“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!” the old adage goes. Sometimes, just sometimes, people get the old adage wrong and they add, “fool me thrice, and shame on us.” To get even a second chance at life, or in it, is a big deal; however, to get a third try is an incredible opportunity and immensely huge blessing. Just think about how many do-overs you got in school growing up or at work before it was game over! Now, think about how many times you messed up in life in different areas, and with different people, in different situations– I’m talking about morally, character-wise, emotionally, physically, mentally, etc. Juxtapose that with the God who witnessed all of your hot messes and still said, “I love you, you’re precious to me.” It changes your perspective of you, doesn’t it? Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, 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 17:3-4 Life would be so much easier if Jesus told us to act as if the transgressors were dead to us. Unfortunately, he tells us to do something so godly that it turns our societal and instinctual habits and norms on its head– forgive knowing that it happened multiple times before and knowing that it’ll keep happening after this one. It’s as if Jesus wants us to be so forgiving that the act of forgiving becomes second nature. But you see the key to what Jesus says is not the act of forgiving for the sake of forgiving. Rather, it lays in the act of being attentive of one’s self. Forgiving is impossible without “paying attention to yourselves.” Allow me to translate that from Jesus speak: you can really only forgive somebody else if you find yourself forgivable. So the exact opposite must be true if you can’t forgive somebody else– you are as unforgivable as the person you can’t forgive. Forgiving is more of an act of knowing you are repeatedly forgiven for all the things you failed doing and getting a second, third, fourth and fifth shot, etc from God through the blood of Jesus. Jesus says to keep forgiving and accepting for as long as you have to come back and ask God for forgiveness. But we can’t do it in our 21st century selves because we simply don’t pay attention to ourselves and we’re hypersensitive about everybody else. If you’re sitting in a position of unforgiveness, you need to pay attention to yourself and patiently forgive as you are being patiently forgiven. That’s the beautiful paradigm God has given us, it’s about time we live in that paradigm in our lives.
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