(This is a rerun from 2013. I noticed that someone had selected it from the archives. I decided it might we worth a rerun, so here it is. Read it.)
“Then came Peter to (Jesus) and said, Lord how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? 22. Jesus said unto him, I say not unto thee, until seventy times: but, until seventy times seven.” Some of my great moments of truth come to me in the morning when I shave and look at myself in the mirror. When one comes face-to-face with oneself, he just has to face the truth. This happened this morning as I was shaving, for I said to myself: “Get over it.” God did not reveal to me what I specifically needed to get over, but He knows what is in my heart, mind and soul. This put me in a theologically-philosophical frame of mind (That’s deep. lol), and I felt a blog coming on. Whatever, or whoever, it is that is stuck in our sub-conscious, or conscious minds, we need to get over it. That is basically what Jesus was telling Peter in Matthew 18:22. Peter thought that forgiving seven times was a gracious plenty, but Jesus told him differently. (Don’t start doing multiplication here, for what Jesus meant was that we are to just keep on forgiving – period.) Why do we need to “get over it”? First, if something is eating away at us, it is not hurting the person who caused the “eating,” it is hurting us. We need to get the grudge out of our systems. Years ago, I read about a fish that is called the “hog fish” – at least I think that is what it was called. This fish attaches itself to a larger fish and begins to eat the fish from the inside. That is sort of like what happens when we fail to forgive and move on with our lives. We will not move on, or grow in Christ, until we just get over whatever it was that has eaten at us. Second, we need to think about the times when we have hurt other people. I don’t think that it ever occurs to us that we might be the cause of someone’s grudge. There are people out there who need to forgive us for the wrong that we did them. When we look at it this way, it should make it easier for us to forgive those who have hurt us. Perhaps we need to forgive ourselves for wrongs that we have done others. Third, we need to forgive others because we have been forgiven by Jesus. Ephesians 3:31-32 gives us this advice: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be you kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven you.” The fact that we have been forgiven so much by Jesus should be an incentive for us to forgive others. No one knows better than you what you need to “get over.” Today would be a good day to settle that matter. Jesus is waiting, ready and able to forgive you. Bro. Joe
1 Comment
Linda Brooks
7/22/2016 10:28:05 pm
Thanks for the "RE-RUN"......GET OVER IT.......FORGIVE, FORGIVE, FORGIVE or allow it to become CANCEROUS IN US !!!!!
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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