“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” Matthew 18:32-35
“Whoever tries to separate man’s forgiveness from God’s will no longer be able to count on God’s mercy. In so doing, he not merely forfeits this, like the servant in the parable. Rather, he shows that he never had a part in it. God’s mercy is not something cut and dried that is only received once. It is a persistent power that pervades all of life. If it does not become manifest as such a power, then it was never received at all.”
Herman Ridderbos in his Commentary on Matthew as recounted by Craig L. Blomberg in Preaching the Parables: From Responsible Interpretation to Powerful Proclamation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004) 74.
This quote is another winner unearthed by my pastor, James Hoxworth.
Mercy, grace, forgiveness, and generosity flow from the transformed Christ because of what God has done in our lives. To fail to illustrated these traits shows we never received them to begin with.
This is a weighty idea. Perhaps get a coffee and sit with this one?
Don’t forget that for Jesus, our actions reveal what we truly believe. Faith without works is useless. If we are not dispensers of these divine gifts, it shows we never received them to begin with.
Father, may your persistent power be evident in the mercy, grace, forgiveness, and generosity that I receive and dispense, even to the most undeserving. Make it so by your Spirit I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.