Stop Keeping Score

You have to love Peter here. The teachers of his day said forgiving someone three times was plenty, so Peter doubles that, throws in one more, and offers seven. You can almost see him waiting for the “good job” from Christ. Instead, when Peter told Jesus, He answers with “seventy times seven” not giving Peter a bigger number to track but saying, if you’re still counting, you haven’t really forgiven.

Then Jesus tells a story of a servant that owes the king millions, more than he could pay back in ten lifetimes, and the king wipes it clean. That same servant walks out the door, finds a guy who owes him a few thousand, and grabs him by the throat. The servant had just been shown the biggest mercy of his life, yet he couldn’t let go of some pocket change.

That’s us. We’ve been forgiven a debt we could never repay, and we still hang on to the coworker who threw us under the bus, the relative who said that thing at Thanksgiving, and the friend who never paid back the forty bucks. Forgiving them doesn’t mean what they did was okay, and it doesn’t mean you hand them the keys again. It means you quit being the collector and let God settle the account. And look at how that servant’s story ends: he ends up in the slammer. A grudge always locks up the person holding it.

Forgive them, let it go and I promise you’ll have a peace that surpasses all understanding.