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And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors

              Just the other day I finished reading to our children a biography of Corrie Ten Boom.  You likely are familiar with Corrie's story – with her arrest by the Gestapo during World War II and the horrors through which she lived at Vught and Ravensbruck concentration camps.  The book noted the Bible studies that Corrie and her sister Betsie led in those camps, meetings in which they encouraged their fellow prisoners to pray for the Germans.  It describes the last years of Corrie’s life, which she dedicated to sharing the gospel through writing and speaking.  Corrie’s travels took her even to Munich, where she was given the grace to forgive in person one of the former guards from Ravensbruck.

                Like Corrie, our readiness to forgive those who sin against us is evidence that we know the forgiveness of our Father in heaven.  Are you ready to forgive your spouse, your parents, your children, your friends, your church members, your neighbors, your coworkers the debts that they owe you?  “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:14-15).

                Using the KJV, Matthew 6 renders this petition “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”  In Luke 11 we read, “And forgives us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.”  Some pray the prayer using the metaphor for “sin” quoted above: “trespasses.”  All three words, “sin,” “debt,” and “trespass,” acknowledge the realities that daily we miss the mark of God’s holiness and that we do not pay Him or our neighbor the debt of love that is their due.

                When our pastor preached on this petition earlier this year, he noted that this petition is joined to the plea for daily bread by the little conjunction “and.”  In praying the two petitions together we confess that without the assurance of the forgiveness of God, our material needs are no blessing.  “Without pardon for his crime, the meal of the man about to be executed is mockery to him.”  How mindful we are of our earthly needs – we finish one meal only to wonder what we’ll eat at the next!  Underlying the prayer for the forgiveness of sins is the plea that our Father make us similarly conscious of our desperate need for forgiveness.

                But wait!  Haven’t our sins already been forgiven?  “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God…” (I Pet.3:18).  Our prayer for forgiveness is a prayer not that our debt be paid by Christ – that work is finished!  Rather, ours is the request that His atonement be applied to our consciousness, to our hearts.  It is the prayer that we might experience each day the favor of God in His Son Jesus Christ.

Sometimes we use this petition as a cap on our prayers, like children chanting at the dinner table: “Forgive our sins for Jesus’ sake Amen.”  True repentance requires that we come before God – and before one another – pleading that we be forgiven for specific sins.  Do you acknowledge your transgressions, and is your sin ever before you? (Psalm 51:3)  We must make the humble prayer of Job in Job 13:23 ours: “How many are mine iniquities and sins?  Make me to know my transgression and my sin.” 

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

                A couple of weeks ago BJ was gone for a few days.  Things here went well in his absence, though one evening I was tired and unsure what to whip up for supper.  I was taking stock of the pantry when there was a knock on the front door.  There stood Cora and Enja, two of our neighbor girls.  Enja had a bowl of noodles in her hand, and Cora had pulled a cooler around the block.  It contained a pot of chili and a pan of cornbread.  “Mom made extra and was thinking about you,” Cora explained.  “It’s hot and ready to eat.”  And so it was.  We dined sumptuously that night, even though “Daddy” wasn’t home.  That day God used our neighbor to give us our daily bread.  

                Our Lord teaches us to begin our prayers with petitions that are God-focused.  That we might hallow – that is, rightly know and praise – His name.  That His kingdom come – in our hearts and in history.  That we might do His will as cheerfully as the angels execute the duties that they’ve been given.

    Next, He instructs us to pray “give us this day our daily bread.”

                Surprisingly, this petition precedes the requests for the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from temptation.  Our Lord, when He assumed our human nature, experienced firsthand our physical needs.  He desired that we recognize that all things necessary for not only our souls, but also for our bodies, come from our heavenly Father.  He looks at us as He looked at the multitudes to whom He preached, and whom He fed and healed: with compassion.  (Mark 6:30ff, 8:1ff and Matt. 14:13ff).

                The prayer for daily bread is a prayer for things that are necessary.  Ours is the prayer of Agur in Prov. 30:8-9: “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? Or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.”

                The prayer for daily bread is a corporate prayer.  Give “us” “our” bread.  It’s a prayer that recognizes that sometimes the Lord provides the need for daily bread through one another.

 In 2 Cor. 8 Paul draws a parallel between the Old and New Testament with regard to God’s provision of daily bread.  He references Exodus 16, in which God rains manna for the first time and commands each Israelite to gather only enough manna for his family for that day – their daily bread.  “He that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating,” writes Moses.

How do we apply this principle today?  “At this time,” Paul writes to the Corinthians, “your abundance may be a supply for their [the saints in Jerusalem] want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality: as it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack.”  So we give liberally, cheerfully, to the deacons in our church.  So we look for ways to share our abundance – not only our abundance of money, but also our abundance of time, perhaps, or talents – with those who lack.  God uses us to answer others’ prayers for their daily needs when we bring them a meal, help them repair their home, fix their car, or watch their children.

The prayer for daily bread is the prayer of one who works.  We do not trust in our care and industry to provide for us, but, mindful of the many warnings to sluggards in the book of Proverbs, and 2 Thess. 3:10, “that if any would not work, neither should he eat,” we work.  “Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed” (Psalm 37:3).

This principle opposes our human nature and the culture in which we live.  Everyone seems waiting for a handout.  Even we frantically register for every raffle we can.  After all, we might get something for FREE!  ^“ Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished,” says God through wise Solomon in Prov. 13:11, “but he that gathereth by labour shall increase.”

The prayer for daily bread is a prayer for contentment .  Do you give people reason to ask you about the hope that is within you?  In our greedy world, contentment is a compelling testimony.  The contented heart recognizes and demonstrates the reality that no material thing profits without the blessing of the God by whom it is given.  “Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart” (Psalm 73:1).

Let’s pray this petition today mindful of the material needs of others and desiring the blessing of the sovereign God, the Giver of every good and perfect gift.  Father, give us this day our daily bread.

One Dozen