Forgiveness Part 2

We continued our studies on forgiveness the other night at small group. The studies, by the way, are from a book called Groups by Ortberg, Pederson & Poling. Some of the book is quite simple and not a whole lot of indepth bible study, but this stuff on forgiveness is really good. Insightful and challenging!
We looked at the parable of the Unforgiving Debtor in Matthew 18:23-35. The key in this is that we are that unforgiving debtor. We've had our sins forgiven by our gracious Lord, so when we don't pass on forgiveness to our fellow man for much lesser things we aren't acting as we should. The debtor in the parable clearly didn't understand the extent to which he had been forgiven, the fact that his debt had been cancelled hadn't impacted him. He hadn't changed his lifestyle as a result of being forgiven.
Similarly, the story of the woman and the alabaster jar of perfume in Luke 7:36-50 sends the same message. Someone commented the other night that this parable makes it sound like we should sin all the more, so that we can be forgiven for more, then we will love the Lord even more for his forgiveness! Romans 6:1-2 pretty much answers that one; that we shouldn't sin just so that grace can abound to us. The message of the parable is that for us to love Jesus all the more we should learn to understand the extent of our sin. Not our individual sins that we commit but our very nature and the fact that prior to our forgiveness we were even under the wrath of God, under his anger. (John 3:36) Simon the Pharisee didn't have as many visible sins as the woman in the story, but he was still under God's wrath if he didn't trust Jesus for his salvation.
What we can take from these parables is that we should take the time to understand the nature of sin, the nature of our disconnection from God prior to salvation. We should understand God's position towards us before we were saved. When we understand this, we will be so much more thankful to God for saving us through Christ. A hugely deep love for God will come as a result of knowing what he's done for you! And when we understand our own vast forgiveness we will be much more willing to forgive others for comparatively petty things.