It Starts Small

Jesus taught us in Matthew 6 the perfect prayer to pray each day to help us get ahead of any offences we might encounter. The disciples asked Jesus how to pray. This prayer is known today as the Lord’s Prayer. Today, let us look upon and note the parts Jesus emphasizes about confession and forgiveness.

⁹ “Therefore, you should pray like this:

Our Father in heaven,
your name be honored as holy.
¹⁰ Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
¹¹ Give us today our daily bread.
¹² And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
¹³ And do not bring us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.

¹⁴ “For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. ¹⁵ But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.
Matthew 6:9-15

We always like to think about the “good” promises of God. The things that we get that enrich our lives, but in this is two promises:

Forgive others, God will forgive you.
Withhold forgiveness, God will withhold forgiveness of you.

Giving and receiving takes up almost half of what Jesus is teaching us here. When I wanted to approach forgiveness with an open heart and truly understand it, these scriptures caught my attention the most. This is what had me leaning into Jesus and asking Him, how do I forgive as you forgive. We discovered we are in a cooperation with Him to forgive. Jesus did not just want us to pray about provision.

The Lord’s Prayer reminds us that everyday, we need God. We need to be forgiven. We need for forgive. Forgiveness needs to be as much apart of our daily lives and eating and sleeping. I admit, I was not good at this. I did not always pray to forgive others. Many days would go by and my heart became unexplainably heavy. I started to get too offended or too defensive.

I started to get slow at turning to prayer in every circumstance throughout the day. But I wanted to change this. I wanted to mature in this.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer (You can rewrite your own version, this is just Jesus’ template) we are reminded in the day when we encounter someone who characteristically hurts us or some random even we were not ready for. It easy to want to unload and react to the hurt and unload it back on them, but the Holy Spirit intervenes and reminds us what we prayed for.

Friends, deciding first thing in the morning to forgive, sets us up to be ready and prepared to forgive. You have already decided and chosen to forgive. When we take that stand first thing, we combat coming hurts and pain or strong stirred up emotions by deciding in advance I am going to forgive.

Satan keeps a stamp book of itinerary of our hurt and pain. It is a collage of his work and he is very proud of it. He likes to come, knock on your door like a pushy salesman and shove that book in your face. A random memory of a hurt or pain in your past. Instead of letting anger stir me up tp cause me more hurt and pain, I let that anger inform me that something needed to be settled between me and that person. I like to remind satan of the no solicitation sign on my door and run to mt Heavenly Father and remind myself I have forgiven the person or people or circumstance. I chose to forgive as many times as it takes and walk in forgiveness to take the power of hurt and pain away from that person(s).

Dealing with forgiveness does not always settle the issue at hand, but through prayer, it can bring peace to prevent the adding of more hurt, confusion, and resentment.

Confession has broken the cycle of chaos inside of me.

Forgiveness breaks the cycle of chaos between you and the other person.

The Lord’s Prayer prepares us for things we do not know are coming in the day. The best time to forgive is before anything has ever happen. The best time is right now!

Spend time today sweeping the floors of your heart clean with confession and forgiveness. Do not carry that heavy heart any longer.

Forgiveness Part 1: Why is Forgiveness and Double Edged Sword?
Forgiveness Part 2: When Unchangeable Feels Unforgivable
Forgiveness Part 3: The Cure for a Heavy Heart
Forgiveness Part 4: My Anger
Forgiveness Part 5: Transformed Feet and Eyes