The Lord’s Prayer and Forgiveness
Recent conversations with several FAM Fellowship members have been about prayer and what we shouldn’t and shouldn’t be praying, so I felt led to go back and reread the Lord’s Prayer again; remembering that Jesus had given it as an example of HOW we should pray. And since I’ve always felt uncomfortable reciting it in “group” prayer because it seems like the words are just memorized and spoken without much thought given to their meaning, reading Jesus’ warning against vain repetitious prayer made me feel better about that. So we all need to carefully consider how Jesus taught us to pray and do our best to rely on it as a guideline, because there are a lot of important things to note about what He taught, and the first is that He wants our prayers to come from our hearts and to magnify Him and NOT to be little more than memorized words that we don’t even take the time to consider the meaning of.. Furthermore, He taught that our prayers shouldn’t be long, wordy or just a laundry list of the things we want or think we need, much less a means of telling God how to do HIS business instead of expressing our willingness to submit to HIS will regardless of what it is.
So reading and carefully considering Matthew 67-15 (NKJV) is the best way to understand how God wants us to pray, because that’s where Jesus taught: And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. “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.
As I reread this passage of scripture again, I was struck with a new understanding of how Jesus taught us to HUMBLE ourselves before God as we pray; recognizing and acknowledging WHO He is, the holiness and authority of His name, that His kingdom does and always will reign, and His absolute power in both heaven and earth. And that reminded me of how God repeatedly warns us that He OPPOSES and will bring low the proud, and that when we HUMBLE ourselves under HIS mighty hand, He will lift us up in due time (1 Peter 5:5-6). And it certainly takes humility to overcome our flesh and truly acknowledge who God is and how totally reliant and dependant we are on Him for EVERYTHING and to submit and surrender to HIS will in our lives, which is what Jesus taught us to do when we pray. That’s also what He said we have to do to follow Him according to Luke 9:23, where Jesus said Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. Obviously, Jesus knew and understood that we would have to crucify our flesh every day, and probably many times a day, just to trust and obey God.
And Jesus’ instruction to pray for God to forgive our debts (sin and trespasses) as WE forgive our debtors (those who sin and trespass against us) is particularly significant, especially since it confirms many other passages throughout the Bible making it very clear that the only thing God wants to hear from us concerning sin is our own repentance and request for forgiveness; like His counsel to remove the plank from our own eye before trying to help someone else remove the speck in their eye (Matthew 7:2-4); let him who is without sin cast the first stone (John 8:1-11); and that we’re ready to deal with the disobedience of others when our obedience is made complete (2 Corinthians 10:3-6), along with many other scriptural references to being forgiven and judged as we forgive and judge others, such as Luke 6:27-42.
Yet, even more significantly, I noticed something this time which I never fully understood the importance of before, and it’s something that is not typically taught about seeking forgiveness for our own sin. Yes, we all probably know that Jesus taught that we would be forgiven as we forgive others, but do we fully realize and accept that Jesus ALSO very specifically taught that if we DON’T forgive others, then God WON’T forgive us? Well, that is very precisely and unmistakably what Jesus taught in the above passage as He taught about prayer; he said 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. So when we teach and promote that forgiveness of sin just requires that we confess our sins, repent and ask God to forgive us, that is not scripturally sound because it ignores what Jesus stated so unequivocally in Matthew 6:15, which in the NIV says But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. So how blessed and fortunate we are to know that we can indeed do ALL things through Christ Jesus who strengthens us and that HIS grace is sufficient, because we have all struggled with forgiveness; particularly as God has forgiven us, which numerous passages make clear also means forgetting. For more about that, read Behold, I WILL DO a NEW Thing!, a previous Seeds Of Faith post.
Then another thing the Lord strongly confirmed as I reread this passage of scripture is something I’ve actually written about recently (such as Whatever It Takes!), and that’s the fact that God is in control of even the evil, wicked and bad things that happen in our lives, and that the devil can not come near us or impact our lives in any way without the express and very specific permission and authority of God Almighty. Why else would Jesus instruct us to pray And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.? And Jesus certainly knew all about that since He was led into the desert by the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil; as written in Matthew 4:1-11!
Finally, Jesus clearly taught that our prayers should be a LOT more focused on WHO we are praying to and a lot less focused on WHAT we’re praying for! Yet, in Philippians 4:6-7, we are told Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. That obviously requires us to have a great deal of faith and a greater understanding of WHO we are praying to as well, and WHO we have to thank for everything we have and everything we hope to have. So perhaps we need to give more thought to how our prayers tend to magnify our problems and needs instead of our great and mighty God. And there’s little doubt that God is not at all pleased or impressed when our prayers focus on the sin and/or work we think He needs to do in someone else, so we definitely need to give a lot more thought to abandoning prayers listing the sin and shortcomings of our mates and all that we want God to do to change THEM! We’d no doubt fare much better by thanking and praising God for our many blessings and by asking Him to complete His work in US; to give us forgiving and merciful hearts, to fill us with His love and goodness, to let others see HIM in us and all we say and do, to draw us into a closer walk and relationship with Him, to forgive us as we forgive those who have hurt us, to give us the strength to overcome our flesh as we walk in faith and obedience to His Word, and to THANK Him for drawing our spouses by the power of the Holy Spirit into right relationship with Him and us…ALL FOR HIS GLORY. And when we learn to pray as Jesus instructed, we can be sure that God hears and answers our prayers, that He will show us great and mighty things we do not know (Jeremiah 33:3), and that we will indeed be blessed and encouraged!