The Heart of the Lord’s Prayer

• Dr Eliezer Gonzalez
• Forgiveness
• Jesus
• Kingdom of God
• New Testament
• Prayer
• Righteousness
• Salvation
• Sanctification

Mar 3, 2014 2477

Our Father in heaven,


Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come.


Your will be done
 On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,


As we forgive our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation,


But deliver us from the evil one.


For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen (Matthew 6:9–13, NKJV).

When the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, Jesus taught them what we today call the Lord’s Prayer. We often recite it without stopping to think about the teachings of Jesus contained within it.

In the heart of that great prayer are the words,

And forgive us our debts,
 As we forgive our debtors. (Matt. 6:12)

At the end of the prayer, Jesus saw it fit to highlight and explain only one part of it, and it was precisely those words. Jesus emphasized that,

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matt. 6:14–15).

This is not about what someone else must do. It is about what you and I must do.

When we forgive others as we have been forgiven, it is then that we truly “hallow thy name” – or as the Common English Bible has it, “uphold the holiness of your name.”

When we forgive others, it is then that God’s kingdom has come, into our broken relationships, in anticipation of that great day when it will come in fullness of glory.

When we forgive others, it is then that God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

It is only when we recognise that the kingdom and the power and the glory are His, that we can forgive as we have been forgiven. And we can only do it in His power.

It is the simplest thing to say, but without the grace of God in our hearts, it is the most difficult thing on earth to do….

to forgive as we have been forgiven.

Eliezer Gonzalez