Learning to forgive

Posted on September 26, 2021 
Filed under Resources, Theology

“Jesus teaches his disciples to pray to our Father to ‘forgive us our debts’ (Matthew 6:12). He reminds us that we need forgiveness and God is the one who grants it.

The word ‘debts’ conveys one aspect of what the Bible calls sin, and what we owe God. We need forgiveness because we do not give God what we owe him: thanks, praise, love and obedience, and because, as the Anglican confession prayer says, ‘we have not done what we ought to have done’.

Yet, amazingly and wonderfully, the God we offend is a God of mercy. …”

– SydneyAnglicans.net has published this edited version of Archbishop Kanishka Raffel’s address from the Centre for Christian Living’s Learning to Forgive event in August.