I'm going to get straight to the point. It is very natural to want to hold onto a grudge. From personal experience I know it is all too easy to stay mad at a person, rehearsing what they did to you over and over again in your mind. We somehow think that we are getting back at them by doing this, but we are only hurting ourselves.
Along with this practical reason to forgive, a parable told by Jesus gives a v powerful message regarding the vital importance of forgiveness at it relates to out relationship with God .
Pay attention to the character who we can compare to God and the one we can compare to ourselves.
“Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’" (Matthew 18:23-33)
Let's break the parable down. The master is God and the ungrateful servant is someone walking in unforgiveness. The tragedy of the story is that this servant was so filled with pride that he failed to realize the need for him to show mercy as his master had. The sum of ten thousand bags of gold is representative of the overwhelming weight of our sin that we could never hope to compensate for. The far lesser amount of the silver coins is indicative of a slight or wrongdoing committed against someone.
The main point of the parable is that we, as Christians cannot in our right minds go around holding grudges against people in view of how completely God has forgiven us. Our Father in heaven detests sin, and yet has chosen to lavish undeserved grace on us.
Furthermore, God expects us to show the same kind of mercy he has shown us, even when something far greater than a slight or betrayal has been committed against us. How might we do this? In our power? No. Only with God's help.
I know of no better example of what God can help us to forgive than the story behind Matthew West's song titled Forgiveness. It was part of an album where every song was based on true stories submitted to Matthew by listeners. The story behind each song was powerful and covered with God's fingerprints, but the one that really blew me away was the inspiration behind Forgiveness.
It is the story of a woman named Renee and a young man called Eric. Renee had four children, two of them twins. One of the twins named Rachael was driving home from the beach with her best friend one day when her car was struck by a drunk driver. That drunk driver was Eric, only 24 years old at the time. Rachael and her friend did not survive and Renee's life was never the same.
After coping with this horrific loss through her Christian faith and church family, Renee felt strongly led to go around to churches to speak about the dangers of drunk driving. She did this for 8 years or so before the Lord put something else on her heart. God told her, "You still have not forgiven Eric." It would be very easy to say, "Why would God ever expect her to do that?" When you read the incredible end of the story, you will know exactly why.
After wrestling with this for a time, Renee decided to let go of her bitterness and allow God to help her forgive Eric. So, in an amazing act of trust in God she reached out to Eric in prison. Then, in a meeting that could only have been God-ordained, Renee visited Eric in prison and said, "I forgive you." This short sentence had a profound impact on Eric. He would later say, "I couldn't even forgive myself, and she forgave me." In experiencing Renee's astounding act of forgiveness, Eric could see the kind of love Jesus offered him. He accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior, forever transforming his eternal destiny.
Eventually all of Renee's family members would express their own forgiveness. Tears would stream down Eric's face every time. But the story does not stop there. Renee approached a judge to have Eric's sentence of 22 years in prison reduced! Yes, you read that right. Stunned by the request, the Judge nonetheless agreed and Eric's sentence was cut in half. He was released in November of 2012. Soon after, he appeared at a series of Matthew West concerts alongside Renee, one of which I had the privilege to attend. I wil never forget that night.
Since then, Eric has joined Renee many times in her presentations about drunk driving, adding the beauty of an incredible story of forgiveness to an already moving call to avoid driving under the influence. All of this made possible by an act of forgiveness.
Now, not all of us will be called to forgive something so substantial, but this true story should remind us that God offers forgiveness to everyone, no matter how sinful they are. I am thankful for this fact.
Let us remember that before we knew Christ we were all in the same position: in danger of judgment from God. In reality, no sinner is really that different in the eyes of God. In view of that, we should all be able to say, as Paul did, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—and I am the worst of them all."
(1 Timothy 1:15 NLT)
We as Christians are all called to be like Christ. With His help, each and every one of us have the power to display a depth of forgiveness that Jesus himself demonstrated on the Cross. Even when he was being executed unjustly by evil men, he said, "Forgive them, Father. They do not know what they are doing."
So let us run unhindered by any grudges or bitterness in our hearts, ready to vibrantly display the love that God through Jesus has shown us!
