthew 18:21-35, we read: "Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, if my brother keeps on sinning against me, how many times do I have to forgive him? Seven times? ‘No, not seven times,’ answered Jesus, ‘but seventy times seven, because the Kingdom of Heaven is like this.

Once there was a king who decided to check on his servants' accounts. He had just begun to do so when one of them was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. The servant did not have enough to pay his debt, so the king ordered him to be sold as a slave, with his wife and his children and all that he had, in order to pay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before the king. "Be patient with me," he begged, "and I will pay you everything!" The king felt sorry for him, so he forgave him the debt and let him go. Then the man went out and met one of his fellow servants who owed him a few dollars. He grabbed him and started choking him. "Pay back what you owe me!" he said. His fellow servant fell down and begged him, "Be patient with me, and I will pay you back!" But he refused; instead, he had him thrown into jail until he should pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were very upset and went to the king and told him everything. So he called the servant in. "You worthless slave!" he said. "I forgave you the whole amount you owed me, just because you asked me to. You should have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you." The king was very angry, and he sent the servant to jail to be punished until he should pay back the whole amount.’ And Jesus concluded, ‘That is how my Father in heaven will treat every one of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.’"

When I was reading this Gospel, the first thing that caught my attention was the great amount of "millions of dollars" that the servant owed the king and how the former earnestly begged the latter to extend the due date for the payment of his debt. This clearly shows that the servant did not realize that he could never repay that amount in his lifetime.

And, in verse 27, when the master took pity on the servant, he forgave him and cancelled all of his debt. But he misunderstood his master and thought that he was simply given ample time to pay for his debt. Had he understood what his master had done, he would have rejoiced and stopped finding ways to pay off his debt. So, he forced his fellow servant to pay him the amount of "a few dollars," which was just a fraction of his debt to his master. But despite the pleadings of his fellow servant to give him time, the wicked servant had him thrown into prison until such time that he would be able to pay his debt.

Just like the wicked servant, we do not understand the grievousness of our sins and indebtedness to God. The truth is, even if we are given 100 or 200 years to live here on earth, we could never repay our indebtedness to God.

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