Forgive

 and if he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you must forgive him.”

Luke 17:4 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/luk.17.4.ESV

I love this verse because it gives me hope that there's hope for the likes of me. Yet we can't take it in isolation and be presumptuous that God's bound to forgive us. We need to genuinely repent, even if se keep going astray.

We are to take people at their word. If they're repeatedly sinning against us, chances are they're not genuinely repentant. Yet we must give them the benefit of the doubt.

In case we think Jesus is being too soft here, He's just said that some of us deserve to have a millstone tied round our necks and to be thrown into the heart of the sea. Maybe that's the kind of destiny of unrepentant people. Yet if they claim to repent, we are to assume they genuinely are repentant.

Who are we to say whether someone is repentant or not? Are we God? Maybe if they were unrepentant they would sin against us seventy times in a day!

'God Almighty, please help us to be forgiving as You are, and to be forgiven by You. In Jesus' name we pray, amen'

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