1 Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. 2 It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. 3 So watch yourselves.
“If your brother or sister sins against you, rebuke them; and if they repent, forgive them. 4 Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them.”
5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
6 He replied, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.
7 “Suppose one of you has a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Will he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat’? 8 Won’t he rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink’? 9 Will he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? 10 So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
Read Luke 17:1-10 in context and/or in other translations on BibleGateway.com!
As this passage opens, we see Jesus sharing about forgiveness and stumbling blocks coming for His followers. The first part of Luke 17 talks about the importance of forgiveness, regardless of whether the person we are forgiving is worthy of receiving the forgiveness.
This broad sweep over forgiveness goes counter to everything we want to believe about our lives and the hurts we have faced in the past. Forgiveness without exception seems like we are letting the person or situation that hurt us off the hook – but in reality, forgiveness without exception is the only way we can really be free, and this is one of the biggest insights into God’s character than we might originally think.
Forgiveness is a characteristic of God, and He modeled it better for us than we could ever model it for each other. While we (humanity) were actively sinning, Jesus came and died on the cross to save us. This act demonstrates forgiveness because Jesus took the penalty for our sins and giving us the freedom to choose His righteousness. Jesus’ blanket forgave humanity’s sin, and He asks us to do the same for each other. (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
Forgiveness releases us to move forward with our life. When we have not forgiven, we are holding the expectation that the person who hurt us must come back and apologize, which would turn the tables and give us the power we felt we were deprived of. But the flaw with the logic in our mind is that in most cases, either the person who hurt us doesn’t know they did or they don’t care that they hurt us. In either case, an apology is unlikely to happen, so holding out for traditional forgiveness will turn our hearts bitter.
Forgiveness does not mean reconciliation, because the other side of the coin is repentance. In this passage, Jesus tells us to always forgive when someone has come with a repentant heart – even if they have caused us hurt. Repentance is a much more challenging idea, because in it is taking the steps necessary to turn away from repeating the hurt. In Jesus’ challenge, we are to be forgiving when those we have forgiven mess up again . . . and again . . . and again.
However, forgiveness is what frees us to move forward, and it doesn’t require reconciliation or repentance from the other party. Forgiveness without exception, before the other person has even changed, helps place ourselves in a much more loving frame of mind if/when an actual apology comes.
Every situation is different, and there are some situations where reconciliation is unwise, but even if we never expect to reconcile, we still should forgive the person who hurt us so we can be truly free to move forward in life.
This thought was inspired by studying the Walking With Jesus “Reflective Bible Study” package. To discover insights like this in your own study time, click here and give Reflective Bible Study a try today!
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