Wesleyne (00:02.734)

I typically read from the New International Version, but this morning I'm going to share a passage from the King James Version. That was Matthew verses 18.

Sorry, Matthew chapter 18, verses 21 through 22. Forgiveness. Raise your metaphorical hand if you love forgiving someone, okay? Now raise that metaphorical hand if you love forgiving someone over and over and over again. This,

Simple instruction that Jesus gave Peter When he asked well, how many times do I need to forgive? Can I just do seven and You know, it could be that he'd already forgiven the person six times and he's like, well, I'm gonna do one more time and Then I'll be good But Jesus said no, no, no 70 times 7 So for those of us that

Need a little time to do math? That's 490 times. 490 times. Jesus is instructing us to forgive the same person. This is very, very difficult for me in particular because when somebody hurts me, I forgive them. Then I forgive them again. And then I'm like,

Well, why am I continuing to forgive you and your behavior isn't changing? You're still hurting me over and over and over again. And so the key here is forgiveness is not for the person you're forgiving. Forgiveness is for you. It is for you to know that, okay, I'm not harboring bitterness or hate in my heart because if you don't forgive this person,

Wesleyne (02:29.582)

Each offense compounds and each time they do something to you, it hurts a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. And so you put up this wall, this huge boundary in this block and you're like, I am no longer going to forgive you. Now, if you are being mistreated in any way, if you are being abused,

physically, verbally, emotionally, sexually. If you are, if a person is continuing to take advantage of you over and over and over again, yes, Jesus says forgive them, but you don't have to allow them to continue to hurt you in that manner. So again, remember, you're forgiving that person for yourself. And in your forgiveness journey of forgiving,

that person, you have to also forgive yourself. Because as a person who always forgave, I would say, I am so sorry, or I accept your apology. And then the offense would continue to happen. And so what would happen is I would start beating myself up. I would start keeping score of all of the times that

I forgave and how things didn't get any better.

And I had to forgive myself. I had to say, I forgive Wesleyan for staying so long. I forgive Wesleyan for allowing that person to talk to me like that. I forgive Wesleyan for so many things. And I went one by one by one. And as I wrote down these things in my journal that I forgave myself for,

Wesleyne (04:29.71)

I had tears just rolling down my face because I realized how much I had to forgive myself. And I wasn't really forgiving that person. I was just going through the motions of saying, yeah, I forgive you. But in my heart and in my mind, I wasn't truly forgiving them. Why? Because I was keeping score myself. I was beating myself up.

So I want you to remember that Jesus commands us to forgive and It is important to forgive But it's not okay to enable destructive behavior To yourself or to others So if this person is engaged in very destructive behavior Don't enable them don't allow them to talk to you that way don't allow them to

to do those things, you can actually say, I forgive them in my heart. You don't physically have to tell someone you forgive them, but you can forgive them in your heart and your mind and you can excuse yourself or take a break from that relationship. But please, today I compel you to start with yourself.

work on your own self -forgiveness journey so you can forgive those that have hurt you.