The Lord’s Prayer – Forgiveness
and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors – Matthew 6:12
We know that sin separated us from God. However, we were forgiven through faith in Jesus’s sacrifice for us.
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus… to be received by faith…in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins… – Romans 3:23-26
Forgive me
Jesus knew that we would be justified and forgiven by faith (Romans 5:1, 8:1), so, why is he teaching us to pray for forgiveness? We need to understand that this is not a prayer for salvation, rather a prayer for the continuing relationship between God and those who are already part of His kingdom: those who received salvation through faith in Jesus’s sacrifice. However, we still live in a word affected by sin, and though we don’t practice sin, we still sin.
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness… – 1 John 1:8-2:2
If offending someone who loves you and whom you love causes pain, how much should it pain us when we offend God? As a result, we seek forgiveness whenever we sin: our love for Him compels us to do it. We know our weaknesses. This is why we should pray for forgiveness every day.
Help me to forgive them
The second portion of this prayer appears to have a conditional clause. Why are we to pray “as we also have forgiven our debtors”? The context of the Lord’s Prayer is all about God as our father, God as our King, us in his kingdom, and us in his family. Our relationships with our family in God are of great importance in His kingdom, but they are also affected by sin.
Establishing God’s kingdom requires fixing broken relationships. This is not easy. Everyone knows how it feels to be offended. To be honest, there is usually an innate desire for consequences against those who have offended us.
So how can we do something that goes against our human nature? We pray for our sins to be forgiven, but at the same time recognize that we have been offended and that we need to forgive. This should lead us to a prayer asking God to show us how to forgive others the same way he forgave us; a prayer for God to transform our hearts to be like His.
Forgiveness is part of His kingdom…forgiveness is part of His will.
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