The Lord's Prayerਨਮੂਨਾ

Forgive our sins

Forgiveness is such an amazing thing. If you have ever received forgiveness, you know just how amazing it is. Particularly if the thing(s) we did were more significant, painful, or destructive.

What about offering forgiveness? How do you go with forgiving someone else? Having forgiveness extended to us can be much easier to get behind than having to do the forgiving. I’m not alone in puzzling over the ‘forgive us as we forgive others’ line in the Lord’s Prayer. I can get stuck on the order of forgiveness and what I’m expected to do. But there is guidance provided in the build-up to it.

As David Höhne underscores during The Lord’s Prayer Podcast, the first half of Jesus’ defining prayer emphasises God the Father. When He gets to praying about ‘daily bread’ and 'forgiveness’, it’s against the backdrop of reverence and devotion towards God. Other Bible passages make clear that forgiveness of our sins is only possible through belief in Jesus (see Matthew 26:28; Acts 10:43, Ephesians 1:3–14; Hebrews 8–9). Combining that vital information with the Lord’s Prayer establishes our sure foundation for forgiveness.

My forgiveness will not impact God’s forgiveness of you. I can’t do anything to influence or affect that. But being forgiven by God in Jesus means we will treat others who have sinned against us in the same way. The desire and strength to offer forgiveness is cultivated by the almighty fuel of God forgiving our wrongdoing.

Written by BEN McEACHEN