Our culture has a despotic ruler that is unwilling to submit to any of the firm laws of faith or reason. He has been allowed free run by virtually everyone, and not only has not been tamed, but has been deemed untamable by almost everyone. We have submitted to his whims without critique or question, and it is destroying us.

The untamable ruler is our feelings or more technically, our emotions.

In a culture where the inconsistent philosophy of post-modernism rules, feelings become the only dependable sort of reality. Post-modernism teaches that there is no such thing as truth, truth is relative, or if there is such thing as truth, it is unknowable with certainty. In that context, our feelings rule. After all, I might not be able to trust what I think, but I do know how I feel in the moment. Therefore, we let our feelings rule our reality, and we make that surrender to our own destruction.

Jesus commanded differently. Consider Matthew 18:32-35.

³² Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. ³³ Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ ³⁴ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.

³⁵ “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.

It’s those three little words that are such a concern—from his heart.

The wicked servant was required to forgive his debtor, and to do it genuinely, from the heart. We are taught that we cannot make someone feel right. We can only ask people to do the right thing regardless of inner feelings. Not only is he required to do it, but to do it over and over again if necessary.

“Fake it till you make it” is the ungodly advice offered.

However, this passage shows us that we can address sinful feelings by changing unbiblical thinking.

In this case, it is about forgiveness. We can only change our hearts in forgiveness by being truly thankful.

Abandon your sense of entitlement.

The parable told in Matthew 18:22-35 reveals the secret for forgiving from the heart.

It’s being thankful. Here is how we develop a heart of thanksgiving that leads to a spirit of genuine forgiveness.

 Remember your insurmountable debt.

Jesus tells the story of a man who owed an large debt—ten thousand talents. By all accounts an amount that would number in the $ billions today. The debt we owed without Christ is unpayable by any human means. We stood condemned without hope. Once sinners we could not undo our past. No amount of righteous behavior could remedy our condition.

There is no debt that any person owes us, no sin committed against us, that is greater than the sin we had committed against the glory of our Creator (Romans 3:23).

Remember the consequences of your debt.

In Jesus story, the debt is so large that the man would be thrown in prison and his family sold into slavery to pay for the debt. As unjust as this seems to us, our sin has or would have condemned our families as well. No one sins in isolation, and the consequences of sin are not in isolation either. The spiritual poverty of one generation filters down through following generations apart from the intervention of God Himself. This not specific judgement is the natural consequence of behavior.

Remember your plea.

The man begged for a little more time. He did not beg for forgiveness. He just hoped for a day or two, a little more time with his family, and maybe for some miracle. I needed a miracle to provide for my forgiveness. I might not have understood it all at the moment, but I understand it now.

Remember the forgiveness you received.

The Jews listening to Jesus tell this story did not yet understand the magnitude of what forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ would look like, but we do. He lays it out for us here.

The good master did not give the servant more time, he did not reduce the debt owed, he did not work out a payment schedule. He forgave the debt in its entirety. He no longer owed anything. Neither do we. Our debt is only a debt of gratitude that reason requires (Romans 12:1-2). The entire debt for our salvation was paid by Christ on the cross.

See yourself in others.

Instead of seeing yourself in contrast with others, see your former desperate conditions in the eyes of those that have sinned against you and are now seeking forgiveness.

The wicked servant in this passage did not do that. He goes out and finds a servant that owes him 100 days wages and demands it immediately. When the servant cannot pay, he throws him in debtors prison until it is paid.

How is it that someone could do this? Jesus doesn’t say. It is an illustrative story, but it is a story that is based on very common realistic responses of human beings to one another. Perhaps the wicked servant blamed his debtor for his previous financial condition. Perhaps he saw his debtor as owing an amount that was within his power to repay, and therefore owed. That is where we often get hung up. We refuse to forgive when we believe that people are insincere or just unwilling to make things right via some sort of required repayment.

What should the wicked servant have done? He should have seen himself in the eyes of the debtor and in gratitude for what had been given him, should have forgiven his debt.

There it is. We can forgive others for what they have done to us because we are also undeserving sinner forgiven only by the mercy, love, and grace of Jesus Christ.

When we accept this as true. When we assimilate it into our sense of self-worth instead of believing all the “you deserve good things” lies of the culture around us, then we can forgive from our hearts when it is required of us.

The beautiful consequences.

As long as we refuse to forgive others when asked, we remain in bondage to the sins committed against us. We live in anger, bitterness, and fear. Forgiveness not only frees the one who sinned against us, it frees us too.

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Audio version of this article: Forgiving Demands a Heart of Thanksgiving