“Then Peter came to Him and asked, ‘Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?’ ‘No, not seven times,’ Jesus replied, ‘But seventy times seven!’” (Matthew 18:21-22 NLT)
Like forgiveness, grace is a choice. How so? In the verses above Peter wasn’t questioning the fact of forgiveness, but the frequency; he wasn’t questioning the need to forgive, but the number of times before he could stop forgiving. And what was Jesus’ response? We never reach that number!
In a Family Life article without an author’s name, I read: “Overlooking the same old offenses is tough for a lot of reasons. We tend to think, If you really cared about me, you’d change. Or, This is just a representation of a bigger problem. Sometimes, both of those things have validity. But sometimes our spouses—and we—are just profoundly human.
Sometimes, we’re keeping a tally and creating a culture in our homes that demands perfection rather than gushing grace. We’re keeping that record of wrongs because it feeds that slight superiority over our spouse, gives us a reason to guard that grudge, or hands us just cause to keep our spouse at arm’s length.
But the world runs on giving us what we deserve, on insisting we perform in order to be loved. Our homes could be different. What would it look like to choose grace? To choose patience, tenderness? To let it go? Leave some wiggle room for each other, some warmth around the edges. Make your family a place of refuge from conditional love.”
It occurs to me to ask: “What if Jesus had set a limit on His grace? What if instead of loving the world, He chose to love only Jews or only those who are really kind or only those of His skin color, nationality or preference, or…?” What if Jesus had arbitrarily drawn the proverbial line in the sand and decided “this many and no more!” and you were the next in line after the last one was chosen?
To seek to limit grace is to cease to be like Jesus. When I’m honest I have to admit I don’t deserve to be forgiven or invited into His holy presence; I’ve done nothing deserving of being treated like a child of the King. Yet, He continues to forgive and forget, freeing me to take another step in the direction of His likeness.
How dare us to not forgive others when we’ve been lavished with such undeniable love and grace! Philip Yancey wrote: “I doubt God keeps track of how many arguments we win; God may indeed keep track of how well we love.” It’s simple to say, “Love as we’ve been loved; forgive as we’ve been forgiven,” but that’s the essence of the golden rule.
Jesus has set the example – in loving, sacrificing, forgiving, caring, helping, and in every other category with which we’ll ever be faced. John Stonestreet often says: “Choices have consequences. Bad choices have victims.” How many in our families, among our friends, and in our spheres of influence are victims of our bad choices.
Bob Kauflin said: “To worship God is to humble everything about ourselves and exalt everything about him.” How better to exalt Jesus in our worship of Him than by choosing to extend grace rather than condemnation, anger, and shame. Offering grace is a choice. It’s a choice Jesus chose and the choice I want to always choose. Why? Because I want my life to be a living sacrifice to God as an expression of my love and dependence upon Him, illustrated by the way I forgive and treat others. That can only be accomplished by choosing grace.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 