Lesson 5: E – Eradicate

“Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

Why would Jesus place such a high priority on our forgiveness of others? There are two basic answers to this question, and both have the same result in us.

First, Jesus wants us to become like Him in everything. He is love and grace and mercy – and He has given all this to us when we did not deserve anything but His judgment of our sin. We deserve the consequences of all our selfishness – separation from Him, and eventually from everyone else. It is no wonder God calls this eternal death!

Second, Jesus wants us to be free. He wants us to be free of fear, discouragement, anger, bitterness, and much more as we find listed in Galatians 5:19-21. All of these listed here are things coming from our own choices to do what WE want – selfishness.

Our word – eradicate – means to completely do away with something. We cannot completely do away with sin in our life here on earth simply because we live in human bodies which have desires (as we read in our last lesson) which we must learn to control. These human desires for ourselves will only be gone completely – eradicated – when we reach Heaven and are given our new, perfect bodies.


However, this longing for and goal towards getting rid of sin should be our constant desire in this life – and we can only do this with the help of the Holy Spirit living in us. This is why learning to forgive others is such an important part of who Jesus wants us to be. Selfishly, we want justice or what should be ours now! Jesus’ way: we look to Him for every good and perfect gift (James 1:17) and are content with what He gives us (Philippians 4:11). It is also the way in which we will find His peace guarding our hearts and minds in our life, no matter what the circumstances around us might be (Philippians 4:7).

Forgiving others sets us free from slavery to the situation that caused us to be angry or upset or hurt. As long as we do not forgive, WE are slaves to the person who hurt us. Anything they do will make us angry, and anger will turn to bitterness, and bitterness will damage us. Someone said that bitterness from not forgiving someone is like us drinking poison and hoping the other person dies from it.

Again, the only way to be free from that slavery is to forgive that person – release the burden of what they have done to Jesus and let Him provide justice for you.

*What still keeps you from forgiving? Jesus cannot forgive you until you forgive them.