I don’t know what I was doing that day when the words from Matthew 18:35 struck my heart in such a profound way. It was like the windows of Heaven were opened and God made himself known to me. I had been hearing a lot about forgiveness in recent years and there seemed to be a new tenor about it, one that didn’t quite resonate with me. My flesh would have liked to put the forgiveness that Jesus spoke of into the same category as what I had been hearing, but there was something so foreign about the way it was being said. The thought behind it came out in many different ways.

“We need to forgive, but that doesn’t mean we need to forget.”

“Yes, I forgive you but you will never have that place in my heart again and I don’t feel like I need to give it to you. I have to protect myself.”

“Just because I’m talking badly about my former church, doesn’t mean I haven’t forgiven them for what they did to me. I have forgiven them, but others must know about this.”

Every time I heard or saw phrases like these, my heart stuttered. Had I misinterpreted scriptures? Did I really not need to give others 490 chances or more? Could I really say that I wouldn’t forget when God has promised to forgive me for a multitude of sins a million times over? Was it really okay to tell people how I had been wronged? I questioned and questioned and questioned again. 

But that day God could not have spoken clearer to me. Matthew 18:35 says, “So likewise shall my Heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” A verse we read many times and probably know by heart, but do we really catch it? Three small words that make all the difference in the world. Three small words that change human forgiveness to godly forgiveness. Three small words that give us no room for stumbling. 

“From your hearts.” I believe Jesus was trying to say something here. He knew that of ourselves we could offer a certain amount of forgiveness. After all, He is a good, good God and when He made us in his image, He placed a little of that goodness in us. The goodness of humanity. But He also knew the forgiveness He was speaking of went much deeper than that. He knew to forgive as He does, would take a power not our own, but the power of his Spirit resting within each of our hearts. Yet He commanded us to do so. I suppose it’s a little like love. The human hearts are made to love. But to love like He does transcends all other love. 

And it’s what He says before this verse that strikes my heart cold. “Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him” (Matthew 18:33-34). Then He goes on to say, “so likewise shall my Heavenly Father do also to you, if ye from your hearts forgive not.”

Yet we try to reason with God. We try to reason with ourselves. We claim we are human and that God wouldn’t require any of this from us. But He does. Oh my friends. He does. Do we really think after reading these verses that we can do any less than God does for us? Do I really think I can withhold myself from someone else because of how they treated me? Does God ever withhold Himself from me when I’ve confessed? 

Do I really think I can decide to not let someone back into my heart because of needing to forgive them a hundred times when God clearly doesn’t want us to count the times? Does God ever not let me back into his heart even though I’ve failed Him a million times over? Two million? Do I really think that what happened to me was so bad that I can forgive but still be justified in talking badly about them, when God, in turn, would take MY sins and remove them as far as the east is from the west? The space between east and west cannot even be measured because the two never meet.

Who do I think I am claiming I don’t need to forgive like God does because I am human? Because I can’t? Because I’m not perfect? Yes. I am human. We all are. But do I want to live within such boundaries when God has called me to walk a higher plane with Him? When He offers me the grace to forgive like Him? When He will deliver me to my tormentors if I do not “from my heart” forgive? Do I really want to require less of myself than my Lord requires of me?

I want to live beyond my reach. I want to forgive so deeply that Satan and his divisive ways will have no place in my heart. I want my forgiveness to be so much “from my heart” that I will welcome anyone back in to my life and that everyone will have a place in my heart. Because God has done that for me. If He can remove my sins that far, with his strength in me I can hurl the wrongs of others a great distance also. And if He can forgive me a million times over for sins even committed directly against Him, surely I can quit counting.