"After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."
Matthew 6:9-13
Part 5
Yesterday: We Learned to Pray for God to Meet Our Daily Needs
“Give us this day our daily bread.”
God wants us to depend upon Him and trust Him to meet the needs of each day.
Today: We Learn to Pray and Confess our Sin to God, and We learn to Forgive Our Debtors
(Matthew 6:12)
“And forgive us our debts.”
Sin is pictured here as a debt, and those who sin are the debtors. It is not hard to understand. God demands that we live as He does, holy lives free of sin.
“But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16).
God is working in His children to sanctify us. On the one hand, He sees us in Jesus Christ, His Son, as perfectly righteous, and He has declared us to be so. In everyday life here on earth, we know that we still have a daily struggle with our sin. We are far from being sinless or perfect. As we see our Savior each day in the Word, we are progressing toward holiness. The Holy Spirit aids our growth in Him. We are slowly becoming more and more like Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:17-18). One day, when we finally see Jesus, we will “be like Him,” and sin will no longer be a challenge for us (1 John 3:2). Amen, “even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!” We call this process toward our personal holiness “progressive sanctification.”
But for now, we are not yet sinless, and we must daily contend with our sin. In the same way that we go to God in prayer each day with our physical needs, also we take Him our spiritual needs, our sin. We confess our sin to Him, and we enjoy His forgiveness.
“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
That is part of the picture of forgiveness. Here’s the other part –
“As we forgive our debtors.”
As God forgives us of our sin debt, so He expects us to forgive those who have a sin debt against us. We each daily owe God a debt for our sin against Him, and parentally He forgives us when we confess our sins to Him. But now, we must forgive others; this is our duty from God.
Jesus has taught us,
“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
Indeed our God has extended His mercy to us. Now it is time for us to extend mercy to others. The ones who have wronged us, we ought to willingly forgive.[1]
“God sees His own image reflected in His forgiving children, but to ask God for what we ourselves refuse to men, is to insult Him. So much stress does our Lord put upon this that immediately after the close of this prayer, it is the one point in it which He comes back upon … for the purpose of solemnly assuring us that the divine procedure in this matter of forgiveness will be exactly what our own is”[2] (JFB).
“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15, see also Mark 11:25-26).
“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again” (Matthew 7:1-2).
Tomorrow we will learn to ask God for help when we are tempted to do wrong. See you then.
Quote: “‘I can forgive, but I cannot forget,’ is only another way of saying, ‘I will not forgive.’ Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note – torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one”[3] (Henry Ward Beecher).
[1] “The Greek grammar indicates that the disciple prays for forgiveness from God only after having first expressed forgiveness to others” (CSB). Stein, R. H. (2017). Differences in the Gospels. In E. A. Blum & T. Wax (Eds.), CSB Study Bible: Notes (pp. 1509–1510). Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers.
[2] Jamison, Fausset, and Brown. Jamison-Fausset-Brown’s Commentary, the electronic version in eSword. Matthew 6:12.
[3] Beecher’s quote Downloaded: Friday, June 4, 2021. From: https://www.christianquotes.info/top-quotes/18-powerful-quotes-about-forgiveness/.