Speaker 1
Peter goes, all right, how about seven? Let me double that and add one. Jesus still says no. 70 times seven. What's he saying? Unlimited. Keep doing the math, Peter. Keep adding the numbers. The faithful, Godly Christian never allows his own forgiveness to be surpassed by his brother's sin. That means you're always forgiving more than others are sinning. I read recently about how Dale Carnegie once noted that the only animal that Grizzly would allow to eat with him was the skunk. Grizzly bears in Yellowstone Park would often come to eat at the place where the garbage was dumped and grizzly bears who could beat pretty much any animal in a fight here in the West would let the skunk share its meal. Obviously, the grizzly could resent the skunk, could have easily killed the skunk and no doubt that would have made sure there's more food would have gotten rid of the skunk and been consistent with the way that grizzly bears are with many other animals, but he didn't. Why? Because he knew the high cost of getting even. Most animals in nature aren't foolish. They're smart, a lot smarter than most of us who allow our stomachs to churn all day and our minds to storm all night. We allow our souls to turn black with hatred as we plot revenge. Haven't we all been guilty of this bitterness is the most dangerous of all plagues to healthy Christian living. It'll eat away at the vitality of your spiritual life until your once vibrant witness and testimony and hope and life is in shambles. It's the cancer of the soul and it claims millions of victims each year. It spreads faster than the common cold and it threatens the survival of many churches. We need to be smarter and realize there is a high cost to getting even a high cost to bitterness, a high cost to unforgiveness. And there is a cure for this. One of the most beautiful words in any language is the word forgive. It's a common one, but I was reading recently about the essence of the word being at the last half give to give someone a release to let them go to quit pulling on the rope to ring the bell of bitterness. Ultimately up to you and up to me. It means giving up the right of retaliation. It means giving them grace. And how do you do that? How can we be a forgiving person? We look upon Christ. His example is ours. We imitate him. We follow after him closely, keeping our eyes where they need to be rather than on ourselves and the distractions of bitter vengeance and unforgiveness. In the next episode, we'll take a look at how to ask someone for forgiveness. So we move from how to be a forgiving person to how we ought to approach people. And I want to walk you through seven of the most important key steps. So you can take those steps to reconcile or be walking with someone as they take those steps towards reconciliation and seek forgiveness. Also be sure to DM us at for the gospel or myself on Instagram with your questions on forgiveness. I'll be finishing this series with a listener Q and A and I'll plow through as many questions as you send in and do my best to give you biblical answers. Thanks for listening, watching, for sharing and for supporting. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for
