"Forgive us our debts as we forgive (or have forgiven) our debtors."
I feel a sermon coming on. Actually, I'll try very hard not to be preachy, but this is a citical concept in Kingdom living. We need to grab this and understand it.
When Jesus uses the term debt here, He is clearly not talking about finances; He is talking about sin. Yet the language used in the Greek (original manuscripts) was accounting language -it is speaking of actual debts that are owed. Jesus is teaching us to pray, to ask our Father, to forgive the sin debt that we owe Him proportional or in accordance with our willingness to forgive the sin debt that others owe us. Immediately upon finishing this prayer, Jesus goes back to this phrase and expounds to make sure we get it right. We will talk about that part in a couple of days. For today let's look at the idea of sin being a debt that is owed.
I think we mostly understand our need to be forgiven. I believe we understand that our sin addicition is systemic and we can't break our bondage to sin without God's intervention. God's intervention, God's solution to our sin problem was to allow Jesus to take the guilt and shame of all of our sin and die for it -the debt of our sin has been paid. The law is satisfied. Forgiveness is given.
The part we don't always understand is that when people sin against us there is also a debt that is owed. Because we know that we are supposed to forgive others when they wrong us, we tend to minimalize the wrong that has been done. It is not OK with God that people sin against us. In equating sin as a debt that is owed, Jesus is telling us to take an account of what is owed. Don't minimalize, don't sweep it under the rug, and don't pretend everything is fine. Take a spiritual and emotional inventory and honestly assess the damage and hurt.
We can’t forgive a debt without taking an account of what is owed. The reason we feel bitterness or pain is because something is owed. There is a spiritual and emotional debt. We must take a full account of the debt before we can effectively release it.
Releasing the debt once an account has been taken is simply a matter of admitting to God that we don't really want to carry the hurt anymore, and literally asking Him to carry the debt for us. In a sense, we sign the debt over to Him. Now it is no longer ours, it is His. In forgiving, we are turning the people who hurt us over to God. Forgiveness is a big deal. This is critical to Kingdom living. We'll explore this more as we get to Jesus' further teaching on it.
In the mean time, "Father, forgive the debt I owe as I forgive others the debts they owe me." Amen.
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