07/03/2026
If we were to ask ourselves what our most persistent spiritual obstacle was, what would it be? If we were to question ourselves as to what stands most often between ourselves and answered prayer, what would we say? Would we respond with a sin such as covetousness? Maybe! How about lying? No? Perhaps lust? Not this either? True, we might do any of these things, and more, but I dare say that none of them are our most flagrant and unresolved sin, my guess is that it would be loving our neighbor enough to repeatedly forgive them.
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses."”
Mark 11:24-25 ESV
Forgiveness is more than a few words; it requires us to love someone as much, and perhaps more, than we did before they trespassed against us. This one act brings more prayer warriors to their knees in defeat than any other shortcoming. We go boldly with confidence into our prayer closet feeling rather smug in our righteousness, and pray mighty prayers, then walk out feeling certain that God will do these things we have asked ... yet something just doesn’t feel right.
Jesus taught the disciples to pray, and the precepts were simple, but one stood out as paramount, and we have a tendency to swiftly scoot right past it as we pray... we don’t tarry on the words: “as we forgive our debtors.” This is the great indictment in our prayer life. We tend to forget the debts of others, but do we actually forgive them? Our forgiveness purifies us, and clears not only our conscience, but cleanses our souls, and restores relationships... it returns us from our prodigal nature, and allows the Father to greet us on the road home with complete forgiveness.
“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
Matthew 6:14-15 ESV
You are probably thinking that you already do this; you will argue that you do forgive... but when you search your soul is that true? Have you returned to that place where you can not only say the words “I forgive”, but also embrace that person and kill the fattened calf for them? Listen to the words of the prodigal son as he realizes what he has done...
“I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.”
Luke 15:18 ESV
There it is... the three letter word “sin”, and both the prodigal son and his father know that it has occurred. It has such a devastating effect on their relationship that it is the first thing the son brings up when he meets his father on the road home...
“And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'”
Luke 15:21 ESV
He couldn’t wait to say those words of contrition, but on the other hand, the father never responds in words of his own, but with the true act of love and forgiveness... had you ever noticed this before? Listen...
“But the father said to his servants, 'Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to celebrate.”
Luke 15:22-24 ESV
Not one mention of forgiveness. We have a saying for this kind of deep understanding: “It goes without saying.” This Father’s love and forgiveness truly went without saying.
So, the relationship between the father and the son had returned to a place where it wasn’t just the same, but better. Do you think he would have killed the fattened calf for this Son before the sin had occurred? Well, not according to the eldest son who had never wandered away...
“but he answered his father, 'Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!'”
Luke 15:29-30 ESV
This rant by the older brother tells us of his father’s forgiveness, but he also reveals the nature of his own inability to forgive. This is the son who will one day rule over his father’s possessions, so he MUST understand the reality of forgiveness, and his father teaches him by saying...
“And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.'"”
Luke 15:31-32 ESV
So, which one of these three represents us personally? We like to tell this story because we see ourselves as a prodigal son or daughter and it gives us hope that we too can come home when we have sinned... thus most of us envision ourselves as the son who needs forgiveness. But is this who we are? We also like to tell this story because it gives us comfort when the father forgives without a word, and embraces in true love and forgiveness... are we that father? Are we able to forgive like that? However, none of us wants to see himself as the elder brother who has trouble forgiving... is that because this is where we find our greatest challenge? Is this the role we find ourselves in most often? Of these three, is this who we really are?
Saying “I forgive you” isn’t all that hard to do. People give lip service to things all the time, but meaning it and doing it in love is hard. Simply saying these words allows us to placate ourselves, and to mask our shortcomings. Saying them is like painting over the drawing a child has penciled on a wall... it doesn’t erase it... it only covers it up. To truly remove the stick figures of sin from the walls of our lives requires us to scrub and wash them off... then to paint the wall to look as it did before they were drawn. Otherwise, time will bring those images back to the surface. Hate and disdain will always resurface unless they are lovingly removed.
“Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.”
Proverbs 10:12 ESV
Jesus gave us the solution for our inability to forgive by way of a commandment. In these few words He led us back from the abyss to forgiveness by teaching us what the father of the prodigal demonstrated...
“And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 22:39 ESV
Love, it is the underlying power by which God forgives us, and is what we must employ in our forgiveness of others. Are we ready to love and forgive when we say I forgive you? Or do we just want to forget? Are we ready to forgive others as God forgives us by turning the clock back on their wrongdoing and treating them as if it never occurred? Are we ready to take action?
“For I will forgive their wrongdoing, and I will never again remember their sins.”
Hebrews 8:12 CSB
Prayer:
Father, thank you for the lesson of the prodigal son that reveals to us how often we need to forgive and what that looks like. Thank you for showing us that we are more like the elder brother than either the prodigal son or his father. Help us Merciful Lord to put down our hurt, anger, and hate, and to pick up the love that will remove all trace of what needs to be forgiven, and do it in a way that is not simply forgetting. Help us to replace hollow words by replacing them with the true act of forgiveness. Teach us to forgive so that we too can be forgiven. Bring love into our prayer closet, and show us how to use it Father. Let us not only hear the words of Jesus, but help us to take action with them in our heart. Lead us to embrace those who have trespassed against us, and in this way let us feel your arms about us. You are Great Holy Father, and love us beyond our ability to understand. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you who greets us with open arms, and rewards our contrition with your eternal forgiveness and by slaying the fatted calf. Holy are you who not only forgives us when we are like the prodigal son, but when we act like his brother too… help us to be forgiving as the father in this story is… like you are.
“No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.”
Jeremiah 31:34 CSB
Rich Forbes