Friday 19 Jan 2018

January 19: Matthew 6:9-15

Key Verse: Matthew 6:14
For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.

Devotion:
It is amazing that Christ Himself would give us such a simple prayer to pray to Him. But what is so much more amazing is just how much is within this simple prayer. Today, I just want to focus on the one word “forgive”. Just how does that happen? How do we forgive someone? How do we gain forgiveness?

If you do something wrong against someone that you did not mean to do, then the first thing which probably pops into your head is to say sorry, or at least I hope so! When we walk down a crowded street and accidentally knock into someone, I would like to think both parties would probably turn around and say sorry – more often than not it is because both parties were either chatting to someone else and not looking or one appears ‘out of nowhere’ by stepping out of a shop without looking. Our response is to apologise so we may gain forgiveness.

How many times a day do you do something which would probably upset God and not even think about apologising to Him? How many times do we ask for forgiveness but not apologise for what we have done first? If we truly want God to forgive us, then we should be willing to admit to our faults before asking for forgiveness. It's not as if we don't know what we are doing wrong to start with! We know when things are wrong. We know because we may well not feel close to God. We know because we may not be doing God's will. We know in our hearts because we should be in our right relationship with Him to start with. That is the time to stand up and admit to what we are doing wrong so that we can get back into that relationship with Him.

Christ has already paid the price for our sins, but if we are not willing to admit to them, how is He supposed to be able to forgive us of those sins. Sin and unbelief are the only things keeping us away from God. Being too proud to admit to sin is a “double whammy”!

Points to Ponder:
Do you apologise to people when you do wrong to them?

Do you apologise to God?