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Answered Prayer

We're forgiven to forgive

'And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.' … For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 6:12, 14-15).

God has forgiven me, so I am commanded and empowered to forgive my neighbor.

For Martin Luther, praying the fifth petition of the Lord’s Prayer was a weighty thing. In fact, he believed that if we pray this one petition with anger or ill will toward our neighbor standing as an obstacle in our hearts, it “spoils the whole prayer and prevents [us] from being able to pray or to wish any of the preceding petitions either” (all quotations in this article are from Luther’s Works 21).

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