A Deal is A Deal - even when we pray !

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Have you ever really sat down and taken the Our Father apart?  Jesus gave us this prayer as an example as to how we are to pray and what we are to pray for. I am not going to tear the prayer apart on this blog today.  I would recommend that sometime today that you find a quiet place and meditate on the prayer we call the "Our Father."

I do want to touch briefly on just one aspect of this prayer.  The words we say are so familiar to us and we pretty much say them by rote so we may miss some of the important things we are actually praying for.  

We do ask God to forgive us our sins, and He does, in the same measure that we forgive those who sin against us.  If you hold a grudge if you are unforgiving of someone who has hurt you, well, do the math, God will hold the same amount of guilt against you.  

But, how can this be?  God forgives our sins and casts them as far away as the east is from the west.  When we sin against God, we are hurting the infinite goodness and dignity of the creator of the universe. Yet, he is willing to forgive us our sins against his dignity provided we are willing to forgive those who have sinned against ours.   How can God demand this from us?  Doesn't He know what she did to me and how much it hurt?  Yes, He knows the pain of being betrayed, of being ignored, of being the subject of mockery, of being hated.  It happens to God all of the time, yet He forgives.  He asks that we imitate Him and see our way clear to forgive those who trespass against us and He for His part will forgive us the many sins He could hold against us.  Seems like a good deal to me.