The Lord’s Prayer
6-1-2011 Vol. 4 Part 8
Psalm 25:11 NLT For the honor of Your name, O LORD, forgive my many, many sins. Psalm 25:18 NLT Feel my pain and see my trouble. Forgive all my sins. Psalm 32:1-5 NLT A psalm of David. Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the LORD has cleared of guilt, whose lives are lived in complete honesty! When I refused to confess my sin, my body wasted away, and I groaned all day long. Day and night Your hand of discipline was heavy on me. My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat. Finally, I confessed all my sins to You and stopped trying to hide my guilt. I said to myself, "I will confess my rebellion to the LORD." And You forgave me! All my guilt is gone. Father God we praise your name, you are our one and only God, the creator and ruler of all things. We ask that you reach into our hearts and remove anything that keeps us from forgiving those that hurt us. Then and only then can we ask for your forgiveness. We praise your holy name! You are awesome! Thank you Jesus! Amen!
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who have sinned against us.
This part of the Lord’s Prayer has to be the most important part of the whole prayer that Jesus is teaching us. Forgiveness, whether we are asking for forgiveness or granting forgiveness, our human flesh can get in the way. What a humbling thing it is to go to someone and ask for forgiveness. This means we are wrong in some way, shape, or manner. Our human flesh gets in the way sometimes when we need to ask for forgiveness, because we view our self as being right and don’t like being told or admitting we are wrong. I feel this is very evident here in the United States. Just observe the conduct of the people around us, pick up the paper, or watch the news, there is no respect of authority whether it be parents, teachers, supervisors, policeman, government, etc. When we are wrong, we have to swallow our pride, which is very difficult sometimes but we have to humble ourselves and ask for forgiveness if we are to stay in alignment with God’s will.
Have you ever noticed what the next two verses are about following the Lord’s Prayer? It is about forgiveness. We are to forgive in order for us to be forgiven by our Father. Matthew 6:14-15 NLT "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. 15 But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. If forgiveness isn’t important, then why did Jesus immediately state this after the prayer? You ask does this really pertain to current times? If you have to think and ponder that question, and toy with the idea of asking it, then I have to ask you this. What other parts of the Bible don’t you believe? The word is Jesus and Jesus was with God at the time of creation; John 1:1 NLT In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus manifested himself in human form; John 1:14 NLT So the Word became human and made His home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen His glory, the glory of the Father's one and only Son. Jesus proclaimed he was God; John 8:58 NLT Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I AM!" God hasn’t changed and he never will. Revelation 1:8 NLT ….. "I am the One who is, who always was, and who is still to come, the Almighty One."
Let’s take a look at a parable that Jesus taught us about forgiveness. Matthew 18:21-35 NLT Then Peter came to Him and asked, "Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?" "No, not seven times," Jesus replied, "but seventy times seven! "Therefore, the Kingdom of Heaven can be compared to a king who decided to bring his accounts up to date with servants who had borrowed money from him. In the process, one of his debtors was brought in who owed him millions of dollars. He couldn't pay, so his master ordered that he be sold—along with his wife, his children, and everything he owned—to pay the debt. "But the man fell down before his master and begged him, 'Please, be patient with me, and I will pay it all.' Then his master was filled with pity for him, and he released him and forgave his debt. "But when the man left the king, he went to a fellow servant who owed him a few thousand dollars. He grabbed him by the throat and demanded instant payment. "His fellow servant fell down before him and begged for a little more time. 'Be patient with me, and I will pay it,' he pleaded. But his creditor wouldn't wait. He had the man arrested and put in prison until the debt could be paid in full. "When some of the other servants saw this, they were very upset. They went to the king and told him everything that had happened. Then the king called in the man he had forgiven and said, 'You evil servant! I forgave you that tremendous debt because you pleaded with me. Shouldn't you have mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you?' Then the angry king sent the man to prison to be tortured until he had paid his entire debt. "That's what My heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart."
To get the full effect of what this parable states I want to point out a few things. I used the NLT because in comparing it to the KJV, NKJV, NASB, & Douay-Rheims the terminology speaks for itself.
· First, all seventy times seven gets the point across that is must be from the heart and not just lip service. (When we ask Jesus to rule our life, it must be from a sincere heart.)
· Second, the king is God Almighty.
· Third, millions of dollars refers to 10,000 talents which equates to more debt than any of us will ever incur. At that time, one talent was worth about 6 thousand days work, so it would have taken this man thirteen years, working six days a week to earn one talent. How anyone could compile a debt like this is irrelevant, the point being is he would never be able to pay it back in his life time. (This debt also represents the multitude of sin we have and can never be washed away with our good intentions or good deeds.)
