You see, to tell you the truth, folks, when my dear friends Emily and Gracie invited me to post something on their (AMAZING!!!) blog, I had no idea what to say… I’m a teenager for goodness’ sake!!!! I have absolutely no wisdom or experience to impart to anyone! Zero! Zip! Nada! But then I realized that everyone does have one experience in common—pride.
You see, I’m pretty sure that we’ve all gotten angry at someone at some point. In fact, just the other day, my friend was extremely rude to me for no reason! Boy, was I mad at her! She had no right to vent all her feelings on me! I was still extremely angry the next morning when I was having my quiet time, and I flipped open my Bible to Mathew 18. But, by the time I finished the chapter, I was in tears. Let me explain.
In Matthew 18, Jesus tells a parable about a man who owes a King ten thousand talents. The man doesn’t have any money of what he owes, so the King orders that the man’s wife and children be sold as slaves to pay the debt. The man fell at the King’s feet, begged him for mercy, and so the King took compassion on him and let him go. Now, did you know that the equivalent of one talent is around 15,000 dollars? By cancelling the debt, the King lost 150 million dollars worth of money! Anyway, after the King let him go, the man went to a friend who owed him a hundred denarius. Do you know how much a hundred denarius is? It’s just under 2 thousand dollars. That’s one seventy-five thousandth of what the man owed the King! Well, the man demanded that his friend pay back the money, but when his friend fell to his knees and begged for mercy, the man instead went off and had his friend thrown in prison. When the King heard what had happened, he was outraged and said to the man in verse 23, “I canceled that debt of yours because you begged me too, shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” And he threw the man in prison and had him tortured until he could pay back all he owed.
That sounds a little extreme, right? People don’t do those things to their friends, nowadays! But, (here’s the catch!) every time I hold on to someone else’s sin, I’m acting exactly like the man in the story! I’ve done something much worse than being rude: I’ve sinned against the God Most High and Jesus paid my debt with His life! When I realize how guilty I am, and how much I owe my King, it makes me realize that forgiving others is not only my duty, but that not forgiving others is a sin.
Luke 7:47b says "Whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” That verse used to make me sad, because I thought that meant that I couldn’t love God as much as other people who used to do awful things before they had become Christians. But now I realize, that it’s not the more that I sin that makes me love God, but the more that I realize that I sin. Do you have someone in your life that has hurt you? Lied to you? Cheated you? And are you still holding on to your pain? When I was holding on to my grudge, it damaged my relationship with my friend. Duh, right? What I hadn’t realized, though, is that it also damaged my relationship with God. I was selfishly focused on my own hurt feelings, instead of concentrating being with God. My pride got in the way. Folks, I’m only a teenager (and a big hypocrite too,) so don’t take my advice. Instead, take God’s advice: “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” 1 Colossians 3:13 Then, and only then, will you be able to continue walking in a pure relationship with your friends—and most importantly—Jesus Christ.
God bless you. J
-Alena Janss
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