“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15; all Scripture quotations are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise indicated).

After teaching His disciples the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus immediately continued by expounding on only one of its petitions. He told us to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us” (traditional wording). That is the only petition He commented about. It must be important.

Many Christians avoid these verses. Jesus cannot really mean that, can He? They say, “Surely He is only talking about what we are going to do when we are in heaven. This is not possible on earth!” However, the Lord’s Prayer is a prayer we pray here and now, on earth. Why else would we pray for His kingdom to come and will be done on earth as it is in heaven? We cannot make excuses. We cannot afford to rationalize Jesus’ teaching away, assuming that He was talking about someone else and not us. He demands that we forgive those who have wronged us.

Part of our resistance stems from the fact that it appears to be legalism or earning our salvation by doing something. We preach that we are saved by grace through faith, not as a result of our deeds (Ephesians 2:8-9). At face value, Matthew 6:14-15 seems to contradict that. It suggests that we might believe in Jesus but be excluded from heaven because we chose not to forgive somebody.

Perhaps part of the problem is that we do not understand the meaning of “faith.” We assume that it means “intellectual agreement with an idea” when it is more than that. True faith involves complete trust and confidence in God. We believe that Jesus died and rose; because of that, we trust Him to save us and have confidence in His will. We follow Him because we know He will not fail us. Both prayer and faith involve agreement with God’s wisdom, trust in His character, and submission to His will.

Such true faith will make us keenly aware of how much God has forgiven us and will inspire us to forgive others. As we follow the Lord, confessing and repenting from our sins regularly, we will recognize how the sins of others may resemble our own. We will remember how God has forgiven us and realize that the other person also needs His forgiveness.

As we pray, we pray in Jesus’ name (John 14:13-14; 16:26). This is not merely slapping the phrase “in Jesus’ name” at the end of our prayers. It means praying with His authority. We pray as children of God, co-heirs with Jesus Christ. He has not given us the authority to condemn others. Instead, He gave us the authority to forgive others in His name.

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’” (Romans 12:19).

Jesus asked the Father to forgive the people who crucified Him and those who mocked Him while He was dying. If He could forgive them, can we not forgive people who have committed less grievous acts against us?

A significant problem emerges when we do not extend forgiveness to our brothers and sisters in Christ. Our relationship with other Christians is intertwined with our relationship with God. The Bible never uses the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus.” It speaks of fellowship with God, which is revealed in our fellowship with other believers. It is perhaps more accurate to speak of a familial relationship with God and His children instead of a strictly personal relationship with Jesus.

“If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:6-7, emphasis added).

Some believers stop going to church because of unforgiven grievances. The pastor’s sermons may have called out certain sins and, instead of yielding to the Holy Spirit’s conviction, they accused the pastor of being judgmental. Another church member said or did something that hurt their feelings, or there were a few people with whom they did not get along, so they stopped attending that church. Then, they conclude that all churches are the same, so they stop going anywhere.

This trend has increased in recent years. The COVID pandemic gave many people the excuse they were seeking to stop going to church, and they never returned. In many cases, they were harboring resentments against too many of their brothers and sisters in Christ. Unforgiveness led them to cut ties with other believers and, as a result, cut off some of the primary ways God chooses to work in His children’s lives. (By the way, He does not choose to work only through the Bible. Countless cults were formed by people who thought they could hear from God without being corrected or sharpened by other Spirit-filled believers.)

Do not allow unforgiveness to get between you and God or His family. Jesus saved us by His grace and mercy, forgiving us when we deserved judgment. Share His mercy with those who need it.

Heavenly Father, thank You for forgiving us when we did not deserve it. Give us the grace to extend that forgiveness to others, particularly those who have hurt or offended us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Is there anybody you need to forgive? If you are finding it hard to forgive them, begin to pray for them now. Share your thoughts about forgiveness in the comments area below.

Copyright © 2024 Michael E. Lynch. All rights reserved.