Monday 3rd June
Read Matthew 6:14-15
“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” (NIVUK)
We have been taught to pray ‘Forgive us our debts as we forgive as we also have forgiven our debtors’ (v12). Immediately afterwards Jesus returns to the importance of forgiveness. At first glance it seems consequential: if we don’t first forgive, we won’t be forgiven. But the broader context suggests otherwise.
Jesus is warning us, in many and various ways, that hypocrisy is dangerous. There is no play-acting at religion, God is not fooled because He sees everything that goes on in secret. He knows our hearts. If we do not truly forgive those who have wronged us it shows we have not grasped the magnitude of our own sins that have been forgiven by Him. The warning is less ‘consequential’ and more ‘attitudinal’.
This is captured most fully in the parable Jesus, again after teaching on prayer(!), about the unmerciful servant (Matthew 18:21-35). The story concerns someone who is shown immense, undeserved mercy by his master, but then in turn fails to show mercy in a small thing to someone beneath him. The ‘consequences’ are dire indeed when his master finds out! But Jesus draws the conclusion that ‘‘This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’’ (Matthew 18:35) (NIVUK). It is the hypocrisy that is called out. The failure to forgive truly, from the heart.
Has your attitude towards those who wrong you been truly transformed because you have grasped how much you yourself have been forgiven?
