What They Did Was Wrong… But Don’t Let It Own YOU

Let's be honest first: what they did was wrong. This is not a message that pretends the offense was small or that YOU should just act like it never happened. The debt was real. The hurt was real. But there is a question this passage forces YOU to face — not whether they were wrong, but what holding onto it is doing to YOU. Because Matthew 18 reveals that unforgiveness does not punish the person who hurt YOU. It quietly imprisons the person carrying it.

There is a parable here about a man who was forgiven an impossible debt.

He owed something so massive he could never have repaid it in a lifetime. He was completely out of options, facing total ruin. And when he begged for mercy, he received something he did not deserve and could never earn: the entire debt was wiped away. Every bit of it. He walked out of that room free, carrying nothing.

Here is what most people miss.

That same forgiven man walked straight out and found someone who owed him a small fraction of what he had just been released from. And instead of extending the mercy he had just received, he seized him, refused to listen to his pleading, and had him thrown into prison over a debt that was tiny compared to the one he had been forgiven. He held on to a small offense while standing in the freedom of a massive pardon.

And what happened to him next is the sobering heart of this parable.

Because his refusal to release what was owed to him did not just affect the other person — it came back on him. He was handed over to the tormentors. That is the picture this passage paints of unforgiveness: it does not lock up the one who wronged YOU. It hands YOU over to torment — replaying it, reliving it, carrying a weight that grows heavier the longer YOU hold it. YOU thought YOU were holding them accountable. YOU were actually holding yourself