“Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

Mathew 6:12

There are two great needs of every believer:

1.) To be forgiven

2.) To forgive

These two go together hand and glove.

Jesus teaches us to pray for forgiveness of our debts.

We owe God, not just for our past

but also for our daily rebellions,

slip ups, heart attitudes, and outright sins.

Our debt mounts up everyday. Thankfully Jesus paid the debts on the cross, but God wants us to bring our confession regularly and ask for forgiveness daily. 

He does this for 3 reasons: 

1. That we might see our trespasses so we may turn from them
2. That we might see our need of his grace
3. That we might daily remember we are forgiven and loved

When I pray this part of the prayer, I ask God to search my heart to see if there are any false ways in me. As I do this I become aware of some missteps or flaws I was not thinking of.

This allows me to clear the slate

with God and clear the dirt out

of my soul. 

This causes me to seek God for his grace and mercy. 

On the other side of this confession is a realization that I am forgiven and loved by God even with my flaws.

God loves you,

not the version of yourself

that you think you should be.

This part of the prayer can drive us to daily rehearse the gospel to ourselves.

Jesus also instructs us to daily forgive our debtors -those that have harmed us, betrayed us, annoyed us, and sinned against us. He tells us to do this so we do not live in bitterness.

I am amazed when I get to this part of the prayer that I almost always have some form of bitterness towards someone in my life. Sometimes it is memories from the past and sometimes it is because of what they did yesterday.

This gives me the daily opportunity to forgive and be set free from the resentment I am almost always carrying. 

When being forgiven and forgiving are combined we are able to regularly think through the gospel of Jesus - who forgives.

When we forgive

we are most like God.

To forgive is to say I will absorb your wrong and not hold it against you. This is what God does for us through the cross of Jesus.

When we forgive we also see

that Jesus absorbed their debts

which gives us courage to release

them from the debt owed to us.

What do you need forgiveness for? 

What debts have you not asked God to cover? 

Who do you need to forgive? 

What debts do you need to release people from?

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Ephesians 4:32

Grace and peace,

Pastor Harvey