Forgive Them

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Wednesday morning, the 21st of February, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. 

We go to the Gospel of Matthew 18:21-22: 

"Then Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven."  

Unforgiveness - we really need to deal with it even today. There is a cancer that eats you up if you don't deal with it. Deal with it today, my dear friend, because every single one of us has to deal with this issue of unforgiveness. 

I read a little story by that great Russian author, Leo Tolstoy. He told the story about two little families that lived next door to each other on small farms in Russia. They were the greatest of friends; they shared everything together. If the one needed flour, he just went to his neighbour next door and his neighbour said, "Help yourself." If the other one needed a spare milk cow, he would just walk across to the fence and say, "Can I borrow your small cow today?" "No problem." They helped each other and they were like one big happy family. But then one day, something happened - the one family had a chicken that laid an egg every single day, and this one day, the chicken flew across the fence into the other family's farm and laid an egg somewhere in the barn and then flew back. The old lady came out to get her egg every morning, as she did, and it wasn't there. She went looking for it and she found it in her neighbour's yard and that started an argument. The one lady said, "How can you trespass onto my farm?" The woman who owned the chicken said, "How can you keep the egg?" And it is ridiculous. It really is; it is laughable, but that incident started brewing and all of a sudden there was an argument between the two women, then the two men got involved and then the children got involved and then they started getting ugly with each other and it blew up to such a degree that the one farmer wanted to burn down the barn of his neighbour, but the sparks of the fire spread into the village and burnt the whole village down. The moral of the story is that if they had just said sorry and made up, they would have still been great friends. 

I want to say to you today, deal with that unforgiveness in your heart. Just forgive that person. Why? Simply because Jesus said so - that's why. I remember going to pray in a church when I was a new Christian. The church was open during the day for a prayer day so you could go in and out and pray. I went in to pray, but I had an issue with my minister. We had a disagreement. I was kneeling at the altar and felt I couldn't pray. I looked to the right of me and who was sitting there, by himself, in the church, was the minister. We had to get up; I got off my knees, went up, and said, "Errol, I am so sorry." He started to weep, I started to weep, and that friendship was mended and went the full distance. Today, just say, "I forgive you."

God bless you and goodbye.