Matthew 18:23-35 (AMP)
Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the accounting, one who owed him 10,000 talents was brought to him. But because he could not repay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and his children and everything that he possessed, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees and begged him, saying, “Have patience with me and I will repay you everything.” And his master’s heart was moved with compassion and he released him and forgave him [canceling] the debt. But that same slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began choking him, saying, “Pay what you owe!” So his fellow slave fell on his knees and begged him earnestly, “Have patience with me and I will repay you.” But he was unwilling and he went and had him thrown in prison until he paid back the debt. When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply grieved and they went and reported to their master [with clarity and in detail] everything that had taken place. Then his master called him and said to him, “You wicked and contemptible slave, I forgave all that [great] debt of yours because you begged me. Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave [who owed you little by comparison], as I had mercy on you?” And in wrath his master turned him over to the torturers (jailers) until he paid all that he owed. My heavenly Father will also do the same to [every one of] you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.
Understanding forgiveness is difficult. It is so difficult to grasp, in fact, that Jesus puts it in a parable because the straight dosage of its truth is too much to swallow. In today’s text, we see a servant indebted to a king for an amount that would be about $10,000 in today’s standards. We don’t know any details of the debt—there is no mention of when the original debt was due or how far past the deadline the servant was. We have no details other than the debt itself.
The pain of potentially losing his family made the servant fall to his knees to beg. The king is moved with compassion and cancels the entire debt. Perhaps that is why we don’t know the details of the debt. The power is not in the size of the debt, but the size of the forgiveness. That is what makes this next move for the servant shocking, offensive, and spiritually twisted. The same servant who was just forgiven this huge debt walks away with the gift of grace, compassion, restoration, and life. He seeks out his fellow servant who owes him money—in today’s standards, about $20—and he demands repayment. He has his fellow servant thrown in prison until he can pay back what he owes.
All of us are living with the spiritual forgiveness that freed our lives and restored our chance to live life to the fullest. With that forgiveness from God, we are also expected to honor forgiveness by indiscriminately giving forgiveness to someone who needs to be forgiven. Gift to others what God has gifted to you. Give grace, give mercy, give generosity—as God does. Since God has given love to us, we in turn ought to give love to one another. God never wants you to withhold from extending the grace He has given you to another’s life.
I can’t find it in me to be critical and cruel to others because every day I must live with the reminder of how much debt God swallowed to keep me alive. I can’t understand how some can be mean and judgmental when God wiped out our debt with the blood of His only son. However, I do suspect that some of us have misinterpreted, misapplied, mismanaged, or misappropriated the power of God’s forgiveness until some of us are meaner Christians than we were sinners. The irony is astounding.
Perhaps the servant was so confused, so traumatized, so twisted with emotion that his regret for needing forgiveness in the first place overcame him. His resentment at having to be helped caused him to act with wickedness. He resented that he had to beg for forgiveness, so he shifted the resentment onto someone else.
We struggle with being able to absorb God’s grace. We are good at celebrating His grace, but we are not always great at stewarding His grace. We want to get where we are going in life with our beauty, brains, and brawn. We don’t want to recognize that we are where we are because of God’s grace and mercy. Do not practice resentment and act out because you are embarrassed to be living under the canopy of grace. Don’t apologize for grace; let it shape you. Let it change you. You wouldn’t be here without it.
Thoughts to remember this week:
• It’s all grace.
• Life doesn’t get better by chance, it gets better by change.
• Every day that God wakes you up, be thankful for the different stops He provides for you along the way.
• Forgive others, for you have been shown mercy and God has wiped your debt clean.
