Our Lord and His PrayerНамуна

Technically, The Lord’s Prayer ended with yesterday’s portion; however, the verses we are going to look at today are kind of Jesus’ P.S. to the prayer. When His disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he said a prayer as an example then went right into today’s verses (v.14-15).

That’s pretty interesting. Of all the parts of the prayer He could have emphasized, He chose forgiveness.

Jesus is making a point here, but don’t confuse it with what he is NOT saying.

Jesus is NOT saying…

…that forgiveness earns us the right to pray. Prayer is a privilege of our relationship with God; forgiveness is a prerequisite of our fellowship with other people.

…that forgiving others is the key to being saved. Salvation comes by grace through faith, not by anything we do or don’t do (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Jesus is not threatening us with unforgiveness; He's warning us about unforgiveness.

Recently my family went to a restaurant for lunch. As we waited for our food, I carefully peeled one end off of my paper straw wrapper exposing just enough straw so I could blow through it and shoot the rest of the wrapper across the table at my oldest daughter. Unfortunately, the straw had touched the side of my cup, and the condensation from the cup wet the wrapper, which kept the wrapper from shooting off of the straw. Just as that water weighed down my straw wrapper, so does unforgiveness weigh down my ability to be forgiven.

The attitude that enables us to accept God’s forgiveness is the same attitude that compels us to extend it to others. If we are unable to forgive others, our hardness of heart will interfere with us accepting God’s forgiveness.

Jesus is not declaring that God is unwilling to forgive unforgiving sinners; He’s disclosing that unforgiveness decreases our capacity to receive God’s forgiveness.

Jesus is making sure we understand the gravity of unforgiveness. Refusing to forgive breaks fellowship with our brothers and sisters, and if we don’t have fellowship with the ones we have seen, how can we talk to the One Whom we have not seen?

May you extend forgiveness to those who have hurt you so that your prayers aren’t weighed down by that which God wants you to release.