"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him." (Luke 17: 3-4)
Do I really have to forgive someone over and over again? Shouldn't they know there's a limit to everything? After about the fourth or fifth time in the same day, we begin to lose patience. Some of us don't last past the second time!
What would happen to us if God felt the same way? We keep going back to God and asking for forgiveness for the same recurrent sin in our life. After the eighth time, God says, "Time's up! You've used all your chances. No more forgiveness for you on this issue." Where would we be? But, that's not God. Oh, He would like for us to 'get it together' and not have to keep repenting over and over again, but He knows our sinful nature. He knows we will mess up. However, because of His grace and mercy, that does not give us a license to sin. We don't ever want to take advantage of God's grace for us.
In Matthew 18: 22, Jesus says this, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." Wow! That means we just keep on forgiving, up and above what we think we are capable to do. And, that's when we know that it is God working in us, allowing us to show His grace through us!
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