Last Saturday, in The Perfect Prayer, Part 5, we saw that after acknowledging that our God is our perfect Daddy who is holy, and we need to ensure that we honour the holiness of His name; after ensuring that the principles of God’s Kingdom are reflected in our lives; after ensuring that God’s will be done in our lives, we finally get to the part where we can start asking for things. Only to learn that what we ask for, God already provides! We just need to depend upon Him for our needs!
So now that we’ve been able to ask God to do things for us, the perfect prayer ends, right? I mean, asking God for things is the most important thing, right?
Anyone familiar with the Lord’s Prayer knows that the prayer doesn’t stop here. It goes on for four more lines, all of which are about our spiritual lives! This certainly helps us put our prayer requests in proper perspective, doesn’t it?
The next line starts off with asking God: “And forgive us our debts…” (Matthew 6:12a NASB). I find it interesting that immediately after acknowledging our total dependency upon God, we then ask for forgiveness. Maybe I’m reading a bit too much into this, but it’s like God is saying, “Now that you have recognized your tendency to not depend upon Me, now is the time to ask forgiveness for that!”
Of course, relying on ourselves for what God should be giving us isn’t the only sin we will ever commit; yet perhaps it is one of the more vital ones. I mean, if we are truly dependent upon God for everything, many of the devil’s traps are simply no longer tempting!
At this point as we pray through the Lord’s Prayer, God has already been speaking to us about some of the Kingdom principle He wishes to work into our hearts. It is only natural that we be called to confess the sin that the Holy Spirit has worked into our minds, renounce it, and repent of it. It sounds easy enough on paper, but I’m afraid I’m a bit of a hard study. I mean, sometimes I don’t really want to repent. It’s a little thing, right? And besides, it’s already forgiven, right?
1 John 1:9 puts this in a slightly different perspective: “ If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (NASB). Friends, confession is tied up in forgiveness!
But that’s only the confession. Why do we need to repent? Check out Acts 2:38: “Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’” (NASB). God doesn’t want us to just admit our sin, He wants us to repent of it!
So back to my quandary. Sometimes I don’t really see the need… Take last night for example. I struggled with being angry at someone, but since they were in the wrong, where was the need to let go? So my prayer became, “God, I’m having trouble understanding the importance of getting rid of this sin. Give me a hatred in my heart for all sin!” And I felt a hatred growing in my heart for my anger.
But that wasn’t all I needed. Hatred of my anger wasn’t enough. I was also lacking the desire to repent. This is where my prayer became, “God, I hate that I’m so angry, but the person needs to be punished! Give me the desire in my heart to be free of this sin!”
And God answered that prayer. I hated my anger, I desired to be free of it, but somehow I just couldn’t seem to cut free! This is where the promise in the Bible comes in: “No temptation has overtaken you except something common to mankind; and God is faithful, so He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13 NASB)
It’s amazing how the combination of those little prayers changes our whole perspective on everything…
In summary then, this little line finds itself in the perfect prayer because we need to confess our sins and repent of it. I encourage each of you during this upcoming week, to continue praying the Lord’s Prayer daily. But this week, spend special time meditating on this one line: “And forgive us our debts…” Ask God to reveal your sin. Ask Him to help you hate it, to want to be free, and to give you the power to confess, to renounce that sin and to repent of it. When you do, you will begin to notice big changes in your Spiritual growth!
But as I’m sure you’ve already noticed, this entire devotional was based on only half of a line… What about the other, harder half? Please join us next Saturday for “…As We Forgive Our Debtors … The Perfect Prayer, Part 7”.
In His love,
Lyn
Lynona Gordon Chaffart
Author, Moderator, Acting Director, Answers2Prayer Ministries
(To access the entire published portion of “The Perfect Prayer” mini-series, please click here!)
