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A FORGIVING HEART (IV)
FRIDAY, MAY 7
Luke 17:5-10

1 Corinthians 9:16-17

 

“We are unprofitable servants…”

 

A FORGIVING HEART (IV)
 
Progress. We have seen the high standard of forgiveness God requires of us. Anyone with any experience at all of human relationships will know that it is not easy to forgive in this way! Certainly Jesus’ disciples recognised this difficulty: hence their exclamation, “Increase our faith” (Luke 17:5).
 
But once again, we must consider the Lord’s response to help us understand how we are to approach and overcome this difficulty. He immediately makes it clear that forgiveness is in fact not a “faith issue,” in the sense that God’s high standard cannot be waved off with the excuse, “I don’t have enough faith to do that.” All we need is faith “as a grain of mustard seed,” and even what appears impossible may become possible for us ‒ “ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you” (v 6). In other words, a failure to forgive on our part can straightforwardly and plainly be diagnosed as disobedience! Even a modicum of genuine faith would lead us to lay hold of God’s Word and obey it, trusting in Him to supply our lack of ability.
 
The point is then driven home with an illustration (vv 7-9). Though a servant may be toiling hard in the field, and so return to his master’s house worn out and hungry, he is still required and expected to do his duty. It will certainly be difficult for him to pick up his tired hands and feet, and “make ready” the master’s meal, and “serve” him until he has “eaten and drunken,” and only then sit down to his own food! Yet difficult or not, he must still do it: such is the lot of a servant. So also with regard to ourselves as servants of God.
 
Dear reader, it is not for us to complain that any of God’s requirements are too harsh, or any of His standards too high. Nor is it for us to boast if we are able to obey any particular instruction ‒ either way, it is the Lord Himself who supplies us the grace that we need to keep His law. And when we have done all that is required of us, we will have nothing better to say of ourselves than, “We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do” (v 10).
 
THOUGHT: Forgiveness may be difficult, but it is my duty.

PRAYER: Father, grant me grace to do my duty!

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