Not One or the Other

We pray "The Lord's Prayer" too flippantly.  Perhaps, it is because we pray it each time we gather for worship.  We pray it so often we really end up saying it instead of praying it.  We pray it so often that the words, "Our Father in heaven..." turn on the auto pilot in our brain and the words just roll out automatically.  This is not to say that we should cease using the prayer in our worship, but simply an acknowledgement that frequency and familiarity can diminish its meaning unless we intentionally choose otherwise.   

While each part of the prayer is important, there is one part of it which has its importance underscored by Jesus.  The prayer causes us to pray, "...forgive us...as we also have forgiven..." (Matthew 6:12). At the conclusion of the prayer, we hear Jesus giving emphasis to that part of the prayer in a way He does no other part.  Verses 14 and 15 of that chapter enable us to hear Jesus saying, "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."   Most of us would rather hang on to what the Word says in I John 1:9 as it says, "If we confess our sins, He who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins..."   

When confronted with the tension implicit within these two sections of Scripture, we are in a better place to read and think not one or the other, but both.  It is those who hunger and thirst after righteousness who will be blessed. (Matthew 5:6)  Righteousness is about being in a right relationship with God and one another which may point to the reason Jesus made such an issue of forgiveness in the model prayer He taught us.