Mark 11.25,
Matthew 5.23-24,
6.14-15,
18.21-22.
Jesus tells us in
Matthew 6.14-15 KWL 14 “For when you forgive people their trespasses,- your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 When you don’t forgive people {their trespasses},- neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
And in Mark’s variant of the same teaching:
Mark 11.25 KWL - “Whenever you stand to pray,
- forgive whatever you have against anyone
- so that your Father who’s in the heavens
- might forgive you your trespasses.”
Jesus elaborates on it further when Simon Peter asked him how often he has to forgive:
Matthew 18.21-22 KWL 21 Then Simon Peter comes to tell Jesus,- “Master, how often will my fellow Christian sin against me,
- and I’ll have to forgive them?
- As many as seven times?
22 Jesus tells him, “I don’t say ‘as many as seven times,’- but as many as seven by seventy times.”
Followed by Jesus’s
The bit about the torturers makes various Christians nervous, and some of us have invented all sorts of iffy teachings about devils and curses and hell. As if our heavenly Father plans to hand us over to torturers. No; he’s gonna do as he’s always done, and leave us to our own devices—and without
Trespasses. Not just sins.
In Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer, we ask for our
Other bible translations, like the
And we’re therefore duty-bound to resolve this problem.
Matthew 5.23-24 KWL 23 “So when you offer your gift on the altar,- if you remember, right there,
- your sibling has something against you,
24 leave your gift there before the altar- and first go be reconciled with your sibling.
- Then come back and offer your gift.”
Our popular, selfish, prideful excuse, “Well, their offense is their problem,” doesn’t mean a thing to Jesus. We’re to make peace with people as best we can.
When people offend us—’cause they will, intentionally or not—we gotta forgive them. Fr’instance say the neighbors play their music too loud. I’m trying to get the kids to go to sleep, but not only can’t they sleep, apparently the musician insists on using colorful language to describe all the things he wishes to inflict upon his lady friend (which if she is a lady, she’ll shut down immediately). In any case not only are the kids still awake; they have all sorts of confused questions about why this foul-mouthed man wants to do such things to his girlfriend’s cat. Heck yes I’m offended.
I could try to argue the neighbors sinned, but believe it or don’t, ain’t
Either way, I gotta forgive them.
No I’m not saying this is easy. When people hurt our feelings, we get irrational. People can forgive anything when we feel no emotion about it: Murder someone I don’t know, whom I feel no sympathy for, and it’s really easy for me to push your egregious sin aside. Murder one of my loved ones, and I’m gonna want you dead. Preferably executed painfully. Bring back crucifixion!
That’s the thing: Sins don’t always offend us. I’m not always offended when someone lies. (Like “I’m out the door right now!” when they’re 20 minutes away from really being out the door. Meh; that’s parenthood.) Sins can be easy to forgive. But trespasses always offend us. Even though they often aren’t sin, even though the trespasser didn’t mean anything by it, even though it’s entirely our hangup. Even so: Forgive!
Wait, God stops listening?
In the past I’ve wrongly taught God stops listening to our prayers when we’re not gracious. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
When we first come to Jesus, we might be bitter and full of grudges… and Jesus accepts us anyway. He plans to fix all that. We’re a work in progress. Like Simon Magus, the Samaritan who came to Jesus,
So turning Jesus’s warning into a hard and fast rule—if we can’t yet practice radical forgiveness to every last person we know, including people who seriously wronged us—is
This doesn’t mean we can dismiss Jesus’s warnings. He doesn’t teach these things to be overly harsh, to drive us away from unforgiveness through the power of fear. He teaches ’em because God’s kingdom
Pay attention to what Jesus says, and what he doesn’t. He never said the Father will stop listening to our prayers if we won’t forgive. He only says the Father won’t forgive us. We still have access to God. What we lose access to… is God’s grace. If we can’t be trusted to pass God’s grace along, why’re we given it anyway?
So if you’re worried about wholly cutting yourself off from God, relax. How’s he otherwise gonna hear us repent our unforgiveness?
Bitter Christians.
There are a lot of bitter Christians out there. A lot of them. Far too many.
I’ve heard loads of
But when Christians share these stories, a lot of ’em have a lot of anger in these stories: They wanted God to sort things out faster. They feel life was unfair to them—and still is.
Sometimes they wanna pick out enemies from their past, and assign ’em some of the blame. Like bad parents, awful bosses, difficult spouses, rotten children, jerkish co-workers, false friends. Sometimes they go with political foes—people they don’t even know, but they provide a handy scapegoat for all their woes. So, people in the opposition party, the lazy poor, the greedy rich, the overly-entitled, big business, special interests, illegal immigrants, people who want to ban their favorite things, people who want to legalize their least-favorite things, you name it. And of course there’s Satan.
Thing is, each of these enemies, each of these trespasses against us—whether they’re actual God-defying sins, or things which personally offended us or went beyond our standards—need to be forgiven. Slates wiped clean. As clean as God wipes our slates when he lets us into his kingdom. Yep, that clean.
No, this isn’t just a request on Jesus’s part: “Try to do better.” This is a command. With consequences when we ignore it. Possibly eternal consequences.
No, Jesus didn’t say this’d be easy. Believe you me, it’s not. It’ll take time. Time and prayer. Which is why Jesus made it part of the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” We recite it ’cause it’s part of the process: It chips away at our bitterness, and reminds us God forgave everything, so let’s forgive everyone.
We’re God’s kids. As such, we must reflect God’s character—and God is love. Anyone who claims to be God’s, has gotta love and forgive like he does.
So yeah, the first time we pray, “As we forgive those who trespass against us,” we might not’ve yet done that; we might not mean it in the slightest. Nor the second time. Nor the third, nor the fourth, nor the 77th. We gotta work on meaning it. If we are—if our goal is to mean every last word in the Lord’s Prayer when we pray it—we’ll grow to mean it. God’ll get us there.
So that’s why we should never stop praying, even if we’ve got a bit of unforgiveness in our hearts, even if we’re harboring grudges. Use prayer to get ride of your grudges. God will help.
