envelop spinner search close plus arrow-right arrow-left facebook twitter

The Upside Down World, Week 4, Day 2

by David Joynt on October 02, 2017


MATTHEW 18:23-28

 

How does God evaluate the way we interact? This parable gives us a direct insight into God’s thoughts about our behavior, and we learn two remarkable things. Enter into this parable from the viewpoint of the King. How do you feel when you forgive someone a massive, unpayable debt in response to their pleas and desperation? How do your feelings change when you see that your magnanimity has no impact on their heart or behavior?

 

Jesus is teaching that we underestimate our debt to God! We forget that our abilities come from him, our blessings and opportunities. We don’t realize how costly is the comprehensive forgiveness he gave us and how necessary. 

 

How do you imagine your debt to God?

Do you find it hard to enter this story as the King?

 

FAMILY TIME—

Talk about your mortgage with your kids.

Ask them how you’d feel if you couldn’t pay it off in 100 years!

Read the story with them and ask them about how they understand it.

 

 

Tags: debt, forgiveness

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

More from Pastor Joynts Devotionals

return to Pastor Joynts Devotionals