“Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”
We say that line all the time in the Lord’s Prayer.
But do we really stop to think about what it means when put together?
Today’s reading in Matthew 18, reminded me of something I read In Timothy Keller’s Prayer.
He said that the way those are put together in the Lord’s Prayer, means that they are connected.
God forgives us as we forgive others.
If we aren’t willing to start forgiving those that have hurt us, then God can’t really forgive all your sins.
When we hold onto the pain that someone has caused us and refuse to forgive them, we can’t truly ask for forgiveness for all of our sins.
True forgiveness can only come when we let go of the pain and wrongs that have been perpetrated against us.
In Matthew, Jesus tells the story of a man who begged his master to forgive his debt, and the master showed great mercy and forgave his debt.
But then the man went out and found a man who owed him a small fraction of what he had just been forgiven and threw him in debtors prison until he could pay.
When the master found out about this, he threw the first man into the same prison until his full debt was paid off.
Jesus is showing us, that how we judge and hold forgiveness from those around us, is the same way God will treat us.
This is a really hard concept. I have things that I’ve refused to forgive people for. More than likely, those same people who I’ve been holding my forgiveness from, do not even know that they have truly harmed me in any way. Yet I hold onto these things and let them fester inside of me.
This is not good. I need to learn to let go of the anger that I hold inside of me.
I need to forgive those who have trespassed against me. So, that I can release myself to be forgiven by God.
No comments:
Post a Comment