Proclamation:
"Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors ... For if you forgive men when they sin
against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their
sins, your Father will not forgive your sins." Matthew 6:12-15 (NIV)
Explanation:
These are the words of
Jesus, The Christ, which He spoke to His disciples and to the surrounding crowd
during His Sermon on The Mount. First,
He taught them that when they pray they should ask to be forgiven as they
forgive others. Then He told them that
if they forgive others, then God would forgive them. But if they did not forgive others, then God
would not forgive them. Jesus explained
to them that they must first forgive those who have sinned against them in
order to be forgiven of their own sins.
Application:
We all have sinned. (Romans
3:23) None of us is righteous on our own.
(Romans 3:10) If we are righteous, whatever
righteousness we have was credited to us by God just as it was credited to
Abraham, the father of the faithful. (Romans 4:20-24) We have done wrong to our fellow man but the
sins which we committed were sins against God. (Psalm 51:4) Only God can forgive us of our sins. If we admit that we have sinned and ask Him
to forgive us of our sins, He will. (1 John 1:9) However, we have to ask God for His
forgiveness. In the model prayer which
Jesus taught His disciples, He said that we should ask our heavenly Father to
"forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." When we ask for forgiveness, we will only be
forgiven as we are willing to forgive others. Jesus made it clear that if we do not forgive
others of their sins against us, then our heavenly Father will not forgive us
of our sins. (Mark 11:25) Simply put, we
must forgive in order to be forgiven.
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