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Friend, forgiven people forgive!

Matthew 6:14–15 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Yeshua (Jesus) has just taught His disciples to pray, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Then, before He moves on, He comes right back to forgiveness. That should get our attention. Out of everything in the Lord's Prayer He could have explained further, He chooses this. He does not stop to explain daily bread or temptation. He stops at forgiveness because this is an essential Kingdom principle.

It is one thing to ask God for mercy. It is another thing to show mercy to someone who hurt us.

That is why Yeshua says, "If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." Trespasses are real offenses. These are the times when someone crossed a line, broke trust, wounded a relationship, spoke cruelly, betrayed us, or sinned against us. Yeshua is not pretending people do not hurt each other. He knows better than anyone what betrayal, accusation, rejection, and cruelty feel like. But He still calls us to forgive.

In Hebrew thought, forgiveness is carried by the word salach (סָלַח), which speaks of pardon, release, and mercy. God does not forgive by acting as though sin is no big deal. He deals with sin truthfully and mercifully. He does not call evil good, but He releases the debt through His own faithfulness and compassion.

That is what makes the warning so weighty: "But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." These words are serious, meant to wake us up. Yeshua is not saying we earn God's forgiveness by forgiving other people. He is showing us that a heart that refuses mercy has not really understood the mercy it is asking to receive. We cannot ask God to forgive us while deciding mercy will stop with us.

That is exactly what Yeshua showed us in the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21–35). One man was forgiven an impossible debt, something he could never repay. But then he went out and grabbed another man by the throat over a much smaller debt. He wanted mercy for himself, but judgment for his brother. He wanted his own record cleared, while keeping someone else's record open. He received release, but refused to release.

The Kingdom life is mercy received and mercy released. We forgive because we have been forgiven.

This is where ashrei (אַשְׁרֵי) is found — not in pretending we were never hurt, but in the blessedness of a heart set free from unpaid debts. Blessed is the one who has stopped holding mercy hostage. Blessed is the one who remembers that the Father's mercy was poured out through the broken body and shed blood of Yeshua. Blessed is the one who refuses to let bitterness outlast the cross.

Friend, forgiveness matters so much that the Lord returns to it before moving on. Why? Because He wants us to walk in His freedom, and the hardest thing is often simply comprehending His love and mercy toward us. But when we truly do, we find the power to extend that same mercy to the ones who have wounded us — and in that power, we walk in freedom. Ashrei are those who know the King has set them free.

Your family in the Lord with much agape love,

George & Baht Rivka (Baltimore, Maryland)

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