For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well. But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.
Matthew 6:14-15 (CSB)
The Lord’s Prayer just ended. Then Jesus adds these two verses. Out of the whole prayer, He explains one line. The forgiveness line.
Let’s read it carefully, because it can sound scary at first. It sounds like we earn God’s forgiveness by forgiving. We don’t. God’s forgiveness is a gift we could never buy. Jesus means something different. Forgiven people forgive. When God’s mercy really takes hold of a life, it starts flowing out of that life. A person who refuses to forgive anyone, ever, should ask an honest question. Have I actually received mercy myself?
But struggling to forgive a deep hurt is not refusing. Some wounds take a long time. If we’re fighting to forgive, that fight is proof God is working in us, not proof He’s given up on us.
One thing needs saying carefully again. Forgiving someone doesn’t mean what they did was okay. And it never means staying somewhere unsafe. If someone is hurting you, getting safe and telling someone you trust comes first. You can forgive from a safe place.
Where do we get the power to forgive? From being forgiven. The Bible says to forgive each other the way God in Christ forgave us (Ephesians 4:32). At the cross, God forgave us more than anyone will ever owe us. We pass on what we received.