Psalm 37:21 says that “the righteous shows mercy and gives.” Echoing the Lord’s requirement that we “love mercy” in Micah 6:8, Jesus said that mercy is one of “the weightier matters of the law” (Matthew 23:23).

In the Beatitudes opening His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7). Later in the same message, He gave an outline for prayer known as the Lord’s Prayer, telling us to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). This is speaking of what is owed for having done wrong.

Luke records this line elsewhere as “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us” (Luke 11:4). After relating the Lord’s Prayer outline in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus immediately called attention to this particular aspect, declaring: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).

So it’s vital that we not bear grudges but, instead, intentionally let go—not holding on to hurts and becoming bitter. And Jesus said we are to keep on forgiving even with repeated sins, as God does with us (Luke 17:3-4; Matthew 18:21-22). This does not mean everything can be smoothed over with every offender in complete reconciliation, and there is not space here to delve into specific circumstances, but we must strive to maintain a forgiving heart.

Jesus went on in Matthew 18:23-35 to give a parable of a servant who owed a master a vast fortune but couldn’t pay—with the servant and his family to be sold as a consequence. The servant begged for time to pay, and the master amazingly had compassion, released him and forgave the debt.

But this servant then went and grabbed a fellow servant who owed him an amount that, while substantial, was nevertheless nothing compared to what he himself had been forgiven. This fellow servant begged for more time to pay, but the first servant threw him into debtor’s prison! When this was reported to the master, he was furious, saying, “Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?” (Matthew 18:33). And the master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured to pay in suffering the vast amount he owed.

Note that this servant actually reincurred the debt he had been released from and now had to pay because of his own failure to be forgiving. This is a serious warning to Christians who have received God’s grace. As Jesus concluded, “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses” (Matthew 18:35).

The apostle James would later write: “For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy” (James 2:13). We should not be focused on treating others as they deserve, for what would this mean for us? What do we deserve? Thankfully, as James then adds, “Mercy triumphs over judgment”—and so should it be in our treatment and forgiveness of others. The apostle Paul likewise said that we are to be “forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32; compare Colossians 3:13).

Once more we see that grace does not come without critical obligations. As we have been forgiven, so are we to be people who extend forgiveness to others. If we ever got to the point where we ceased to be forgiving, God would also cease to forgive us. Let us never go down that path, but rather always remember God’s great undeserved merciful grace toward us and continue to forgive as we are forgiven.