Then Peter came to him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?" "No!" Jesus replied, "seventy times seven!" Matthew 18:21-22 (NLT)
Seventy times seven equals four hundred and ninety. WOW! That is a lot. Do you think we are to stop at 490 or keep on forgiving?
At what point do you stop subjecting yourself to the hurt? At what point do you sever the ties and move on even if they are a family member? Or do you? Do you keep making them aware of the problem? Is it the Christian thing to do to keep taking the abuse?
I know I just thought about the fact that if you forgive them of the sin it is erased.So in other words we should not be counting. HMMMH! What if they never ask for forgiveness? Does that change things?
Comments please.
1 comment:
You can fully forgive someone, but you don't have to restore the relationship....even if the other person wants to. R.T. Kendall has a WONDERFUL book on forgiveness called Total Forgiveness that I would recommend to anyone who's having issues along these lines. (He also has a book about forgiving ourselves, which is often harder than forgiving others.)
We should forgive others because that's what Christ expects of us. When the hurt is so deep that we can't forgive on our own, He helps us. Often times the ones who hurt us the most will never ask for forgiveness. (We forgive for ourselves not for the offender. ) And if you tell this person who hurt you so deeply and didn't even bother to say "I'm sorry" that you forgive them....90% will say, "for what??"
RT Kendall ministries: http://rtkendallministries.com/
Hope this helps. I KNOW the book will....and you probably have some of RT's books in your store. If not, you might look into that!!
~Meg
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