Matthew 6:12-13 reads: And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
It’s no surprise that Jesus included a plea for forgiveness in his model prayer. If you are a Christian, your repentance of your sins and God’s willingness to forgive you are the bedrock of the entire gospel.
Why so important?
The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is what created a bridge between these two things. His willingness to lose his life in his early 30s, when he had never done anything wrong, and suffer an agonising and prolonged execution not only shows us just how much God wants to forgive us, but also acts as the only thing that will truly motivate us to repent.
The problem is that it’s so easy to forget that. Repentance isn’t easy or comfortable. Relying on God’s mercy goes against our natural instinct to rely on ourselves and do things on our own terms.
Two ways to get it wrong
As human beings we feel much more comfortable with the idea that we can earn our way, that in the case of God we can earn eternal life if we obey his commands to a high enough standard.
Anyone who’s read the New Testament will know that’s not how it works, but even so it’s such an easy trap to fall into. Perhaps without meaning to or without even realising, we can delude ourselves and even teach younger people that it’s simply a matter of subscribing to the correct set of beliefs and performing the correct set of actions.
Or there is the opposite approach that goes too far the other way. Since our salvation is a gift of God’s grace that we cannot ever possibly earn, some people fall into the trap of thinking that nothing we do can have any impact on God’s decision to save us. It all comes from God and none of it comes from us. Therefore we have no right or justification to go around pointing out the sins of others and calling them to do better.
Even the most basic reading of the New Testament will show that both of these views are obviously wrong. While it matters a great deal what we believe and what we do, it isn’t going to earn us anything in God’s sight. And on the other hand, while our salvation is entirely dependent on God’s mercy, that doesn’t mean we are simply passive recipients of his gift – we need to reach out and take it, then hold on to it for the rest of our lives.
Why is it so hard?
That’s not an easy thing to do. It requires you to accept that God has the right to tell you what to do. Not only that, but if you are a Christian, everything in your life belongs to God and should be used to serve him.
That might seem uncontroversial if you’ve been a Christian for a long time or if you were brought up in a fairly traditional church, but it’s a massive stumblingblock for a lot of people today.
It also requires you to admit your own faults – all of them, not just the ones you aren’t proud of, not just the ones you don’t mind letting go of.
It does little good to ask God to forgive you for the little and obvious things while your heart is still jealously guarding pride or greed or selfishness or bitterness which you’re not willing to let go of. You need to swallow those feelings, identify anything in your life that doesn’t serve God, and if necessary, repent and get rid of it.
That’s not easy to do either. Like all of us, you will have things you’re proud of that you shouldn’t be, times when you’re utterly convinced you’re right when you’re not, times when you’re certain you did the right thing when you didn’t and people you believe did you wrong when in fact it was the other way round.
Any request for God to forgive you, as we see in Jesus’ model prayer, needs to be based on an understanding of all of these things and a commitment to actually do them.
This commitment needs to be real, it needs to result in action, and it needs to be real every single time, because this is a prayer you’re going to have to make to God regularly. Probably every day, in fact.
Having said that, coming to God daily and offering this prayer just as a ritual, a set of words you repeat, isn’t good enough. Your mind and heart both need to be fully engaged, genuinely confessing the mistakes you’ve made and the wickedness that’s taken root in your heart, and making a commitment to do something about it.
And others too
And that includes a commitment to forgive others for the things they’ve done to us. Your willingness to forgive others is a yardstick that lets you know whether you are genuinely repentant of your own sins or not.
Jesus expanded on this idea more fully later on in his teaching (Matthew 18:21-35):
Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”
Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.
“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back. But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.
“Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
“This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”
This is known as ‘the parable of the unforgiving servant’ and it’s possible that Jesus may have had this example already in mind when he gave the disciples his model prayer. That might explain why he refers to our sins as ‘debts’ and those who have sinned against us as ‘debtors’.
The basic principle seems clear: do not rely on God showing you a positive aspect of his character if you’re not willing to develop that same characteristic in yourself and show it to others. If you’re not prepared to change yourself to be more like God, how can you call yourself his child?
In this case, a person who has not developed any concept of mercy nor any willingness to forgive should not expect to be able to lean on God’s mercy. True, genuine, repentance should always include a commitment to improve yourself and develop the same moral characteristics which God possesses and which Jesus manifested.
This changes everything
It’s incredibly easy to be an outwardly faithful Christian who knows the Bible off by heart and believes fervently that what is says is true, but who has never really developed any aspects of God’s character. It’s the way you treat other people, particularly those who in worldly terms are beneath you, that shows whether you have done this.
As Paul argued in 1 Corinthians 13, you can have all of the outward credentials of being a faithful Christian, but if there is no genuine love in your heart – no motivation to manifest God’s character towards your fellow humans – it’s all worthless.
A person who pleads for forgiveness from God but isn’t willing to extend it to others – even if, as in the example Jesus gave, the debt owed by the other servant was a trivial amount in comparison – is likely to be a very self-centred person.
You can’t be a Christian and care only about your own salvation or your own relationship with God.
Some liberal or progressive churches will teach that you and I have no right or authority to tell other Christians what they should and shouldn’t do, that we should concentrate only on our own walk before God. That may sound right to modern ears, but it’s not what Jesus taught. Jesus taught that you and I should be as concerned about the salvation of our brothers and sisters (and people who aren’t our brothers or sisters…yet) as we are about our own. Progressive teachings often conceal a deep vein of self-centredness.
Motivations
Your repentance should not be borne of a desire to simply avoid punishment, as if God is just a wrathful deity who needs to be appeased. If you see God in that way, it may be a result of negative experiences with your dad or other male figures in your earlier life, but either way it’s probably a sign that you need to develop a much, much closer relationship with him.
That relationship should not be based on fear, but love. Here’s how John put it (1 John 4:16-18):
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Your repentance should come from a desire to be close to God because you recognise him as your Father and you love him, and because you acknowledge that your sins have increased the distance between you.
That should also include a desire to bring your brothers and sisters close to you as well, by forgiving them when they wrong you and by apologising to them when it’s the other way round.
There is nothing to be gained by refusing to forgive and holding on to a grudge. Even if the other person hasn’t apologised and sought your forgiveness, even if they are still convinced they didn’t do anything wrong, that should not be a reason to allow bitterness to grow in your own heart. Try to always maintain a readiness to forgive, hoping that they will one day ask for it. That’s exactly what God does with you and me!
Nihilist to Christian 