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Yesterday, today and forever is a long long time. Have you ever thought about it? That the days
since time began are like the stars in the sky themselves. More than we can fathom. And yet God's
forgiveness spans them all. When we surrender to Christ, when we repent, forgiveness is extended to
us, not just for yesterday, and not only for today but forever because God knows the beginning from
the end. He sees our future failures and forgives them for all time. Yes we may still need to come to
Him and repent, we may still need to make amends, we may even still be subjected to the earthly
consequences of our sin but the gift of forgiveness is unending.
In Matthew, Jesus shares a story about how we are to handle forgiveness of those who sin against us:
21Then Peter came and said to Him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" 22Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.
Now the notes that I have read and the sermons I have heard, suggest that this meant 490 times PER DAY and PER OFFENSE . So if someone hurts your feelings 490 times today, God calls you to forgive them 490 times and if they steal from you 490 times in the same day, God wants you to forgive all those offenses as well. I know this seems a bit irrational in the natural and I believe that God wants us to use wisdom, just because we forgive someone doesn't mean that we are giving them permission to continue in their bad behavior. God will show us appropriate boundaries we can exercise when we seek him. But I wanted to share this with you today because sometimes God places people in our life that seem to abuse our grace and mercy and we find it difficult to forgive them over and over again.
I encourage you to ask God for two things if you are dealing with someone like this in your own life. The first is to ask God to allow you to see them as He sees them: what wound, what addiction, what temptation enables them to offend you again and again? Then genuinely pray for their healing and victory over those things. The second thing to request from God is the ability to settle it in your heart that you forgive them yesterday, today & tomorrow just as He has. It is a choice to forgive, a choice based on the infinite forgiveness God extends to each one of us. If you do this, I am pretty sure that the next time that person offends you, you will find a peace in knowing that you've already rejected hanging on to bitterness and wounding by having decided that yesterday, today and forever, you have forgiven like God has forgiven you.
Is there a difficult person in your life that you can apply this to today?
Many Blessings,
Cherry Fargo
Being ReMade (formerly Cherry's Creations)
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