Wednesday: Mercy Forfeited
Daily Lesson for Wednesday 8th of January 2025
God’s love is everlasting and always unmerited. However, humans can reject it. We have the opportunity to accept or reject that love, but only because God freely loves us with His perfect, everlasting love prior to anything we do (Jeremiah 31:3). Our love for God is a response to what has already been given to us even before we asked for it.
Read 1 John 4:7-20, with specific emphasis on verses 7 and 19. What does this tell us about the priority of God’s love?
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God’s love always comes first. If God did not first love us, we could not love Him in return. While God created us with the capacity to love and to be loved, God Himself is the ground and Source of all love. We have the choice, however, whether we will accept it and then reflect it in our lives. This truth is exemplified in Christ’s parable of the unforgiving servant (see Matthew 18:23-35).
In the parable, we can see that there was no way the servant ever could have repaid what he owed the master. According to Matthew 18:1-35, the servant owed his master 10,000 talents. One talent amounted to about 6,000 denarii. And one denarius was what an average laborer would be paid for one day of work (compare with Matthew 20:2). So, it would take an average laborer 6,000 days of labor to earn one talent. Suppose, after accounting for days off, that an average laborer might work 300 days per year and, thus, earn 300 denarii in a year. So, it would take an average laborer approximately 20 years to repay one talent, which consisted of 6,000 denarii (6,000/300 = 20). In order to earn 10,000 talents, then, an average laborer would have to work 200,000 years. In short, the servant could never repay this debt. Yet, the master felt compassion for his servant and freely forgave his huge debt.
However, when this forgiven servant refused to forgive the far smaller debt of 100 denarii of one of his fellow servants and had him thrown in prison over the debt, the master was moved with anger and rescinded his merciful forgiveness. The servant forfeited the love and forgiveness of his master. Although God’s compassion and mercy never run out, one can finally reject, even forfeit, the benefits of God’s compassion and mercy.
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Think about what you have been forgiven and what it cost you to be forgiven by Jesus. What should this tell you about forgiving others? |
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Implicit in the parable about the debtor is the idea that salvation is not just about ourselves. In our dealings with others, we must show the same compassion and mercy God is willing to extend to others. The plan of salvation is not complicated. God loves us, and in response we love others. The confusion comes when we try to gain something for ourselves. When it comes to salvation, thinking outside the box is the norm.
Jesus taught us to pray:
Here's a true story I read in an Our Daily Bread devotional booklet that demonstrates God's love and forgiveness:
When we think of "getting even" that usually means repaying evil for evil. But, in light of God's forgiveness of us, "getting even" really involves us taking steps to offer as much mercy to others as He offers to us.... would it ever be possible to match that? Thankfully, those boys were able to receive the love and mercy offered to them by the woman they had harmed.
It is not easy to love God on our own because of our sinful nature. How possibly can sinful human beings start to love God (Jeremiah 17:9)? Loving God is not a spontaneous human response. The fallen state of humans is hostile to the loving nature of God. Our inherent sinful nature is hostile to righteous nature of God (Romans 8:7-8). This sorry state explains why we need help to start to love God and appreciate His love. We need a transformation to cause us to love God and His goodness. The Bible says, we need a new heart and new spirit to give us a new orientation towards God. The Bible says that love is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, being in a position to love God and appreciate His goodness is the work of the Spirit. We must acknowledge that on our own we can do absolutely nothing good (John 15:5). Even so how do we start to acknowledge that we are helpless without the enabling of the Holy Spirit? It is all by the grace of God that we come into the knowledge of His love (1 John 4:19, Romans 5:5).
The Bible says that God came down seeking for Adam after he had sinners (Genesis 3:8-9). Adam had lost the companionship of God and forfeited all its privileges by exercising his free will. God did not abandon Adam regardless of his terrible deed. He lost the privileges but did not lose God’s love. This is the unconditional love of God. God’s justice is mingled with a good measure of mercy. God was merciful to Adam. He dealt with Adam’s situation with compassion and provided away for redemption and restoration. This is the “strange” love of God. This is the “mysterious” love of God. This is the love that saves to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25).
God will forgive our sins completely, but the scars of sin will remain. The scars will continue to remind us that sin is brutal otherwise we forget. We should always remember how far the love of God has rescued us and written-off our debt we could not pay.
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” - Matthew 5:7
God's love is incredible: even before I accept, He offers Himself to me. Now, after freely choosing to stay in His love, I can help others by sharing it—this can give me even more satisfaction.
Indeed forgiveness is a two way street. How can we expect God to forgive us if we don't offer forgiveness to others. In our eyes those wrongs done against us are huge, even greater than what we might consider our sins against others. God knows it all, sees it all. All sins caused the death of Jesus. Technically we are all guilty of murdering Christ.
Forgiveness for our sins frees us from the pain of regret. Forgiveness for others sins against us frees us from the prison of bitterness. Do they deserve it? No more than we do. So many people live imprisoned by the trauma of past wrongs done against them, constantly reliving and be tortured by it's memory. The 🔑 key to freedom lies in forgiving that perpetrator. Not so much for their benefit but for our own. Forgive and set yourself free. It takes the person off our "hook" and places them on God's. Vengeance is His, He will repay in a way that hopefully leads to redemption. No they don't deserve to be redeemed, then again, neither do we. It's all by grace.