From the prayer that Jesus taught His disciples we can learn of many characteristics of the kind of God, Our Father, is. In this prayer, Jesus teaches us to ask God to forgive us our trespasses (sins) as we forgive those who sin against us. The not only mandates the condition that we must be forgiving of those who have hurt us, but more importantly, it establishes the pardoning character of God, our Father. In the five years that I have been a father, there has been times when our beloved son, Reuben has done something that disappointed and displeased my loving wife, Sangeetha and me, but as I reflect back on these fives years, despite that fact that we have disciplined him, I can’t quite think of anything, that we harbor or hold against him. We discipline, but we also forgive and for the most part forget. So how much more that God who fashioned me as a Father must be in his act of forgiving all of us, whom he has created in his own image.

It does not matter what we have done, where it be idolatry, dishonoring God’s name or his day, dishonoring our parents, murder, adultery, stealing, lying or coveting, or how far we have run from God, when we address him as Our Father, which we can only do if we have been redeemed by His Son Jesus Christ, He can’t help but forgive us and remembers our sins no more. The vilest offender can receive a pardon from God, irrespective of the gravity of the offense committed, because God the Father, is a pardoning Father God.

Point(s) to ponder:

Matthew 6:12 (KJV)
12 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

Hebrews 8:12 (KJV)
12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.