Forgiveness is about relation
Christianity is all about a relationship, with God. Other religions and worldviews in the end come down to living and working and doing your religious practices all to get right with the god or gods, or just to cope with life itself (for those who deny the existence of the supernatural). However, the one true living God doesn’t want religious performance, but he wants to be our Father. He wants a relationship of love.
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another… We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:10-11, 19).
This relationship of love between God our Father and us, his children – by adoption, through faith in the Son, Jesus – is the foundation for all Jesus is teaching in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Because we love God above all else and our neighbour as ourselves, after Jesus’ example, we keep his commandments. Out of love for God, we express our dependence and give him our thanks and praise in prayer.
So when we pray for God to “forgive us our debts” (Matthew 6:12), this is not simply a legal transaction, or a mere settling of accounts. No, much more: we ask this because we realize we’ve grieved our Father. With our sin we’ve raised a barrier between us and him which needs to be removed to bring reconciliation, to restore the relationship.
Praise God; we can ask for forgiveness with great confidence, because by faith we stand forgiven in Christ; he paid our debt in full on the cross (Ephesians 1:7). Pray daily for forgiveness, to grow ever closer to our loving, heavenly Father!
Klaas-Jan Gunnink