July 5, 2025
Vol. 7, Issue 10 (Summer 2025)
Jesus taught us to pray: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” (Matt. 6:12)
This prayer for forgiveness turns our attention from our physical needs (daily bread) to the spiritual condition of our souls.
When we talk about asking God for forgiveness, we are talking about sin. Mistakes and accidents are not our problem. Sin is the number one main issue that we have.
1 John 2:1 says, “If anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Repentance is a proof that you are Spirit-born. When we first believed, we repented of our sins. We turned from our sin to God. But after that, repentance did not cease. The Spirit produces in us a life of repentance. He causes us to repent. He convicts us, and then we repent over our sins.
The motive for repentance in a child of God is not fear, but love. There’s a difference. When I pray, “Forgive me,” I am still praying as a son to my Father in Heaven. I don’t repent because I am fearful or even to maintain my sonship. The Bible says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). When I repent, it’s not out of fear, but it’s out of love. I repent because of my relationship with my Father, because I don’t want anything to come between me and Him. That’s the proper motive for repentance in a child of God.
The second thing we notice here is that not only are we asking God to forgive us, but we are also forgiving those who have sinned against us. Jesus taught us that an important part of prayer is having a heart of forgiveness. As we are asking for forgiveness from our heavenly Father, it is assumed that we are actively forgiving others.
Jesus added an appendage to our “Forgive us” prayer in verses 14-15: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
I like what the Bible says in Ephesians 4:31-32: “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
Many times we measure our forgiveness to others against how they treated us. We often base our love for others on how much they have loved us. But in Ephesians 4, Paul says that other people are not our standard; but God is our standard. How we treat others is based on how patient, loving, gracious, and forgiving God has been to us over and over again.
One of my favorite stories of forgiveness involved Corie Ten Boom, who was a holocaust survivor and Christian author and speaker. One day she was speaking at a church, and afterward, a former Nazi SS guard came up to her. She immediately recognized him from the concentration camp she had been in. He didn’t remember her, but he had been born again since serving in the camp. He put out his hand and asked for her forgiveness. Corrie Ten Boom froze.
She wrote:
It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. For I had to do it–I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. “If you do not forgive men their trespasses,” Jesus says, “neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.” I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience….
And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion–I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.
“Jesus, help me!” I prayed silently. “I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.“
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
“I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!“
The Azusa Weekly 