Love came first

The 490 life begins with love. Before we ever forgave anyone, before we ever loved God, He loved us. "We love because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19). "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Love sent Jesus to the cross, and there He paid a debt we could never pay, so that we could be forgiven. When we receive His forgiveness by faith, we receive His love with it. And that love does not stay put. It moves through us into the world, and forgiveness is one of the main ways it moves.

The number

Peter once asked Jesus how many times he had to forgive his brother. "As many as seven times?" Jesus answered with a number meant to end the counting: seventy times seven (Matthew 18:21–22). The ESV reads "seventy-seven times" and gives "seventy times seven" in its note; either way, the point is the same. Peter wanted to know when he could stop. Jesus told him to stop keeping score, because love "is not irritable or resentful" (1 Corinthians 13:5). That is exactly how God has treated us. In Christ, God was "not counting their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19).

In Hebrew, where letters double as numbers, two more words add up to 490. They are a memorable picture rather than a hidden code, and both point to Jesus. Tamim means whole, complete, without blemish. It is the word God used for the Passover lamb (Exodus 12:5). Beit Lechem, Bethlehem, means House of Bread. The Lamb without blemish was born in the House of Bread, and He grew up to say, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger" (John 6:35).

Daily bread

In the wilderness God taught Israel how His bread works. Manna came every morning, "a day's portion every day" (Exodus 16:4). Whatever they hoarded overnight "bred worms and stank" (Exodus 16:20). Only before the Sabbath did He give a double portion, so they could rest. He wanted a people who came back to Him every day.

Jesus taught us to pray the same way, and He put bread and forgiveness side by side: "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors" (Matthew 6:11–12). Our forgiving does not earn His. It is the evidence that His has reached us (Matthew 18:32–33). Once we belong to Christ, God never takes back His verdict of "forgiven." But His children still come to Him daily, for bread and for mercy, trusting the steadfast love that "never ceases" and the mercies that are "new every morning" (Lamentations 3:22–23). Grudges are like that hoarded manna. Kept overnight, they go bad inside us.

Love poured in, love poured out

"God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit" (Romans 5:5). What is poured in is meant to pour out. Jesus said, "just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another" (John 13:34). He also said, "he who is forgiven little, loves little" (Luke 7:47). The more we grasp how much we have been forgiven, the more we love.

So where does forgiveness fit? Kindness is love toward everyone. Generosity is love toward the one in need. Forgiveness is love toward the one who owes us. "Love covers a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8). Paul joins the two in one breath: forgive "as God in Christ forgave you," and "walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us" (Ephesians 4:32; 5:2).

Love does not stop with the people who hurt us. "The love of Christ controls us" (2 Corinthians 5:14), and it sends us out as His ambassadors with "the message of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5:19–20). Peter learned this over breakfast. After he had denied Jesus three times, the risen Lord fed him bread beside a charcoal fire and asked him three times, "Do you love me?" Each time, Jesus turned Peter's love outward: feed my lambs, tend my sheep, "Feed my sheep" (John 21:15–17). Love received becomes bread given.

I lost a job at fifty-eight, walked into the Phoenix Seminary library, and came out with Matthew 18 and a book. Divorced, rebuilt, forgiven. If you're somewhere in the middle of that sentence, you're who I write for.

Living the 490

To live the 490 life is to live loved. We come to Jesus, the Bread of Life, every day, and receive His forgiveness and His love fresh. Out of that love we love God and love our neighbor (Matthew 22:37–39). We forgive without keeping score. That does not mean pretending a wrong never happened, or trusting again overnight. It means we stop collecting the debt. We share the gospel and care for the people around us, because the bread we were given was never meant to be stored up. Jesus is the tamim, the Lamb without blemish. In Him we are counted whole, and His love keeps making us whole, until we are poured out in love for others.