V35…forgive your brother from your heart.

The kingdom of God is a kingdom of forgiveness. Wholehearted forgiveness. The “master” in this story Jesus is telling, forgives a massive debt “completely”. He responds with mercy and forgiveness for the entire, enormous, life-crippling debt. There is now no longer anything owing. He is free.

The absolutely mean spirited and greedy response of this free man to his servant, stands in stark contrast to the actions of his master.

I live in the Kingdom of God.  A Kingdom of extravagant forgiveness and freedom from debt.

It is my culture.

Lord God – you have mercifully and completely forgiven me.  Fill me afresh Holy Spirit – I need your help.  May Your kingdom come here on earth as in heaven – through me, as I forgive as you do.

Written by Ps. Linda Quinn

There is a lot of great wisdom in this passage, it’s almost hard to know where to begin. One of the many things I can observe here is the emphasis and importance Jesus is placing on humility. We all know about humility and we talk about it as something we desire. Humility does not tend to come naturally; I think for most of us it is a daily and active choice to choose to be humble.

As Jesus’ disciples begin to ask which is the greatest among them, Jesus is quick to answer, but perhaps not as they expected. He does not rank them, based on their skills or personality. Instead, He goes on to talk about how important the small, vulnerable and lost are to Him, using the illustration of children and sheep.

The great thing about this is that although most of us have probably dreamt of being lauded and applauded at some stage like the disciples in this passage, the reality is that all of us can relate to feeling small, vulnerable and lost in one way or another. While we may be humans sometimes full of pride and our own grandeur, we are also all like sheep who have gone astray, in need of a Good Shepherd who can seek after us and care for us, as Jesus does. I love that Jesus doesn’t try to suppress us or keep us small and insignificant, but rather conveys that we are so important to Him that He will continue to seek us – all of us – that we may know Him. It’s not about our greatness, it’s about His great desire to be in relationship with us.

Jesus, thank you that you are so interested in and want the best for us. You love to provide for us, not seeking to make us small, but longing for us to recognise our own need for you that cannot be filled any other way, no matter how great we are on our own. Help us to approach you with humble hearts, knowing you are always eager to hear from us. Amen.

Written by Madelaine Tarasenko

Have you ever had the role of being a Manager or Teacher? In these roles you would be required to instruct and educate employees and also you would be required to review their performance.

Even if you have not had one of these roles mentioned above, it is likely that you have been in a position where you have been taught by someone, like being a student at school. Can you remember being taught?  A particular school subject may come to mind or perhaps a teacher that was encouraging. Sometimes I wonder if I was a good student, did I listen to the details? Did I demonstrate what I was taught? Did my Teachers ever become frustrated with me?

Jesus, the ultimate Teacher, chose his disciples carefully. In this verse, it becomes very clear that Jesus is quite frustrated with the disciples, indicating in verse 17 “How long shall I put up with you?” and verse 20 “Because you have so little faith”. Jesus’ humanity is shown very clearly here, rebuking the disciples. Also the students’ (the disciples’) humanity is on show.

Everyone is behaving like human beings, making it feel more real. The disciples had clearly missed the lesson on understanding the authority that Jesus had bestowed on them in Matthew 10:1, “to drive out impure spirits and heal every sickness and disease”. But still the disciples were chosen on purpose by Jesus, there was no mistake. They were chosen because they were imperfect, because, yes, they would make mistakes along the way.

Dear God

Thank you for your disciples. Thank you for choosing men who were not perfect and needed plenty of guidance and instruction. Thank you that we in our contemporary society can relate to the imperfection and the struggle to apply your teachings at times. Thank you for your endless forgiveness and enduring love.

Amen

Written by Susannah Ware

Earlier in this chapter Jesus tells Peter that he will be the rock on which the church will be built – that Jesus has big plans for him. Now in this passage, Peter is trying to get Jesus to stop speaking about what needs to occur next because he cannot believe that is what will happen to the Messiah – for Him to be killed.

Often we get confused about Jesus and why He answers our prayers the way He does or why the world is full of bad situations where good people get hurt. Just like Peter, we think we know how God should organise things, how Jesus should save us from what we don’t like etc. But God knows way more about what is going on than we do and He has better ideas and plans. We may not like those ideas or those plans but He promises that we can trust they will work for good in all of us.

In the second half of this passage, Jesus asks us to trust Him, to believe that He knows best, that He loves us beyond our imagining, that He wants us to join Him in bringing His ideas to life even when they don’t make sense to us and, as a result, we will become who we were created to be.

Lord, thank you for the examples in the bible of people getting confused, misunderstanding your intentions or just plain missing the signs about what will happen. Thank you because that is what we do too. Help us to be reminded that you are God and that we are not, that you have ideas and plans that we may never be able to understand and that we can trust you 100%. Thank you for your love and that your desire is for each of our souls to be saved. Amen.

Written by Therese Manning