Debts, Trespasses, And Sins, Oh My!

Matthew 6:12 “and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

I have a friend who when his children were small, 6 and 8 years of age, would put them inside of a too small t-shirt, and force them to stay that way until they would learn to get along and not fight.  You can imagine the faces on those kids when it would happen, eventually they would forgive one another and go back to playing.  Can you imagine if God did that to us, forced us to be in proximity with those who have trespassed against us, sinned against us, were indebted to us because of an offense, hurt or slight. Makes you pause for a second, right.  You may say to yourself, I don’t want to be around that person, no way!  But Jesus shows us the importance of forgiveness here and how paramount it is in our relationship with the Father and with each other. 

Jesus  would never ask of us, or expect of us, that which He himself wasn’t willing to do.  His incarnation was exactly like those kids in that shirt.  How? Well, God the Son put on flesh to enter into our reality, to be close, proximal to those who hated him.  The bible puts it like this in 

Romans 5:10 “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”

We were his enemies, we hated him, and He came to us. God wasn’t at fault in this divine equation, humanity was. But God sent his Son to rescue us, to forgive us. Jesus gives us access to that forgiveness, but there is a catch.  If we have been forgiven of much,  then we have a mandate to forgive much.  This is the only statement from His prayer that He reiterates and wants his disciples to get and understand.  He reinforces it with a condition, to make sure that they understood how important it is to forgive. If you have been forgiven of much you must forgive.  Listen to how he says it,

Matt 6:14-15 14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15 but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Forgiving can be hard in some instances, but God knows exactly what we need and why we need it. So much so, he makes our forgiveness conditional.  If we don’t forgive, we will not be forgiven. Jesus wasn’t mincing words here, its direct and to the point.  As strong as this statement is, I think it has the heart of the Father behind it. God wants what is best for us, and being forgiven is what is best for us, it opens the cage and cycle of unforgiveness we have been trapped in. In turn forgiving others helps us walk out of that cage and experience freedom from the cage of unforgiveness that has been opened. It has been said that unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. It ultimately damages us. 

Will you stop letting it damage you? Will you release others as God has released you? If you are ready, take this moment right now as we pray the Lord’s prayer together.  As you ask your heavenly Father to forgive your debts, trespasses, sins, pause then take a moment to think about the person who you have been holding a grudge with and forgive them as well. Be set free and walk that freedom out through forgiveness.

And remember, 

Jesus loves you and so do I!

Pastor Will