Matthew 18:21-22 (NIV)
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?”
[22] Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Christmas is highly overrated. Not the original reason for the season, but the man made expectations placed on it through our ever growing consumer hoopla and our never ceasing hope for relational bliss. I hope the Christmas holiday was a huge fun event for you and yours. I have to admit, mine was above average this year. But if your Christmas experience went off without a hitch, I suspect you are either in denial or terminally unique!
I got a little kick back yesterday when I suggested that forgiveness be our focus now that the festivities have ended. “Not everyone has dysfunctional families,” was the comment made to me. Ok, point taken. But no one has perfect families either. Relationships are messy both in the home and in the church.
When Jesus told us to forgive 490 times I don’t believe he was giving us the magic number for developing a no-fail grace dispensing mechanism in our bodies. I believe he wanted us to realize how powerless we are to resolve our own resentments. 490 is a big number. It’s an impossible number. It’s a number that tells us we will never be done with forgiving. It’s a number that tells us we can never get it right without God.
The key to resolving the relational messes in our lives is to surrender those messes (and those relationships) to the one who bridged the gap for all of us. I thought this might be helpful for all of us who had the “Wasn’t exactly what I wanted, didn’t turn out as I planned,” Christmas. He’s still God. And He’s still good. tim