"What's The Matter You?"

 "Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me." (John 21:22 KJV) 

  ""Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn't pay, so his master ordered that he be sold - along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned - to pay the debt.

  "But the man fell down before his master and begged him, 'Please be patient with me, and I will pay it all.' Then the master was filled with pity for him, and he released him, and forgave his debt.

  "But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. 

  "His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. 'Be patient with me, and I will pay it,' he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full.

  "When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?' Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. 

  "That's what my heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart."" (Matthew 18:23-35 NLT)

 I am sorry for the long Scripture, but it needs to be all shown together in one light. If you might have been reading this blog, oh, say about 10 years or so ago, then you might remember when I shared my thoughts about this "Unforgiving Debtor." 

 Having had several issues with forgiveness, it is easy to relate to why this man didn't feel the need to forgive someone, after having been forgiven so much! Forgiveness works two ways: There is the One who forgives, and then the one that is forgiven. If the One who forgives you says that you are forgiven, then you should truly believe it, rejoice in it, and live out that wonderful blessing throughout your life! 

 What happens to some of us, (maybe most,) is that we get back into old habits, (or plan to,) and then we forget about the great forgiveness that we have been given. The Good News is about Forgiveness; which was something we could have never accomplished ourselves; it was the Gift of God! 

 Jesus said it again, "Follow me," but this time He adds, "Thou," which means, "You". In other words, as Jesus has forgiven you, for denying Him, forgetting about Him, or not loving Him as you should, you must walk accordingly, with the passion of forgiveness... 

"So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people's sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sins, so that we could be made right with God through Christ." (2 Corinthians 5:16-21 NLT)