{"id":24453,"date":"2026-03-11T16:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T16:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/uncategorized\/why-forgiveness-is-a-big-deal\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T06:18:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T06:18:16","slug":"why-forgiveness-is-a-big-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gpbookstore.org\/articles\/prayer\/how-to-pray\/why-forgiveness-is-a-big-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Forgiveness Is a Big Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Jesus taught his followers to pray, He said to pray, \u201cForgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.\u201d (Luke 11:4, NLT)<\/p>\n

Notice that He linked our forgiveness from God with our forgiveness of others. \u201cForgive us,\u201d he told us to pray, \u201cas we forgive.\u201d<\/p>\n

As. That has to be the biggest two-letter word imaginable. Forgive us as we forgive. It can be taken several ways. And that may have been intentional on Jesus\u2019 part. Because each of the possible meanings is instructive and potentially life-changing.<\/p>\n

1)\u00a0 Pray to forgive willingly.<\/strong>
\nWhen Jesus says, \u201cPray like this\u2026. Forgive us as we forgive,\u201d he teaches us to pray graciously. He also teaches us that our forgiveness of others somehow activates the Father\u2019s forgiveness of us.<\/p>\n

The phrase can be taken to mean, \u201cForgive us in the same way we forgive others.\u201d It can be understood as a suggestion that our forgiveness of others will set the tone for the Father\u2019s forgiveness of us.<\/p>\n

Jesus said as much. In Matthew\u2019s account, after Jesus taught his model prayer to his first followers, he did what most rabbis would do\u2014he offered a little commentary, rewinding things a bit and going back to the prayer for forgiveness:<\/p>\n

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.<\/em> (Matthew 6:14-15, ESV)<\/p>\n

Wow. Jesus didn\u2019t mince words. I don\u2019t know how he could make it any clearer: Forgiveness is a big deal. And it\u2019s a big deal not primarily because it\u2019s bad for the people we can\u2019t or won\u2019t forgive; it\u2019s a big deal because it\u2019s bad for us. It\u2019s a soul-eating infection. It will eat away at us from the inside out, and it will short-circuit our experience of forgiveness.<\/p>\n

Read More: Gratitude for a Gloriously Ordinary Day<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

2)\u00a0 Pray to forgive fully.<\/strong>
\nThe words, \u201cForgive us as we forgive,\u201d may also be taken to mean, \u201cForgive us to the extent that we forgive others.\u201d None of us wants partial forgiveness from God, so we pray for grace to forgive fully, because that is how God forgives\u2014and what we need.<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 parable in Matthew 18 has as its main character a \u201cking\u201d and one of his \u201cservants\u201d or \u201cofficials.\u201d Jesus depicts that man as owing the king an enormous sum that he was unable to pay.<\/p>\n

In those days, rather than filing for bankruptcy as we do now, it was common for a man and his family and possessions to be sold for such a debt. So the servant begged for patience and pleaded for time, and the king did more than give him an extension\u2014he forgave the debt completely! The servant begged for a little mercy, but the king gave him immeasurable grace.<\/p>\n

That is my story. Maybe it\u2019s yours, too. I begged for mercy, and received grace. I bartered for help, and received the Helper. I asked for heart medicine and received a heart transplant.<\/p>\n

Key to the ability to forgive is the grace to grasp the reality, the depth, the height, the extent of our own forgiveness, of how much and how completely we have been forgiven.<\/p>\n

Read More: Ministering to a Stranger<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we are too often like the man in Jesus\u2019 parable, who went out, found someone who owed him a pittance and rather than forgiving as he had been forgiven, demanded immediate payment in full. Despite the incredible grace we have received, we withhold mercy, harbor a grudge and nurse bitterness in our heart toward someone who has hurt us.<\/p>\n

We think that withholding forgiveness is going to make us feel better\u2026even though we\u2019ve been withholding forgiveness and yet we\u2019re still miserable, still struggling, still flailing, still trying to move on, still trying to figure out why we can\u2019t get better and even why we seem to be getting worse, as if something keeps eating away at our happiness and hope and spiritual strength.<\/p>\n

But maybe, just maybe, if we can grasp the reality of our own forgiven-ness, and grant forgiveness to those who hurt us, we can actually move down the path toward healing. Maybe healing comes as we learn to pray, \u201cForgive us as we forgive.\u201d And maybe forgiving fully opens the door to healing fully.<\/p>\n

3)\u00a0 Pray to forgive constantly.<\/strong>
\nThat little word, \u201cas\u201d in the prayer Jesus taught his followers can also be taken to mean \u201cwhile.\u201d That is, it can be taken to mean, \u201cForgive us while we are in the act of forgiving those who sin against us.\u201d<\/p>\n

When God forgives, it\u2019s a done deal. When He forgives, He forgets. But for us, forgiveness is not so simple or so complete. Often, with us, forgiveness must be a daily decision. Jesus structured his model prayer to include the prayer for forgiveness in the same breath as prayer for daily bread. So, just as we pray for \u201cdaily\u201d bread, we pray for \u201cdaily\u201d forgiveness.<\/p>\n

In other words, \u201cforgive us today as we are forgiving today.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can choose\u2014today\u2014to grasp the reality of your own forgiven-ness, and extend that same mercy to whoever hurt you. You don\u2019t have to feel like it. You don\u2019t have to gin up any warm feelings for that person. But you can refuse not to retaliate today. You can wipe the slate clean today. You can forgive that debt today.<\/p>\n

And as you do that, the forgiven-ness that accompanies your forgiveness will place a growing distance between you and the thing you\u2019ve forgiven, like setting a toy boat into a flowing stream or river. Once you release the boat into the current, it will be taken farther and farther away until, some time in the future, you\u2019ll lose sight of it.<\/p>\n

And it will lose hold of you.<\/p>\n

Excerpted from <\/em>The Red Letter Prayer Life by Bob Hostetler (Barbour Books, 2015)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Jesus taught his followers to pray, He said to pray, \u201cForgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.\u201d (Luke 11:4, NLT) Notice that He linked our forgiveness from God with our forgiveness of others. \u201cForgive us,\u201d he told us to pray, \u201cas we forgive.\u201d As. That has to be the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":30865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[251],"tags":[14],"ppma_author":[465],"class_list":["post-24453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to-pray","tag-spiritual-growth"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Forgiveness Is a Big Deal - Guideposts Articles<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Forgiveness Is a Big Deal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Jesus taught his followers to pray, He said to pray, \u201cForgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.\u201d (Luke 11:4, NLT) Notice that He linked our forgiveness from God with our forgiveness of others. \u201cForgive us,\u201d he told us to pray, \u201cas we forgive.\u201d As. 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