Three Benefits of Forgiveness

My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.

–Matthew 18:35

Why should we forgive? What’s in it for us when we develop a forgiving heart?

Let me mention three benefits of forgiveness. First, forgiveness is often the only way to settle a debt. In Matthew 18, Jesus told a story about a king whose slave owed him an enormous amount of money. When the slave begged for forgiveness, the king released him from his debt (v. 27). The king probably felt compassion for the slave, but he also realized he was holding an account receivable that was worthless. Why hang on to a debt that could never be repaid?

I think we sometimes struggle to forgive because we’re waiting for our offender to make up for the injustice they committed. But the fact is, most of the time, people can’t compensate us adequately for what they’ve done to hurt us. We, too, are holding an account receivable that is worthless. Forgiveness, many times, is the only way to settle a debt.

A second benefit of forgiveness is that it frees us from emotional bondage. I’m sure the king in Jesus’s story wanted his money back. He spent time and energy thinking about that debt. Perhaps he went to the treasurer every day and said, “Has the check come in yet?” When somebody has committed a wrong against us, we are in emotional bondage to them. As long as that person owes us, we can’t let go. Forgiveness is the only way we can be free to get on with our lives.

A third benefit of forgiveness is that forgiving others assures us of God’s forgiveness. Remember how Jesus’s story ended: The slave who had been forgiven found another slave who owed him a small debt and demanded, “Pay me what I owe you!” The other slave begged for forgiveness. But the first slave threw him into prison until he could repay his debt. When the king heard about what happened, he said to the first slave, “‘Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart” (vv. 33–35).

The Bible teaches that forgiveness is the obligation of those who truly have been forgiven. Our willingness to forgive assures us of God’s forgiveness in our lives.

Today’s devotion is adapted from “Developing a Forgiving Heart” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2008.

Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.