When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he gave them what has become known as the Lord’s Prayer. In that prayer we ask for daily bread, we ask to be led out of temptation and to be delivered from evil—in it we also ask for forgiveness as we commit to forgiving one another. The centrality of forgiveness in this prayer points us to the regular need we have for receiving it and giving it. In some ways, much of life is about forgiveness—we are either needing it or needing to give it. The next few posts will focus on forgiveness from the New Testament.
Outside of the pervasive place forgiveness should play in our lives here are a few more reasons why this theme is worthy of careful attention.
- Forgiveness is central to the gospel
- Forgiveness reveals rich truths about God
- Forgiveness is one of our greatest needs
- Forgiveness is a matter of eternal life and death
- Forgiveness is to be the unexceptional posture of the Christian
- Forgiveness is intended to be the ethos of the church
- Forgiveness is one of the most difficult commands to obey
- Forgiveness contains tremendous motivating power for the Christian
- Forgiveness is not always clearly defined or understood
- Forgiveness touches the most important relational areas of our lives
When Luther was translating the Bible into German he placed only one phrase in capital letters. It was the phrase “forgiveness of sins” in Romans 3:25. He stated that it was the “chief point” and the “center point of this epistle and of the entire Scripture, also of the Old Testament.” Let’s spend some time looking at why forgiveness is absolutely the center point of much of the Christian’s faith.