SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/4/2020 10:08 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-6 “God’s
Pardon”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 6:12;14-15
Message of the verse: “12 ’And forgive us
our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” 14 “For if you forgive others for their transgressions,
your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 “But if you do not forgive
others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”
We
have been talking about looking at verses 14-15 for a while and now is the time
that we begin to look at these verses.
Once again we must go back to the beginning of “The Lord’s Prayer” to
see that Jesus was talking to believers as He begins the prayer by saying “Our
Father,” and God the Father is only the Father of believers.
I
know that what I am about to write about here is something that most, if not
all believers already know. I can give
an example from my testimony and that happened on January 26, 1974. I became a believer in Jesus Christ and
accepted Him as my Savior on that day after listening to some sermons on the
end times. I was forgiven of all my
sins, past present, and future sins. I
have mentioned that before my conversion that I could hardly say a sentence
without taking the Lord’s name in vain, but once I became a believer God took
that away, something that I tried to do back in 1966 when I promised God I
would quit swearing if He got me out of the Army after I was drafted. He answered that prayer, but soon afterwards
I went back to the same vocabulary, taking God’s name in vain. He took care of that promise that I made in
1966 by saving me in 1974 and took away my desire to swear. With that said I, like all believers still
sin and that is where verses 14-15 come into play here. Judicial forgiveness happened for me in January
of 1974, but I need what we could call Parental forgiveness, and there are
other terms used for that kind of forgiveness, but I chose to use Parental
forgiveness here.
We
probably all know the story of Jesus washing the disciples feet and Peter
telling the Lord that He was not going to wash his feet. Jesus said that if I don’t wash your feet
then you have nothing to do with me.
Peter then wanted all his body washed, but Jesus said that he was
already clean, he just needed his feet washed.
Jesus is saying that as a person walks around in sandals his feet get
dirty from either dust or mud and so one’s feet need to be washed. This is a picture of sinning after a person
becomes a believer. We still have the
flesh, or as some call it the old nature that causes us to be tempted and then
to sin.
As
I read through the Scriptures I find several lists of sins, some come from our
Lord found in the Gospels, some from the epistles and as I look at those lists
some of the sins on that list I am prone to fall into, and some on those lists
are not a problem for me. All believers
have trouble with sins on these lists, not all of them but some of them and
when we sin then we must confess our sins to the Lord and ask Him to forgive us
as 1 John 1:9 tells us to do. John in
that letter tells us we all sin and we need to confess to the Lord when we do
sin.
Now
as we come to verses fourteen and fifteen which some say are not really a part
of the Lord’s Prayer we have to understand what they mean to us as believers. 14 “For if you forgive others for their
transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 “But if you do not forgive
others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.” Be sure that this is not talking about
Judicial sin as we spoke of earlier, but what we called Parental sin. Now when we become a believer as mentioned we
are forgiven of all of our sins. Now if
someone does something wrong to us, that is sins against us then we are to
forgive them, and this is where things can get very difficult. In order for us to understand this we have to
go back to Peter once again. Peter asked
the Lord how many times that he should forgive someone. The Talmud, the Jewish commentary on the Old
Testament says three times and so Peter asked the Lord if he should forgive
someone seven times as he doubled it and added one. Jesus then gives this parable: “21 Then Peter
came and said to Him, "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and
I forgive him? Up to seven times?" 22 Jesus said to him, "I do not
say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. 23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven
may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 “When
he had begun to settle them, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought
to him. 25 “But since he did not have the means to repay, his lord
commanded him to be sold, along with his wife and children and all that he had,
and repayment to be made. 26 “So the slave fell to the ground and
prostrated himself before him, saying, ’Have patience with me and I will repay
you everything.’ 27 “And the lord of that slave felt compassion and released
him and forgave him the debt. 28 "But that slave went out and found one of
his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and he seized him and began
to choke him, saying, ’Pay back what you owe.’ 29 "So his fellow
slave fell to the ground and began
to plead with him, saying, ’Have patience with me and I will repay you.’ 30 “But
he was unwilling and went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what
was owed. 31 "So when his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were
deeply grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. 32 “Then
summoning him, his lord *said to him, ’You wicked slave, I forgave you all that
debt because you pleaded with me. 33 ’Should you not also have had mercy on
your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’ 34 “And his lord,
moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that
was owed him. 35 “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of
you does not forgive his brother from your heart’” (Matthew 18:21-35).
Now
the question is what does a person loose if he does not forgive others who have
sinned against them, and for the answer we must go to two Psalms that David
wrote after his sin with Bathsheba and her husband Uriah. The prophet Nathan came to David after his
sin and told him that God had forgiven his sin, and this speaks of Judicial
forgiveness. What happened to David in
that year or so before Nathan had come to him is what can happen to us if we do
not forgive those who sin against us. 1 For
the choir director. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him,
after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your
lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my
transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my
sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, And
my sin is ever before me. 4 Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what
is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless
when You judge. 5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother
conceived me. 6 Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden
part You will make me know wisdom” (Psalm 51:1-6). As we look at these first six verses we can
see how David repented of his sin, knowing that his sin was sin against the
Lord, and so we can learn from this on how we are to confess, (agree with God). Now looking at verse twelve we can see what
David was missing before he confessed his sin to the Lord, and this is what we,
as believers can also miss if we don’t follow what Jesus tells us to follow in
verses 14-15. “12 Restore to me the joy
of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.” Now let’s look at Psalm 32 to see what David
was going through before he confessed his sin:
“3 When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away Through
my groaning all day long. 4 For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; My
vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah” (Ps.
32:3-4).
So
what is the bottom line here? In order
for us to have sweet fellowship with the Lord we must be willing to forgive
others, first we must confess our sin to the Lord, agree with Him we have
sinned, and then we must forgive those who sin against us so that we will not
lose our joy in serving the Lord.
I
will close with a short story that came from a pastor who was preaching at the
church we used to go to. He was talking
about holding grudges and told the story of a man who was owed some money, not
much as I recall, but when he would open up his wallet there would be a
yellowed bill reminding him of how someone owed him money. My guess is that person who owed him the
money did not even remember that he owed him, but this man certainly lost his
joy by carrying around this yellowed piece of paper when he could have forgiven
that person and then had his joy restored to him.
12/4/2020 12:08 PM (Happy Anniversary to Sharlotte and Tim)
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