Oh...And, I'm Sorry.

Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our dubts, as we forgive our debtors. Matthew 6:11-12

This is, of course, the model prayer given by Christ Himself. It's the order here than I want to highlight, because it's completely backwards from what is so often taught and preached. The order here is requests then confession. Christ didn't tell us to get forgiveness before making our requests known. Now, this seems to contradict what we're normally told, which is we cannot get our prayers heard if we have sin in our life. And there are verses that seem to teach that...and those that teach that God always hears our prayers and often answers them in spite of our sin. So, is the Bible contradicting itself? Of course not! God makes no mistake and does not change His mind or contradict Himself. Understanding spiritual things is a task we will never completely master, but He will give discerning and understanding incrementally. In this situation, the best way is to consider God in His parental persona as our Father. Many of you are parents. When your children disobey, do you stop listening to them? No. Do you completely stop giving them things they ask for? No. Do you withhold some things you would otherwise allow them when they disobey? Yes! Why would God be different? When His children do wrong He chastises. He does NOT stop hearing. He does NOT stop blessing. But He will hold back some blessings He'd otherwise bestow. You could say He kind of grounds us. But He isn't gone! He isn't ignoring us or stopping His ears to our cries! And His prayer hearing and answering ability is not stopped by our failure unless He holds back in correction.