“Then Peter approached him and asked, “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times?” “I tell you, not as many as seven,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven.” Matthew 18:21-22 CSB
What do we do with this conversation? Many times in life we find people in our lives that don’t turn out to be who we hoped they would be, these people may be a coworker, a neighbor, a friend, cousin, brother or sister, grandparents, parents, or even a husband or wife. How gut wrenching it is when you discover deep down who they are to the core! What do we do? How do we respond? Well, as with any and all matters in life we should be turning to prayer and to The Word, the Bible. Unfortunately, we usually will respond with a fleshly response, such as: “I’ll teach them a lesson!”, “There is no way I can forgive you for what you have done!”, or “I hate you!” . I have to admit the old saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will not hurt”, is a false statement, granted maybe it works with kiddie name calling, but even name calling can hurt. So where does that leave us? What is the answer? As we look at the world through worldly eyes we come to conclusion on a lot of matters in life are impossible to resolve but when we go to the scripture Jesus tells us “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”(Matthew 19:26), let me add this was also during one of those “Truly I tell you” moments from Jesus, and what Jesus means is “to listen up, I’m about say something very important!” You see, we should not rely on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5), we need to turn it over to God, we need to look at the person that has hurt us, harmed us, lied to you through the eye of Jesus, because that person is still a soul that needs Jesus just like you. This is what Jesus was telling Peter, it does not matter how many times you are hurt by someone you forgive them, even if they are repeat offenders with you or others. Release the hurt and anger over to God, the healing answer is through Jesus Christ. Jesus is the answer to all the hurt in this world. Look at it like this, every time you sin, you are hurting Jesus, you have placed another strike to him but does he give up on you and walk away from you? No, Jesus is still right there with you and wants to pick you up and carry you through, you just need to trust Him. Believe in Jesus today! Believe Jesus died for your sins and was resurrected from the grave and is now at the right hand of God ruling with all power and authority!
If you have made a commitment to accept Jesus as your Savior, please reach out to us and let us know. We would love to pray for you.
“May the Lord bless you and protect you” Numbers 6:24