Grace and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ! Welcome to „Daily Word for Spiritual Edification”! Until now we have talked about the benefits of forgiveness, how we are forgiven in God; we have discussed that sincere repentance is a prerequisite of forgiveness and how we can restore our relationships with other people. Today I would like to start talking about the other side of forgiveness – about how we need to learn to forgive our debtors just as we are need for our debts to be forgiven:
«And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors»(Mathew, 6:12).
We need forgiveness as much as we need to forgive the people that have sinned against us. It is important to see that forgiveness towards our debtors is a prerequisite for us to continue receiving forgiveness from God. The way we treat other people that are how God treats us. God uses the same measure we measure with. I would like to point out that the verse above doesn’t say: «Forgive us because we have forgiven others»; it says:«Forgive us AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS». In other words, the channel of God’s blessings is blocked until we forgive our debtors, our brothers and sisters. It is also the only condition mentioned in the Lord’s Prayer: « Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen .» (Mathew, 6:9-13).
In order to avoid any misunderstandings, Jesus added right after giving the example prayer: « For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses » (Mathew, 6:14-15).
Jesus treats us the way we treat other people. The very same principle is reflected in other verses of Scripture. « Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. (..) You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgement.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift » (Mathew, 5:7, 21-24).
« And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespass » (Mark, 11:25).
«If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear» (Psalm, 66:18).
Based on these verses we can see that it is impossible to worship God until the relationships with other people are in order. Also worship is impossible if we have unforgiven sins in our hearts: «If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear» (Psalm, 66:18). I once read what one general said to John Wesley: «I will never forgive!» John Wesley answered him:« I hope you have never sinned, sir». If you need forgiveness, then you can’t risk and afford to live in unforgiveness. Quite often we behave like the servant from Jesus’ parable who did not forgive his debtor even though he was just forgiven so much (Mathew, 18:21-35). Jesus told us this parable to show us how important it is to forgive those that have hurt or offended us. Tomorrow we will talk about it in detail! Be blessed! Pastor Rufus Ajiboye
