“… and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” Matthew 6:12.
The choice to forgive says far more about what we believe God will do for us than what people have done to us.
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Jesus taught His men to forgive others because their heavenly Father has forgiven them. We can never grasp the full weight of forgiveness outside the shadow of His kindness towards us. He is holy and we are not. David’s revelation captures our state of being well:
“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5).
We have inherited sin. This is our inheritance from our parents who inherited it from their parents, and so on. We are, on the one hand, victims who have been conceived in a sinful state from parents who have been affected by sin. Like malware that infects a computer, we have been contaminated by a spiritual sickness we cannot escape.
On the other hand, we then make choices that are driven by this contamination and so we also become perpetrators of sin. Selfishness drives the human heart and seeks to fill the void of self-worth, significance, and security that sin has taken away. The only way to recover from these things is from the healing hand of a Holy God who can cleanse us from this spiritual disease and bring healing to our brokenness. All the things of the Flesh, immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and anything like these things are works of the Flesh, that corrupted component of God’s image that distorts and malfunctions in our life.
We are all in the same boat. We are all broken and like everyone else, struggle with sinful stuff. When Jesus taught His men to ask the Father to forgive them as they forgave others, it reminds us of two things:
- First, every person has eternal value. We are all created in His image, so no one is any better than the next person. No ethnic group has greater value than other ethnic groups. Every person stands the same before God – we have eternal value because we all reflect His divine fingerprint.
- Secondly, no one is good. Romans reminds us no one seeks God, and no one is righteous. We have all gone astray. We often deceive ourselves by thinking we are better than others because when we compare our life to others, we often do not struggle with the same stuff they struggle with. Before God, none of us will give God a resume proving we are good enough. It is impossible for us to prove to God that we deserve heaven, or we are entitled to a better place when we die.
All that to say, that God expects His children to forgive others. God’s promise is He will forgive us as we choose to forgive those who hurt us. We can never find freedom or complete healing until we forgive those who hurt us because we know God will not forgive His children if they do not value and act in a way that reflects His forgiveness. When we forgive others, we are acting on the conviction that our Father will do far more for us than what others have done to us.
Pastor Brad.
