What are you owed?
It is so hard to forgive when you've been genuinely wronged. Especially if the wrong was personal.
Of course, it would be so much easier to make amends if "so and so" would just admit what a jerk he is! A little groveling at our feet wouldn't hurt either. After all, the offender owes us at least that much, right?
In truth, there are times when offenses against us genuinely merit retribution of some sort. An apology. A financial settlement. A show of proper gratitude.
Last night, as I sat in a Good Friday service at my church, it dawned on me that if anyone deserves to be offended, to demand apologies and payback..then surely it is a pure and loving God. But if God reached beyond his offense and sought us out "while we were yet sinners," to draw us back to himself, can I do less?*
What if God went further? What if he declared to all mankind for all time: "My only Son--my very heart--took your debt on himself, paying it fully with his life. I exchanged your life for His. Your debt is hereby canceled."
"Now, come back to me. Come back to your heavenly Father, and live in eternal friendship with me--and with my Son who took your place."
What if God said that?
How can I...How can we, then, look at what someone "owes" us and say, "It's not enough. I won't be satisfied--I won't budge until this debt is paid." Christ paid our debt--and the debt that others owe to us--in order to reconcile us to himself, to our heavenly Father, and to one another.
I can do no less.
*Romans 5:8 "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Matthew 18:21-35
