Today we continue “Give Us This Day”.

 I personally believe there is reason people normally leave off verses 14-15 because this is the more difficult part of the Lord’s Prayer – Forgiving people. Matthew 6:14-15 (NKJV "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Gothard: Forgiveness deals with our emotional response toward an offender. Pardon deals with the consequences of his offense. Unless we have the authority we may not be able to pardon an offense, but we can always forgive. Six aspects of forgiveness:

1. Forgiveness involves a positive attitude toward the offense rather than a negative attitude toward the offender. Our initial focus after being offended is on the offender...difficult not to become bitter. If we first focus on the offense instead of the offender, it becomes easier to see the offense as a way of God developing our character.

2. Forgiveness views or sees the offender as God’s instrument for my life. Psalm 76:10 (NLT2) ^“Human defiance only enhances your glory, for you use it as a weapon.” 

3. Forgiveness looks at the wounds of the offense as God’s way of helping us see the offenders needs. We must learn to see past the surface of people and see their hearts need. Wounded people wound others. They need our help and our love.

4. Forgiveness recognizes that bitterness is assuming or exercising a right we don’t have. Bitterness is like drinking poison and watching for the other person to die. It only hurts us.

5. Forgiveness realizes that the offender has already begun receiving the consequences of his offenses. God uses the conviction of the Holy Spirit, the reproofs of friends, and life’s circumstances as tools to expose the person’s offenses.

6. Forgiveness involves working with God in the offender’s life. Gothard: Forgiveness is having a greater concern for a person after he offends me than I did before he offended me. It is using the hurts of others as the basis of demonstrating Christ’s love back to them. Forgiveness is the ultimate exercise of “Lord, give me this day.” It is the toughest but also the most rewarding.