and, if anyone has
a complaint against another,
forgive each other; just as
the Lord has forgiven you,
so you also must forgive.
Colossians 3:13b
When you pray the Lord’s Prayer, how do you say “Forgive us our sins”? Do you use the word “sins”? Or do you say, “Forgive us our trespasses”? Or do you say, like others, “Forgive us our debts”?
I usually say “trespasses”; nevertheless, I think “debts” may be a more helpful way to think about sin and forgiveness.
Debt, after all, is a powerful to talk about the cost of sin to a relationship. And banking provides a powerful way to describe what it takes to truly forgive.
If you’d like to improve your ability to forgive, I urge you to practice a five-step transaction – covered over these next five days.
1
An Account is Opened
The first step toward forgiveness is realizing what’s happened … and what you’re feeling.
When someone hurts you, they’ve opened an account. They’ve incurred a debt. They owe you something.
If the debt is small – someone accidentally stepped on my toe – they owe me an apology.
If the debt is larger – someone totaled my car – they may owe me a few thousand dollars in restitution.
But what if the debt is huge? What if we’ve been bloodied and bruised? What if someone has robbed us or someone we love of innocence? What if someone has stolen a life?
Do you get the point? When a trespass occurs, a debt is incurred and an account has been opened. And until that debt is paid off and that account is closed, your relationship with that person is not right. Why? Because you feel like they owe you something.
We’ll talk about how to forgive these debts in coming days, but for today, it’s time to sit with today’s question …
Question of the Day: What is the biggest debt someone has with you? What are some of the little debts that the person closest to you is incurring? Pray for God to ready your heart for this five-step process of forgiveness.
In Christ’s Love,
a guy who surely
owes more
than he is owed
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