From the Master’s Teachings

This month’s devotional highlight comes from my eighth 30-Day Devotional “From the Master’s Teachings,” which was originally released in June of 2023. For this one, I mostly selected passages of scripture containing teaching material from Jesus during His earthly ministry and wrote devotionals from those passages, as you probably gathered from the title of the study. However, I also included some passages where Jesus’ words and interactions with individuals were instructive. And, after not writing an introduction at all for “The Greatest of These,” opting to use 1 Corinthians 13:13 instead, I went back to writing introductions with this devotional and had a lot of fun with the intro for this one.

As usual given my indecisive nature, I struggled with choosing which specific devotional to use for this highlight. I narrowed it down to four and then wound up going with Day 6, which wasn’t even one of the four. But, “Forgiven Much” caught my eye as I was struggling to make a decision, and after rereading it, I thought, “This is the one.” So, I hope you enjoy it.

Forgiven Much

“…O thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me:  Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellowservant, even as I had pity on thee?” -Matthew 18:32-33

Matthew 18:21-35

In today’s passage, Peter comes to Jesus with a question. He wants to know just how many times he has to forgive the brother who sins against him and thinks that seven times seems reasonable enough.  Jesus, however, doesn’t agree. He tells Peter to forgive him 70 times seven, which means to just keep forgiving and not keep count. Jesus then shares a parable to drive home His point.

In the familiar parable, a servant, after being forgiven a debt he couldn’t possibly repay in a lifetime by his lord, throws one of his fellowservants in prison for a far less substantial debt. When the lord of the unforgiving servant hears about this, he punishes the unforgiving servant severely and requires the debt in full.

After sharing the parable, Jesus makes a powerful statement, saying, “So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses” (Matthew 18:35).

True forgiveness from the heart is not easy. Oh, sure, it’s easy to forgive the person who accidentally bumps into us and apologizes profusely. And, it’s not all that hard to forgive the stranger who’s rude to us and ruins our day because we forget all about it by the next day. Forgiving the person who’s the reason we have trouble trusting people, forgiving the person who left us with painful scars, or forgiving the person we’re just going to have to forgive again for the same thing? Well, that’s an entirely different story…

But, we need to remember that we’re the servant who’s been forgiven much. If we’re saved, our Lord has forgiven us a sin-debt we’d spend eternity in hell for and never pay off. We’ve been forgiven for rebellion and that against our own loving Creator. We’ve been forgiven for repeated sins. We’ve been forgiven for secret sins no one knows about. We’ve been forgiven much–so much. The debts we’re owed are nothing in comparison to the debt we’ve been forgiven. Thus, we should freely forgive from the heart.

Remember you’ve been forgiven much.