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The Debts People Owe Luke 11:2-4 says "And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil." We remember to pray to our Father who is in heaven. We call Him by Name. We ask that His Kingdom be evident in our lives. We ask that His will be done in every situation. We also beg that we not be tempted and that we be delivered from all the evil around us. But, do we forget about the debts we owe and the debts that others owe us? Matthew wrote it this way: "And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." (Matthew 6:12) Thoughts race through our minds about people when we meet them. "They owe me big." "I'll get them back for what they did." "I wish..." This is the mind battle. The enemy sends these messages into our mind and we choose to think upon them. The truth of the matter is, maybe these people did hurt us, or maybe they did lie. The question of the matter is, can we forgive them? We all make mistakes. We all lie. We all hurt people. Do we take responsibility for our own actions? If we don't, how dare we judge another. And if we do, then the humility that comes will keep us from judging. Let us think upon Luke's scripture. We have all had a time in our life where we have been hurt and prayed that the guilty person would say they are sorry. This person sinned against us, and we wished they would humble themselves and apologize. We look at this person as indebted to us. We feel as if they owe us something. We may even sit down with them and make them apologize, using guilt or manipulation. We are in fact doing exactly opposite of what Christ intended. He says, "When ye pray." It is important that we go to prayer if the offense is too great to handle. If we don't, we could find ourselves in a real battle that God did not intend for us to have. What he intends for us is to know how to handle offenses and indebtedness. We should come to a point in our lives where offenses do not come easily. The Lord says in Luke 17:1 that offenses will come. But can we pray "we also forgive every one that is indebted to us"? We can if we walk in repentance with God. We must repent before we can forgive. Humility comes with repentance. Without the humility, we see ourselves higher than those who offend us. We see ourselves as the judge. Somehow we feel that we have a responsibility to the person who has done wrong to show them. By doing this we can place curses on our brother. We do this not consciously but simply because we are in the flesh. Christ is the head of the other; and therefore we must allow them to be judged by Him. Our only responsibility is to forgive and love. {Mat. 22:39} "... Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." We our more apt to forgive ourselves than others, but we should forgive others as we forgive ourselves. - Chad Ross February 1996 Newsletter | Battle for the Mind | The Harvest Pastor's Journal February 1995 | The Debts People Owe | Preparing and Prepared part 2 of 4 Revised: June 25, 2008. |
Biblical Counseling for Leaders
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