as we forgive our debtors....

My pastor has been doing a series of sermons on the Lord's prayer, and today's portion was on "as we forgive our debtors". It was a REALLY good sermon....I'm glad Shaun was able to come today. I really do enjoy my pastor, he's pretty good at putting things on your level and just being straight forward about even the hard stuff!!

Anyways, the story he used as an example was in Matthew. It was about the king who decided to order that everyone who owed him anything was to be brought b4 him. Well, this one guy who roughly owed 12 million dollars (HOPELESSLY in debt) came b4 the king. The guy obviously didn't have the money, but asked the king for one more day b/c if he didn't pay it meant prison for him and slavery for his family. Well, the king decided to cancel is debt and let him go. Anyways, this guy leaves the palace, runs into a guy that owes him a measely 17 dollars, practically strangles him to death, and DEMANDS his money. Well, guy #2 pretty much says the same thing that guy #1 said to the king, but guy #1 didn't care. He ordered guy #2 to be thrown in jail till he could pay. The king heard this, brought back in guy #1, and sentenced him to a life of torture in prison until he could pay back his debt (basically giving him a life sentence of torture). The moral of the story was that God has forgiven our sins, our debt that we are HOPELESS to repay, and that he expects us to go and forgive others. My pastor pointed out that the point of this part of the prayer "forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" is to show us that how we forgive others is how God will forgive us, kinda scarey huh??? The story is also to point out that it ANGERS God when he has forgiven us SO much, and we are unwilling to forgive others. One of the points my pastor made was that we will NEVER forgive someone for as much as God has forgiven us.

He also had this great quote. "Holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die"-unkown. He pointed out that resentment only hurts us, not the person we're mad at. Most of the time, the other person could care less, and they've moved on w/their lives while we are still stewing. Resentment makes you a victom.

Anyways, it was a really good sermon and pretty good timing for me to hear it too. I've really been enjoying this sermon. God has really been hitting me w/something new each week!