Saturday, October 8, 2011
Mark 11:25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him ...
WHEN YOU PRAY
There has been a lot said and written about praying -- what to pray for, what to say, how to hold one's hands, standing, sitting, eyes closed or open. But this is not about posture, not about customs or even about the content of the prayer. "When praying ... forgive."
What does forgiving have to do with praying? To begin with, forgiveness is the only reason that we can stand before God to present our petitions. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6). From the time that we were called to faith by the good news of "the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins" (Ephesians 1:7), we have been in communion with God. Forgiveness is the "coin of the realm" in the kingdom of God. To carry a grudge when God has not done so with us is to put ourselves outside of the ways of God.
But we do tend to forget, don't we? We so easily forget that our sins are a slap in the face of our Savior, and concentrate on how we have been injured by someone else. We want to accept God's forgiveness for ourselves, but we do not by nature want to share it with those who have sinned against us. If we shared God's forgiveness with them, it would be hard to withhold our own forgiveness after God has already given His. So again we find ourselves at cross-purposes with God. And then we want to come to Him in prayer?
Jesus says, "And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him ..." Yet He was not even standing to pray, but nailed to the cross by our sins, when He prayed, "Father, forgive them ..."
