Persistent forgiveness

Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him." – Luke 17.3-4

It is really, really hard to forgive someone when they do the same thing over and over again. I think we have all been there. Someone, maybe our children or grandchild keep doing the same thing over and over again. We pop out with something like, ‘If you were really sorry you wouldn’t keep doing it!’

I realise that we need to teach children that ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t correct bad behaviour, but sometimes we can carry that attitude into situations with other people.

Jesus’ instruction is clear. If a brother offends you, rebuke and forgive him. If He does it again forgive him again. If he does the same thing seven times in the same day just keep forgiving him.

That’s tough, but that is also love. It is the same kind of love that Jesus exercises when we go back to Him time after time after time after time dealing with the same issues and the same sins.

We are often challenged to forgive like Jesus forgives.

The next time we have a situation where someone does the same thing over and over again and keeps seeking forgiveness let’s try to think about our own need for persistent forgiveness.