“Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors”
• Our greatest need is communion with God
When God is our Father it means we are in a saving relationship with Him. God desires that we as Christians maintain communion and fellowship with God. Things go wrong when known sins are unconfessed. Our greatest need is to maintain communion with God. Many times we need to receive discipline from God, and God does that for our good. As Christians, we are not perfect, and sometimes, in a backslidden state. The things of the world become too important for us. We don’t experience daily communion with God. We need to ask for forgiveness. We need to confess our sins so that we maintain fellowship with God.
• Commnion with God happens through the forgiveness of our sins and cleansing
We need to humble ourselves over and over again. We need to confess our sins to God day by day. We need to do it many times together as a nation or church or as a family or as a husband and wife. “Forgive us our debts.” Every sin of ours need to be punished. But thanks be to God we don’t have to pay for them ourselves! Jesus died, Jesus bore the weight of our guilt on the cross, so that when we confess our sins there is forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:9). Oh, how we need that fountain of blood, that can wash away every stain! How we need that blood to cleanse each spot!
We need grace every day. Our biggest needs are spiritual needs. It is the need for constant communion with God and fellowship with God, and that’s why this prayer is so fundamental.
• Our forgiveness of others proves our own forgiveness is real
One clarification here: God doesn’t forgive us because we forgive other people. The petition states “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors”, not because we have forgiven our debtors. The forgiveness of our sins is not in the first place based on the fact that we forgive others. The foundation or basis why God forgives any person is because of the atonement of Christ, we are forgiven when we believe in Christ who died for us, and paid for our sins. We are justified and forgiven by faith. The reality of your forgiveness will be evidenced in your willingness to forgive others. So, in other words, the refusal to forgive others who have sinned 70 times against you will prove that you don’t understand the fact that God has forgiven you 70 000 times! If you realize God’s immense love for you, forgiveness would come naturally.
Again, we pray, Father forgive us, because of Jesus, and as we forgive others.
To remain in sweet fellowship with God we ought to forgive others, we need to be reminded how many sins God has forgiven us!
INTERETHNICMISSIONS 