“Forgive us our Sins,” Luke 11: 4.
By S. A. H. Lindsey
“We ought to live so well that we need not continually be praying for the forgiveness of our sins,” was the substance of a few remarks I listened to not long since. Amen, my heart responded, but quickly inquired, Who does? “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” And he said unto them, When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in Heaven, so in earth. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins.” The great Teacher better understood the human nature of his humble disciples than they themselves did. And the form of prayer that he delivered to them was to be a reminder to them of their great need as long as they were exposed to the temptations of Satan. As, day by day, we need a portion of bread to sustain our physical nature, we are taught to pray for a supply. We need, day by day, a renewed evidence that all our sins are forgiven, therefore, we daily pray, as Christ has taught us, “Forgive us our sins.” We have a powerful and experienced enemy to contend with, besides our own deceitful hearts, which often beguile us into sin; and where are the days, leaving out weeks, months, and years, over which we can take a pleasing, satisfactory review, and say, as evening draws on, “To-day, I have not sinned.” “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” 1 John 1: 8. Between what we do and what we ought to do, there is a great difference in this world, where sin and evil so largely abound. Our deceitful hearts incline toward wrong, and in ignorance or unbelief, or both, we do it. “I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.” Acts 26: 9. Saul of Tarsus ought to have accepted Christ, who was crucified and risen again, instead of imprisoning his humble followers, and persecuting them unto death; but he did not thus accept him until he had a vision of the Holy One. We ought to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength—we ought to love our neighbor as ourselves; and until these principles are rooted, and grown, and perfected, and bearing daily the rich fruits described in Gal. 5: 22, 23, it will continue our duty to pray, “Forgive us our sins.” A mere form of prayer, however, uttered by the lips, unaccompanied with earnest desire, will avail nothing. We must feel our extreme need, our unworthiness, and our helplessness. Said the excellent missionary, George Dana Boardman, near the close of his toilsome, self-denying life, “As to my hope and my confidence of acceptance with God, if any man has reason to renounce all his own righteousness, and to trust entirely and solely to grace, sovereign grace, flowing through an atoning Saviour, I am that man. A perfectly right action, with perfectly right motives, I never performed, and never shall perform, till freed from this body of sin.” Thus have the most eminent Christians had the severest warfare with sinful human nature, and with anguish have they uniformly prayed, “Forgive us our sins.”