PRAYER ROOMS

Tuesdays (online only today)

• 7:30am – Zoom Room
• 9am – Zoom Room

PRAYER GUIDE

“And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

Matthew 6:12

This is a scary prayer to pray, for we are essentially asking God to do for us as we do for others. In other words, there is a direct throughline between God’s forgiveness of us and our forgiveness of others. 

Jesus understands that human souls have two options. We can operate in a system that is based on getting what we deserve, or we can operate in a system that is based on the grace of God. 

What will we do when people hurt us? Will we forgive them? Will we release them from our judgment, or will we choose not to forgive? Will we hold them in our judgment? The choice is up to us. 

Now we all know that when someone has hurt us, truly hurt us, it is difficult to forgive. Indeed, sometimes it can feel impossible…unless we understand an even deeper truth: God has forgiven us. In Christ, God took upon himself all the consequences for our sin. He has released us from a debt we could never pay. When we understand how much we have been forgiven by God, the natural outflow of this is grace for others, even when they have hurt us.

But what does it mean when we cannot forgive another person? It means that we do not fully understand the forgiveness we have been extended from God. We are not operating in the system based on grace. We are still stuck in the system that is based on getting what we deserve. And this is a dangerous place to be, because if we were to get what we actually deserve, we’d be in trouble. 

Jesus tells his parable about the unmerciful servant to illustrate this point. A servant has had an unimaginable debt forgiven by his master. But then this same servant is unmerciful to those who owe him a sum of money that is paltry by comparison. The master gets angry, because the unmerciful servant wants to have it both ways. He wants to receive mercy, but not extend it to others. “Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” he asks (Mt 18:33). And so the master uses the servant’s own standard of justice against him. He treats the servant as the servant treated his own fellow servant. He throws the unmerciful servant into prison to pay a debt he can never afford to pay. “This is how it will be,” Jesus says, “for those who do not forgive their brother from the heart.” 

When we cannot forgive others, it means we have not truly grasped God’s forgiveness for us. We have not fully entered into the system run by grace. It also means we have not healed from the wounds they have caused in our lives. An important part of being set free from the wrongs of others is to forgive them. Hanging onto unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person gets sick and dies. Unforgiveness is a poison in our souls that keeps us from flourishing. 

This does not mean it is easy to forgive. When we’ve been harmed by others, especially if there is abuse or misuse of power, it can be complicated to work towards forgiveness. To forgive does not mean we need to allow that person back into our life if it is not safe. Forgiveness does not mean that we think what they did was okay. In fact, to forgive is a form of condemnation. When we forgive we are saying in effect: “what you did was wrong.” But when we forgive, what we are saying is this: “I release you from my judgment, and entrust you to God’s justice.” 

Finally, forgiveness is only one half of reconciliation. We are commanded to forgive, but reconciliation requires two parties. One party to forgive and the other party to repent. When there is true repentance and true forgiveness, and there is safety for both parties, reconciliation is possible. And for Christians, it is always our hope, but not guaranteed. 

To be a follower of Jesus is to move from a system based on getting what we deserve to a system based on grace. A system where Jesus got what we deserved so that we are free to forgive others from the heart. A system where we extend to others the same mercy we have received. 

For Reflection/Prayer:

• Where is there unforgiveness in your life and heart?
• Who do you need to forgive today?
• Is there a relationship in your life that you long for reconciliation? What is your part in this? 
• Ask the Spirit to help Christians in the church to forgive their brothers and sisters and for broken relationships to be reconciled.
• Ask the Spirit to empower the church to catalyze reconciliation, justice, and mercy in a divided world and culture.

PRAYER ROOMS

Tuesdays (online only today)

• 7:30am – Zoom Room
• 9am – Zoom Room

PRAYER GUIDE

“And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” 

When our kids were little, when they did something wrong we would give them a time out on the staircase. We usually made them sit for the same number of minutes as their age. Before the time out, we would tell them why they were getting the time out. Afterwards, we would have a reconciliation ritual. 

“Silas” or “Noah,” why did you get this time out? They would tell us. 

Then, we would ask them, “what do you say?” 

“I’m sorry.”

And we would tell them, “I love you and I forgive you.” And then we would give them a hug and tell them “Now go play.” 

