Forgive, No Matter What

I was reading Luke 17 the other day, and while I’ve written posts about this topic I have never written them about this particular passage. This post is about forgiveness, now usually when I write about forgiveness I write about the passage where Jesus told Peter to forgive his brother 77 (or 70 times 7) times. This passage is different though. Luke 17: 3-4 says “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” Who here hates it when someone does the same thing over and over again and always says they’re sorry but does it again? I’m sure many do, because I do. I hate it when that happens. Yet Jesus commands us to forgive those around us. Lately my forgiveness has been pushed to its limits; sometimes there are things that seem unforgiveable. But they have to be forgiven! What kind life is one lived not forgiving? I used to carry around all the pain and hurt in my life and live in the past. I’d dwell on things that happened, 5, 10, or even 15 years ago. But then I realized something very important: it doesn’t matter. What someone did to me 10 years ago or 10 minutes ago doesn’t matter anymore because that was the past and I live in the present. Sure I’ve been hurt, but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because I find my security and strength in God, not in other people and certainly not in my pride. Forgiveness doesn’t mean saying “what you did was ok” instead it means saying “what you did was wrong, but I won’t hold it against you, live in the past, and let it rule over my life.” What happened in the past is in the past, the minute you start letting the past dictate who you are you let the devil win because you stop being everything that God wanted you to be. God has grand plans for all of us, and in order to fully realize those plans we have to drop our swords and shields, take a step of faith, and move on from the past. Forgiveness is tough, but a life without forgiveness much more difficult.