I’m guessing we’ve all heard Jesus’ words bunches of times before:

“If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he apologizes, forgive him. Even if he sins against you seven time and turns round seven times and says ‘sorry’ to you, you must forgive him.” Luke 17:3-4

I love how Tom (N.T.) Wright, Bishop of Durham in the Church of England, and author of the …for Everyone series of commentaries on the New Testament puts it:

“When you forgive someone, you are making yourself their servant, not their master. Forgiving someone again and again ought not to get harder and harder; it shouldn’t be a matter of restraining anger for a longer and longer time… If that’s what it’s like, you’ve missed the meaning altogether. The point is that you’re not scoring moral points at all. You are to be humble, to take no advantage of the situation, to give to the other person the generous and welcome forgiveness that (as Jesus indicates on numerous other occasions) God has shown you in the first place. That, after all, is the real source of humility. If in doubt, meditate on God’s grace.”