Description
Understanding Forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer
In this episode, we reflect on Matthew 6:12, where Jesus includes the co… (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
So why do you think Jesus did this to his disciples? Why did he put this in the middle of the Lord’s prayer? Let’s meditate today on Matthew chapter six, verse 12. And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.
So he’s teaching them to pray and he’s advising them to keep this bit in the prayer. Forgive us, like we forgive everyone else. I think one of the things Jesus is doing here is making them think. He’s making us think, are we forgiving people? Are we forgiving the people who owe us something, who’ve upset us, who have offended us, who have transgressed in some way? Are we doing that?
And we should ask ourselves that, why? Because we’ve been forgiven so much.
God is showing us a principle here, isn’t he? That the way he’s treating us is the way that we ought to be treating those around us.
Now, God has loved us more than we have capacity to love, so we have to rely on his strength and empowerment to do even a small part of this.
But this is the objective here, isn’t it? That we are going to be forgiving. We’re not letting everybody get away with injustices. We’re just saying, as between you and me, you owe me nothing.
God is asking us to change our hearts here radically so that we are first and foremost motivated by love, and that love is drawing us to forgive others in the light of the gratitude we feel because of how much we’ve been forgiven.
I think this is really difficult verse to wrestle with and one that we should meditate on asking the Holy Spirit, not only to reveal it to us, but to make it live in our lives, in our hearts, how we operate day to day.
So, God, we thank you for how much you have forgiven us. And help us, Lord, please to learn from this, to grow in grace and forgiveness, and to forgive others in the way that we are asking you to forgive us. Amen.
