Imagine Part 4 “Breaking Things is Easy. Building Things is Harder.” THRIVE Service Livestream

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”

Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

Sometimes Jesus is impractical.

Seriously, I’m supposed to forgive someone who hurt me not just seven times, but seventy-seven times? Who does that? Listen, if I’m keeping count, I’ll keep count of the number of times someone went out of their way to do me wrong.

We’re remarkably good at keeping score. It’s an art form for most of us.

We never forget the moments someone hurt us. We document every offense. We keep a record of every wrong.

We remember the pain of our own failures. When we fell short, hurt others, or disappointed ourselves and the people we care about.

Honestly, nobody can carry a grudge like we can.

Nobody can hold on to shame like we do.

Breaking things is easy. It’s easy to tear apart relationships, to burn down friendships, and destroy reputations.

Building things is harder. It takes work to build up and repair broken relationships and bruised egos.

It takes forgiveness, and not just a little but a lot.

Sometimes Jesus is impractical.

But we’ve tried our way of holding on to grudges, and we know where it leads.

Bitterness, anger, resentment, being stuck in perpetual victim mode, and wasting precious years blaming everyone else for all that went wrong.

But maybe Jesus is on to something.

Maybe instead of asking us to do the impossible, he’s trying to free us from our own self-made prison.

Imagine.

If we forgave the person who hurt us.

Imagine If we forgave ourselves.

Imagine how different life would be.