Dear Friend,

Jesus said, “Teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” That invitation in Matthew 28:20 has been guiding this series as we ask what the teaching of Jesus looks like in the places where we work, lead, decide, and carry responsibility.

So far, we have reflected on work as a place of discipleship, on clients and colleagues becoming neighbours, on leadership as service, on the sacred weight of keeping our word, on making disciples by helping others grow into leaders, on seeking God’s Kingdom first, and, most recently, on what our pace is producing in us.

This week, I want to turn to something many leaders carry quietly, and sometimes for years: the hurt someone else caused.

A business partner who walked away with clients. An employee you trusted who took more than their salary. A supplier who let you down at the worst possible moment. A board member who spoke against you behind closed doors. A colleague who took the credit for your work. Sometimes it is not even one big betrayal, but many small ones that slowly add up.

Business people know how to keep accounts. We know what is owed, by whom, and since when. And without noticing, many of us keep a second set of books: the ledger of what people did to us. The entries are never written down, but we remember every one of them.

Jesus speaks directly into that ledger.

Peter once came to Him with a question that sounds very reasonable. How often should I forgive someone who keeps wronging me? Seven times? That already sounds generous. Jesus’ answer did not set a new limit. It removed the limit.

“I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”
Matthew 18:22 (NIV)

Then Jesus told a story, and it is remarkable how much it sounds like business.

A king decided to settle accounts with his servants. One of them owed him an amount so large it could never be repaid in a lifetime. The servant begged for more time, promising to pay it all back. And the king did something no sensible creditor would do. He did not reschedule the loan. He wrote it off.

“The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.”
Matthew 18:27 (NIV)

But that same servant went out, found a colleague who owed him a small amount, grabbed him by the throat, and demanded payment. When the colleague begged for time, using almost the same words, he refused and had him thrown into prison.

When the king heard, his question was simple:

“Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?”
Matthew 18:33 (NIV)

I find it significant where Jesus starts. 

Forgiveness does not begin with a command to try harder. It begins with a cancelled debt. 

The servant’s problem was not that he lacked willpower. It was that he walked out of the king’s presence still thinking like a debtor. The mercy he received never reached his heart, so it never reached his colleague.

That is why forgiveness in the workplace is not first a management technique. It is the overflow of a life that knows it has been forgiven. We do not forgive in order to be loved by God. We forgive because we already are. Jesus connects the two so closely that He says, in the prayer He taught His disciples, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). Receiving grace and giving grace turn out to be one movement.

That sounds beautiful until it becomes personal.

Corrie ten Boom knew this tension better than most. Before the war, she worked in her family’s watchmaking shop in Haarlem, in the Netherlands, and became the first woman licensed as a watchmaker in the country. During the war, her family hid Jews in their home. They were betrayed, and Corrie and her sister Betsie were sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Betsie died there.

In 1947, after speaking in a church in Munich about God’s forgiveness, Corrie saw a man coming toward her. She recognised him immediately as one of the guards from Ravensbrück. He told her he had become a Christian and knew God had forgiven him, but he wanted to hear it from her. He held out his hand.

Corrie later wrote that she stood there unable to move. She had just preached forgiveness, and she felt nothing but coldness. So she prayed, silently asking Jesus for help, and she lifted her hand mechanically and put it in his. As she did, she described a warmth flooding through her, and she was able to say, “I forgive you, brother! With all my heart!”

She also wrote something I have never forgotten: forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.

I love that story because it is so honest. Corrie did not feel forgiving first. She chose, she asked for help, and the grace of Jesus met her in the choice. Her heart followed.

Most of us will never face anything like Ravensbrück. But the pattern holds in a boardroom, on a shop floor, or across a desk. We may wait for the feeling of forgiveness to arrive before we act. Jesus invites us to begin with the choice, and to trust Him to do in our hearts what we cannot do on our own.

Because in business, the words forgive and forget often get confused, it helps to say what forgiveness is not.

Forgiveness is not pretending nothing happened. Jesus’ story names the debt in full. Forgiveness is not the same as restored trust. I can release someone from what they owe me and still be wise about what I entrust to them next. Trust is rebuilt over time. Forgiveness is given. Forgiveness also does not cancel accountability. A leader may still need to let someone go, call in a contract, or protect the team. What changes is the heart behind the decision. It is no longer driven by revenge, by the need to see the other person pay, or by the story we keep replaying in our heads.

That last part matters more than we think. Unforgiveness rarely stays in one place. It shapes how we read every email from that person. It colours the next partnership we consider. It makes us guarded with people who have done nothing wrong. The servant in Jesus’ story ended up in prison, and I wonder whether the deepest prison was the one he built himself, long before the king ever spoke.

When a leader carries an open account for years, the whole organisation feels it. People notice who is never mentioned. They sense the tension in certain meetings. They learn, without being told, that mistakes here are remembered rather than redeemed. On the other hand, a leader who forgives creates a culture where people can admit mistakes, where honesty is safer, and where restoration is possible. That is not soft leadership. It is the kind of strength Jesus showed when, from the cross, He prayed for the very people who had put Him there.

“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”
Luke 23:34 (NRSV)

Perhaps there is a name that comes to mind as you read this. Perhaps it is an old partner, a former employee, a family member in the business, or a leader who hurt you. Perhaps the account has been open so long that you no longer notice it.

You do not have to feel ready to begin. You can start where Corrie started: with a quiet prayer for help, and a willingness to let Jesus do what you cannot.

And you can remember where the story begins. Before we are ever asked to forgive, a much larger debt has already been cancelled. We are not trying to manufacture mercy. We are learning to pass on the mercy that has already reached us.

Reflection Questions

1. Is there an account I am still keeping open with someone in my work or business? How long has it been open?
2. How has holding on to that hurt shaped the way I lead, decide, or trust others?
3. Where am I waiting to feel forgiving before I am willing to forgive?
4. What would it look like for me to forgive someone and still be wise about trust and accountability?
5. How deeply have I let the mercy I have received from God reach my own heart?
6. What kind of culture around mistakes and failure am I creating in my workplace?
7. Is there a step, even a small one, that Jesus may be inviting me to take this week?

From the series Working the Jesus Way, Learning to Follow Christ in Business, Leadership, and Everyday Work