Episode 2269 - Lesson 2 - Wednesday - January 8 - Mercy Forfeited

God’s love is everlasting and always unmerited. However, humans can reject it. We have the opportunity to accept or reject that love, but only because God freely loves us with His perfect, everlasting love prior to anything we do (Jer. 31:3). Our love for God is a response to what has already been given to us even before we asked for it. Read 1 John 4:7–20, with specific emphasis on verses 7 and 19. What does this tell us about the priority of God’s love? God’s love always comes first. If God did not first love us, we could not love Him in return. While God created us with the capacity to love and to be loved, God Himself is the ground and Source of all love. We have the choice, however, whether we will accept it and then reflect it in our lives. This truth is exemplified in Christ’s parable of the unforgiving servant (see Matt. 18:23–35). In the parable, we can see that there was no way the servant ever could have repaid what he owed the master. According to Matthew 18, the servant owed his master 10,000 talents. One talent amounted to about 6,000 denarii. And one denarius was what an average laborer would be paid for one day of work (compare with Matt. 20:2). So, it would take an average laborer 6,000 days of labor to earn one talent. Suppose, after accounting for days off, that an average laborer might work 300 days per year and, thus, earn 300 denarii in a year. So, it would take an average laborer approximately 20 years to repay one talent, which consisted of 6,000 denarii (6,000/300 = 20). In order to earn 10,000 talents, then, an average laborer would have to work 200,000 years. In short, the servant could never repay this debt. Yet, the master felt compassion for his servant and freely forgave his huge debt. However, when this forgiven servant refused to forgive the far smaller debt of 100 denarii of one of his fellow servants and had him thrown in prison over the debt, the master was moved with anger and rescinded his merciful forgiveness. The servant forfeited the love and forgiveness of his master. Although God’s compassion and mercy never run out, one can finally reject, even forfeit, the benefits of God’s compassion and mercy. Think about what you have been forgiven and what it cost you to be forgiven by Jesus. What should this tell you about forgiving others?