Daily Verse: Luke 17:4

“If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him”

 

If we view the text above with the “lens” of this world, it sounds like complete nonsense. Forgiving a person over and over as they continue to sin against us makes us suckers, weaklings, pushovers. Right?  If we lived by the “rule” of this world, by man’s flawed logic and reasoning, then the answer would probably be “yes”…we would be pushovers. But as disciples of Christ, we don’t live by the ways of this world…we lives by the ways of the Savior…we live by His words and commands. We are to live in the same love and forgiveness that we receive daily from the Lord. The text above captures exactly what Jesus does for us day in and day out. Over the course of a given day, we sin against Him A LOT…numerous times. Some sins we are aware of and can recount, while others we may not even pause to realize. And he forgives them ALL….when we repent, he washes them ALL away…repeatedly! Imagine if Jesus were like one of us…imagine if by the third or fourth time in the day that we mess up, crawling back to him tuck-tailed, he finally reaches his level of tolerance and patience and pushes us aside, disgusted by our repeated sinful behavior. Then where would we be? Thankfully Jesus doesn’t do that…thankfully he embraces us each time we return with a love that we simply cannot logically explain. We are to mirror this same incredibly love in our interactions with others…forgiving every time someone repents and asks for our forgiveness. And don’t think for a second that this display of love somehow makes us weak. For in displaying this repeated forgiveness and love, we are mirroring the actions of the strongest, toughest, and most powerful Man to ever walk this earth! There is nothing weak about extending forgiveness! To God be the glory!