The Parable of The Unforgiving Servant
Orginally I had written my next blog to take an in depth look into discernment. But while I was on a four hour drive home, I had asked God “What must I do to raise funds for my missions trip”. The answer was quick & clear. Today i’m going to hop from the topic of discernment briefly to discuss something more current on my heart.
This is exactly what I meant by “wherever my ADHD mind takes me” in my layout of what topics/subjects I would discuss.
**Side note** It’s less of my ADHD mind and more of where God wants to take my journey & development.
Let’s take a look into what revelations I had, how this happened & what it means to me.
Okay! Let’s dive in!
Instantly, while I was driving the answer was burned into my head. “Matthew 18:21“
Now I can’t claim that I’ve ever read Matthew 18:21, nor was I even sure that Matthew had 18 chapters and 21 verses within chapter 18. It was worth looking into however, so that’s exactly what I did.
I began to shuffle through my mobile bible app to see if Matthew 18:21 existed & if it did, what was the message. BOOM! There it was. “Oh, wait I’ve read this before”, I thought to myself.
As soon as I stopped driving I started to read.
The Parable of The Unforgiving Servant
That was the header above the text. Oouuu! This is going to be good! Even if this text is humbling, uncomfortable or causes temporary loss of esteem, this is still a chance to grow in my faith & relationship with God.
Lets start off with what a parable is. A parable is defined as a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson, as told by Jesus in the Gospels.
The story reads as follows:
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
23 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.”
24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold (An unpayable amount) was brought to him.
25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.
26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’
27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.[c] He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.
29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’
30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt.
31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to.
33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’
34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
Now for me, I was forgiven of all my sins when I accepted Jesus as my savior and asked for salvation. A clean slate, a new heart, a restored joy for life.
Yet, I don’t carry forgiveness in my front pocket. When someone sins against me lately, I have been quick to stay away from the individual, while also resenting them as well for sinning against me.
Something my mother once said was that “as long as you didn’t do something to harm me intentionally, I hold nothing against you & forgiveness is in my front pocket”.
I’ll surely spend the next week or so analyzing where I am being unforgiving & try my hardest to correct that. Depending on how that goes, I may or may not post a part 2.
But before I go, I issue you a challenge to take this journey with me & look into your life on where you’ve been unforgiving.
