Lord's Prayer "as we forgive those who has trespassed against us"

Last time we looked at how we need to ask for forgiveness. Then Jesus goes on to something that is critical as a follower of Jesus Christ. We need to forgive others. We need to forgive anyone who has sinned against us. Now that seems like a pretty tall order. Jesus clarifies this statement further in Matthew 6:14-15. He basically says if you forgive others, then God will forgive you, but if you don't forgive others, then you won't be forgiven. What does this mean? Think of it this way. Forgiveness is like a snorkel. If you go snorkeling you have a tube that you stick in your mouth that allows you to breathe in and out. If you clog the tube, you can't breathe. Forgiveness flows in the same way. If you have clogged the tube with unforgiveness then you are going to have a difficult time receiving forgiveness from God. The tube needs to be clear for forgiveness to flow. Ask God to reveal to you where you are holding something against someone, where you need to forgive others.
Now remember that forgiveness is an active process. It is not forgetting which is passive. You may remember how that person hurt you for the rest of your life. Forgiveness is making 4 promises. The first is that you will not dwell on this incident. You will not continue to stew and get angry about what happened. You will not get bitter. This promise is the one that needs to be made even when the other person has not sought forgiveness or admitted that they are wrong. Do not dwell on it. The other promises are for when someone has sought forgiveness from you. The second one is that I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you. Once you have forgiven someone and you bring the problem back up again you are showing that you haven't forgiven them yet. There are some times when there are exceptions to this rule when you have noticed a pattern of behavior and to not be able to speak about what happened in the past may hurt the person long term. The third promise is that I will not talk to others about this incident. Stop telling everybody and their sister about what this person did to you. You are damaging them in someone else's eyes and may need to seek forgiveness yourself. Th fourth promise is that I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship. Things need to go back to the way they would have been had this problem not intervened. It doesn't mean that you have to be best friends with someone if they were not close before the problem occurred. This is what God does with us and what He wants us to do with each other. None of these promises are easy. But our God is a powerful God who has promised to help us when we seek Him for help.