The reason we did this ritual is because human beings often fail to understand two things about their sin. First, we fail to recognize the seriousness of our sin. God takes sin seriously. Every sin is first and foremost committed against Him. David addresses God in Psalm 51, “against you, you alone, have I sinned…” Even though he sinned against Uriah and against Bathsheba. When we sin, it does not change God’s love for us, but it does create relational distance between us and God. Just as a child’s misbehavior creates emotional distance with their parents. This is why Jesus instructs us to pray (every time we pray), “forgive us our sins.” It is because Jesus understands that honesty with God about our sin is critical to experiencing ongoing intimacy with God. Unconfessed (and unrepented) sin prevents us from experiencing the intimacy with God we were made for. When you pray, do you confess your sin? David prays in Psalm 139, “Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in your way everlasting.” Revival, whether personal or corporate, always begins with repentance. And the depth of the revival depends in large part on the depth of the repentance. 

The second thing humans fail to understand about God is that he is merciful. 1 John 1:9 says this: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Over and over, the Bible proclaims that God is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love. He does not treat us as our sins deserve.” (Psalm 103) Our ritual with the boys after time out was intended to communicate both these truths – their sin is serious AND when they confess it and repent we embrace them and forgive them. And nothing they do can change our love for them. And so it is with God. 

Friend, there is nothing you can do to make God love you any less or any more than he does. He loves you with an everlasting love. And, because he is a holy God, carrying or cherishing sin in our hearts puts emotional and relational distance between you and Him. The ultimate solution to this distance was Jesus atoning death on the cross, that paid for all our sins. But in order to avail ourselves of this and close the emotional and relational distance, we must confess our sins to the Lord…and then receive his embrace, his words to us (the same as our words to our children). “I love you and I forgive you.” And perhaps even: “Go and Play” 

For Reflection/Prayer:

• Ask the Holy Spirit to search you…your thoughts, your words, your actions. What you have done that you should not have done. What you have failed to do which you should have done.
• Confess these to God and repent and renounce them.
• Receive God’s mercy, love, grace, and forgiveness.
• Consider where in your day you regularly keep accounts with God and pray for forgiveness, is this a habit for you. What do you need to do to make it one.
• Sometimes, it helps us to confess our sins to another human being, in addition to God. There is something powerful about hearing another person receive our confession and remind us that we are forgiven. Is there someone you need to confess your sins to?

PRAYER ROOMS

Tuesdays (online only today)

• 7:30am – Zoom Room
• 9am – Zoom Room

PRAYER GUIDE

“Give us this day our daily bread.” – Matthew 6:11

Mother Theresa famously said: “Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow may never come. We have only today. Let us begin.” 

There is only one day we ever live and that is today. Tomorrow is just a today that has not yet arrived. Yesterday is just a today that has receded into the past. The only day we must ever worry about, according to Jesus, is today. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow will worry about itself. Our focus is and ever must be today. This is true in prayer as it is in all of life. 

When Israel wandered in the wilderness, God provided manna for each day. Once a week, to honor the Sabbath, God provided two days worth of bread. But every other day of the week, if the Israelites tried to gather more than they needed for today, the bread would rot. 

God continues to provide bread for today when we ask. We spend much of our time focused on tomorrow or yesterday, but Jesus wants us to think primarily about today. When we think about right now, and the next hours, about today, our lives come into clarity and focus. And when we pray about today, our prayers are best and most fresh and most potent. They come into the same clarity and focus and specificity. 

God is pleased when we pray for ourselves, for those we love, for those around us, those in our church, those in our city. And he is most pleased when we pray for today…for what is needed for all these people today. He pays attention to the urgency of prayers focused on today. 

Prayers for tomorrow can wait to be answered tomorrow. But prayers for today must be answered today if they are to be answered at all. Perhaps this is why they are powerful. When we ask God for what we and others around us really need for today, God takes note. 

The other reason today-focused prayers are so powerful owes to the fact that God likes to use us as the answers to our own prayers. The only day we can ever answer our prayers is today. So if we are always living in tomorrow, focused on tomorrow, fixated on tomorrow, it is difficult to pay attention to how God may want to use us today. 

Thus he instructs us to pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Let’s do this now. 

For Prayer/Reflection:

• What do you spend most of your time thinking about? Is it today, or tomorrow, or yesterday? Is it the distant past or the distant future? 
• Where do most of your prayers fall in their focus? In the future, the past (if that were possible) or today?
• What will enable you right now to focus on today, on being here today right now and praying for what you need today? 
• What will help you to release tomorrow into God’s care and your worries about tomorrow into his hands. Do it now.