Most of us are acquainted with the “Parable of the Unmerciful Servant” from Matthew 18. It is set in the context of principles about the kingdom of heaven. At the beginning of the chapter, his disciples asked Jesus who is greatest in the kingdom. Jesus answered that those who walk in a childlike humility are great in the kingdom. He then talked about those who would go after a lamb that had wandered from the flock and the excitement of heaven when that lost sheep is restored. Next he taught about forgiving a brother who sins against you. Peter, in his impulsive way, immediately asked how many times we are expected to forgive the knuckleheads in our lives (Peter always said what the rest of us were thinking but would never say out loud). Jesus responded with the lengthy parable I mentioned above.

In the parable, a king had loaned differing amounts to his servants and decided that it was time to call in the loans. He called in a certain servant who had borrowed huge amounts of money and apparently had lost it all. When he could not repay the loan, the king ordered him and his family to be cast into a debtor’s prison until friends and extended family might bail them out. The servant fell to his knees and begged, “ Be patient with me, and I will pay back everything!” The problem was that the king knew he would never be able to repay the enormous debt he owed. However, unexpectedly the king took pity on him, forgave the entire debt, and let him go.

The twist in the story comes when the servant who has just received an incredible gift of mercy, goes out immediately to collect a small debt from another servant. When the other servant could not pay, the “unmerciful servant” had him put in jail until his family could repay the small loan. When the king heard about what had happened, he revoked his forgiveness of the huge debt owed by the first servant and did have him cast into debtor’s prison.

The question of the day is why the man who had just received so much mercy was not willing to dispense a little on his own. Some simply believe he was selfish and hard- hearted with a bit of an entitlement attitude to boot. But I think the key is found in his plea for the king to give him more time to pay the debt. He did not believe that his debt was fully and freely forgiven. He left the presence of the king with the thought that he had only been given more time to come up with the money… like a loan shark giving his mark a few more weeks to pay while the interest accumulates.

Let me pose another question that I believe is related to this parable. Why do so many Christians find it so hard to forgive themselves for past mistakes when the Master has declared our debt fully and freely forgiven? Through the years, I have met with countless believers who do not walk in joy or confidence because they have not forgiven themselves for past mistakes. Their inability to forgive themselves creates an atmosphere of self-condemnation that makes it almost impossible to pray with faith because they constantly feel unworthy of receiving anything from the Lord.

At the core of that inability to forgive one’s self, I believe, is a misunderstanding of the fullness of the forgiveness that has come to them. If you ask these strugglers if they know that God has forgiven them, they will certainly say yes. But, it’s as if that person adds their own bit of fine print to the covenant that says, “I will forgive you once I am convinced that you loath yourself for these past sins and are filled with enough shame and regret long enough for what you have done.” There seems to still be a “works” mentality that says I must somehow eventually pay the debt by punishing myself, even if God will not. Like the unmerciful servant, some may believe that God has just given them more time to work off their sin.

At the core of this is a subtle unbelief in the unconditional love of God and the absolute sufficiency of Christ’s blood to eradicate the record of any sin in our past, present, or future. To say that God has forgiven me but that I can’t, seems to say that my standards for righteousness are higher than God’s. However, I know it’s more than that. I believe it is the same shame that Adam and Eve felt seconds after their sin in the Garden. We seem to be more able to get over our guilt – the idea that we have done something wrong, than to jettison our shame – the idea that there is something wrong with us.

The solution is in faith, but not so much the faith that I am forgiven as much as the faith that, in Christ, I am a new creation – the old is gone and new has come. The faith that I am born again and am not the same person I used to be is essential to forgiving ourselves. We keep thinking it is about something we have done but, in truth, it is about who we believe we are – defective and unacceptable. Only by taking on our new identity in Christ can we reckon the old man dead and walk in the joy of knowing that we have been made new. Only when we believe by faith that our spiritual and physical DNA has actually been changed can we have faith for the transforming power of God.

God is not asking for more. It has all been done by Jesus. He is not asking us to continue to punish ourselves for who we are or what we have done. Christ has taken on all of our punishment. What God wants is for us to believe him when he says that the past has been dealt with at every level and for us to begin to joyfully walk in the new life we have been given as a new creation in Christ. If you have been finding it hard to forgive yourself, spend a lot of time thinking about who you are in Christ now, not who you used to be then. In Christ, you are worth it and you are amazing.