Forgiveness

https://odb.org/2026/03/11/the-release-of-forgiveness

Matthew 18: 21-34 NIV Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’ 22 Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23 ‘Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 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. 26 ‘At this the servant fell on his knees before him. “Be patient with me,” he begged, “and I will pay back everything.” 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go. 28 ‘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. 29 ‘His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, “Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.” 30 ‘But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 ‘Then the master called the servant in. “You wicked servant,” he said, “I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

Decades later a Christian friend said, “You need to forgive them.” Sy’s anger exploded: “Never!” His tormentors deserved no such thing. Yet when Sy finally did try forgiveness, a weight lifted. “[The] hatred was the first thing I let go of,” he recalls, and later he also abandoned his belief “that God’s love was something I did not deserve and could never know”.

We all struggle with the unfairness of forgiveness—both in receiving and in giving it. Hence, Jesus told the story of the servant who owed his master a debt he would need lifetimes to repay (Matthew 18:24). Yet the master “took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go” (v. 27). Was this fair? No, it was astonishing grace!But then this forgiven man threw a debtor—someone who owed him a relatively small amount—into prison (vv. 28-30). How could he not forgive after receiving abundant grace? Such injustice! (Chris Wale, Our Daily Bread 11th March 2026)

“To err is human, to forgive, divine,” wrote poet Alexander Pope. Indeed, it is divine. We tend to fall into one of two traps with forgiveness. The first is the belief that what we do doesn’t matter because we can ask for forgiveness later. The second is that we limit God’s forgiveness. The point of the parable in Matthew 18:23–35 is that God forgives lavishly and infinitely, yet we must accept His forgiveness and behave accordingly. We’re to forgive others as we’ve been forgiven. True forgiveness is unnatural to us. Only through Jesus can we truly forgive. (Tim Gustafson, Insight, Our Daily Bread 11th March 2026)

It is a tenet of our faith that we forgive despite and inspite of what we have gone through. It doesn’t depend on the severity of the offence or wrong against us or our suffering or consequential impact on our life. We forgive because God first forgave us. Not that He commands us. But because we are forgiven. No matter how angry, painful or hurt we are, we forgive because He had forgiven us. When we meet Him face to face and He asks us why we couldn’t forgive, I believe He’ll say the same thing – I forgave you and thus you should likewise forgive.

That in my view is the essence of Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 18 in the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant. How could the servant be so unmerciful? In fact, we could say how could the servant be so ungrateful? Granted his receipt of the mercy and grace from the master doesn’t directly corelate to him being obliged to forgive his own debtor. Yet at the very heart of the Parable, the expectation is that one should be merciful when God was and is merciful to us. That is why, in the same vein, we must be generous when God has been generous to us. Not so much tithing but just being generous as a person.

We all know very well unforgiveness is a poison that kills us instead of the person who had wronged us. So holding on tightly to the hatred and injustice just slowly eats us up from within. Let it go and let the Holy Spirit liberate us. What’s happened has happened. It’s in the past. Let it remain there. Don’t bring it to the present or relive it again and again. Move on to the greater things God has in store for us. There are new adventures the Lord will bring us to. New missions for Him in the Kingdom of God. Great exploits in our own promised land. Be strong and courageous like Joshua. Leave our baggage and burden behind in the wilderness as we cross the River Jordan into the land filled with overflowing milk and honey!

The other thing about unforgiveness besides killing us softly and slowly is that it alienates us from God Himself. In His world, it is a world of forgiveness. The spiritual realm is a realm of forgiveness. We cannot function if we harbour hatred, unforgiveness and vengeance. Forgive and let our past go. Look to our continued future in God!