Forgive Us: Spiritual Warriors Prayer, Part 5
This is week five in a seven-week study on the Lord's Prayer, or as Pastor Ricky Jacob likes to call it: the Spiritual Warriors Prayer. Need to start at the beginning? Read Part 1 here.
Listen to the devotion:
In a way, it is ironic to me that this evil brute’s name is given to us, while the young girl’s name remains a mystery. This young girl did not hold this man’s sin against him. She was willing to forgive him and by so doing was assured of her forgiveness.
Do not get me wrong, her compassionate actions did not earn or win her forgiveness. No, her forgiveness of Naaman demonstrated that she trusted in a merciful God herself. The God of the children of Israel was slow to become angry and more than willing to forgive those who turn back to Him in faith.
This young girl loved God because He first loved her. That love which she received from above flowed through her life, in spite of all the hardship that she endured. A spiritual warrior forgives others because God forgives him, or in this case, her.
In what I call the Spiritual Warrior’s prayer, Jesus, the greatest Spiritual Warrior ever, taught his disciples these words: And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
We pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would not look at our sins, or deny our prayer because of them. We are neither worthy of the things for which we pray, nor have we deserved them, but we ask that He would give them all to us by grace, for we daily sin much and surely deserve nothing but punishment.
So, we, too, will sincerely forgive and gladly do good to those who sin against us.
Jesus led by example: His first words from the cross were: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” It was not Jesus' place at this time to announce forgiveness. No, that was His Heavenly Father’s decision. We as Jesus’ spiritual warriors now, also, plea for God’s mercy on the behalf of others.