And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Matthew 6:12
Of all the phrases in the Lord’s Prayer, this one may be the hardest one to pray and mean it. Sometimes those people we don’t like deserve to be ignored or to have their feelings hurt because they treated us just as badly or maybe even worse.
Oh, but wait a minute. If we make that choice to inflict the same pain on someone that they did to us, who is to say that God wouldn’t notice and then withhold his forgiveness from us? It’s hard to know what our sins are and in what ways or how many times each day we commit them. In the verses following the Lord’s Prayer Jesus says, “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.”
These are strong words from Jesus. But they are gracious ones, too. He says them because he knows sin’s power to hold us in bondage. The NIV translation of the Lord’s Prayer uses the words debt and debtor in place of the word sins. Use of the word debt carries the meaning of owing money. In this case, we owe God for something we’ve done that is wrong and offensive to him. Use of the word debtor means that someone owes us for the same reason. The fact that wrong has been done puts us in debt to God or to another person, and it also puts someone in debt to us.
What would happen if God kept track of every sin we committed? We’d soon rack up a bill we couldn’t repay. He knows that. Since God is loving and slow to anger he forgives us. He lets us go free. No bondage. No record of wrongs. No debt. He expects us to do the same. When someone hurts us or treats us badly, he wants us to forgive and let them go free. Each time we must forgive someone else becomes an opportunity for us to imitate our heavenly father by showing love and resisting getting angry.
