When Jesus taught his followers how to pray, he included how essential forgiveness is. If you withhold forgiveness of another, you do not experience the forgiveness of the Father. What does this mean? What order does this happen in? How can we experience true forgiveness in a way where we both receive and give it?
The more you recognize your need for forgiveness, the more love and gratitude it seems you will give back. At least, that's the economy of forgiveness Jesus tells about while a woman society shunned was serving him at the table of a highly respected religious leader. Which do you identify more with: the sinful woman in need or the self-righteous man who thinks he’s good?
This week we hear a story of a paralyzed man and his friends who do everything they can to get him to Jesus, because they knew he had the power to heal. Jesus does, but he first heals him spiritually. It’s our prayer that you would know the healing power of Jesus, which saves us from the sickness of sin! Only Jesus has the power and authority to heal physical (disease) and spiritual (sin) sickness.
Followers of Jesus are kingdom-people who know that they have been forgiven for their sins. Therefore, God's kingdom-people must live out forgiveness to others, otherwise they are denying the very basis of their own existence! Followers of Jesus breathe in true divine forgiveness day by day. Once that life-giving air from God fills us, we can't help but breathe it out. As we learn what it is like to be forgiven, we begin to discover that it is possible, and indeed joyful, to forgive others.
