Thursday 2nd July
Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
The Apostle Paul starkly informs the first century believers in Ephesus that, prior to their faith in Jesus, each one of them had previously been stone-cold dead because of their transgressions and sins against God. We were just like these early disciples: incapable of receiving God’s favour, love and nature. Our condition was so piteous that our very nature, the essence of who we are, was only good for receiving God’s wrath and judgment. This is a very sobering and miserable assessment indeed: Ephesians 2:1-3.
However, God’s love for us exceeded our grievous sinfulness – so much so that he made us alive with Jesus and transformed our lives through his infinite and unearned grace, v. 4. What good news we embody, how glorious is God’s tenderness we carry with us, and how uncontainable is the joy of God’s love and salvation. These are only possible because the debt of our sin has been cancelled by God’s grace through faith in Jesus, v. 8. We are wonderfully forgiven people.
Jesus’ prayer for us is that we remind ourselves daily of how forgiven we are, and how important it is that we mirror God’s pro-active and costly forgiveness to everyone we meet and have ever met. Neil Bartlett, the former leader of the King’s Church High Wycombe, once wisely counselled that every Christian must be ruthless in one particular area of life: forgiveness. We must learn to forgive ruthlessly. Why? Because Jesus did, and he tells us to copy him. It is how to become free, remain free and see others become free. It is the most Jesus-like thing we can do this side of his return.
And yet how difficult it can be to forgive: not just others, but ourselves. We often hear the women tell us that their sin is too profound for them to receive God’s love. It is as though the depth and dirt of their transgressions obliterate any qualification for God’s forgiveness. Wonderfully, this is not how God sees them. Rahab, the prostitute in Jericho (Joshua 2) is part of Jesus’ lineage, powerfully proclaimed without shame, hesitation or qualification in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1). Furthermore, her faith is commended in Hebrews 11:31 along with spiritual giants of the Old Testament such as Abraham, Moses and David. God’s grace overwhelms the most shameful sin, and his love can obliterate all condemnation, whether that comes from others or ourselves.
Reflection
Which sins of yours do you consider unforgiveable or too shameful for God to overlook? What do you believe Jesus wants you to think in future about these?
Whom do you struggle to forgive, and why?
How might the love of Jesus redefine how our women see themselves, others and the painful histories they have endured?
Thanksgiving
Give thanks that you are eternally forgiven by the King of Heaven.
Thank the Holy Spirit that he has given you the power and incentive to forgive yourself and others.
Our women can become contemporary ‘Rahabs’ and daughters of Christ, walking free for eternity.
Prayer
Name those who have hurt you, and why. Ask for the Holy Spirit’s power to forgive them. Be ruthless: forgive them from your heart.
That our women would not see themselves as unforgiveable, but would experience the powerful love, deliverance and forgiveness of Jesus.
That our women would be able to forgive themselves and those who have failed them, abused them and raped them.
Our women
Please pray for salvation, healing, strength, deliverance and new lives for our women:
Joy, Judith, Leah, Leela, Lily, Martha.