· Fourth, when the man begged for more time his master (our God) forgave his debt and wash the slate clean of any debt. (Jesus bore our sins on the cross and shed his blood to pay the debt of our sin nature and make us debt free, if we beg for his forgiveness and ask him to rule our lives we are forgiven.)
· Fifth, instead of the servant learning from his own experience and exercising love and compassion, his sin nature took over (greed). When he saw a fellow servant that owed him money. He grabbed the fellow servant and would not extend him any time and had him thrown into prison. (Luke 6:35 NLT "Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, ……..)
· Sixth, his master found out by the grapevine what he did and he was summoned to appear before the throne, and the King (God) judged and condemned him to a life of torture (Hell).
· Seventh, Jesus finishes with, “That's what My heavenly Father will do to you if you refuse to forgive your brothers and sisters from your heart.”
Forgiveness is something that God takes very seriously. I have had people ask me about forgiveness and I know there are things done to people that make forgiveness a very painful and difficult thing to do. Things like divorce, rape, child abuse, sex abuse, a loved one killed, etc. Things of this magnitude take time, and is very difficult to do in human relationships. A person goes through four stages, for forgiveness to take place. Dr. David Jeremiah states this:
§ “Hurting: When someone causes you pain so deep and so unfair that you cannot forget it, you are pushed into the first stage of the crisis of forgiving. There is hardly a person here who hasn’t felt the hurt that needed forgiveness. Don’t be afraid of the hurt. That is part of the process. We are often told as Christians that we are to take offenses in stride. No, offenses hurt! The Bible doesn’t mask the real hurts that life brings, and we should not either. Hurt is a signal to us that forgiveness is needed.
§ Hating: You say, “Hate can’t be godly.” Hate isn’t godly, but it is the second stage leading to forgiveness. You cannot shake the memory of how much you were hurt. You cannot wish your enemy well. Sometimes you want the person who hurt you to suffer like you suffered. You want them to hurt. You construct speeches in your mind, things you want to say to them.
§ Healing: With God’s grace you are given eyes to see the person who hurt you in a new light. Your memory is healed. You turn back the flow of pain, and your are free again.
§ Coming Together: You invite the person who hurt you back into your life. If he or she comes honestly, love can move you toward a new and healed relationship. The fourth stage depends on the person you forgive as much as on you. Sometimes they don’t come back and you have to be healed all alone. But you do get healed.”
So Jesus says this: Those who live by God’s forgiveness must imitate it. Imitate forgiveness as Jesus did when he was on the cross. “Luke 23:34 NLT Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." …….” There is no greater love and forgiveness than to forgive your enemies. Anyone, whose only hope is that God will not hold his faults against him, forfeits his right to hold others’ faults against them.
When we go to our prayer closets and we realize we have wronged someone, we need to seek that persons forgiveness so we can be forgiven by our Heavenly Father. Matthew 5:23, 24 By doing this we will come before God in a state that is pleasing to him and our prayers will be heard in a whole different way.
Can we be proactive about forgiveness? I don’t know for sure, but what if we started our mornings out like this; “God, sometime today someone is going to hurt me, and I forgive them already. In my heart I forgive them.” It would sure start the day on a positive note and when someone would hurt you, you could respond with, “That’s ok I forgave you this morning during my morning prayers.” It would sure take anyone by surprise and it would also let the light of Jesus shine through you!
So forgiveness is a very emotional thing depending on the situation, forgiveness can be easy or it can be difficult. If you are walking as a Born Again Christian, the love that Jesus has put in your heart, at your spiritual birth, will help you in the forgiving process. If you haven’t asked Jesus into your life, there will be a struggle to forgive due to the inherited sin nature and the want to strike back and get revenge. Keep your eyes focused on Jesus and ask Him for help, to forgive those in difficult situations. Jesus is the only way, truth, and life!
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God!
Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth,
Unless you are Born Again, you cannot enter into Heaven, the Kingdom of God."
Bill
Last Week’s Trivia: How many rivers flow from the land of Eden and what are their names?
Answer: Genesis 2:10-14 NKJV Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one which skirts the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and the onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one which goes around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Hiddekel; it is the one which goes toward the east of Assyria. The fourth river is the Euphrates.
This week’s Trivia: How many foxes did Sampson catch, and what did he do with them?
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