As justified children of God we may ask why do we need this petition....it is given as we deal with ourselves in sanctification (not justification) as we need assurance DAILY that our sins are forgiven us! We long for glory and deliverance from Satan, our flesh, and this world, but find ourselves polluted with sin and not yet perfect as we live in our bodies.

Content: Our sins. We stand in the fellowship of the saints. No man is an island.....and this is a prayer for others as well as ourselves. The Lord makes known that we stand in fellowship with one another and this petition is communal. We learn first that our sins are great and that they cleave to us as we miss the mark of God's glory often times. We are debtors to God in that we are unable to keep His law and we need to ask our Father to forgive us as our sins are very bothersome to us. Our very best is still attached to sin. It is a matter of the nature! The evil cleaves to us in our nature. They way heavy on us, bother us, and bring us to confession! We strive to do better, but in the sin we commit against God and against one another we confess them to Him and to one another. Now knowing our sins and living with that we ask for forgiveness, which is to erase from the minds as if it never happened. (Think of the two goats and the escape goat in the old testament confirming the sins on the goat into the wilderness which was a concrete picture for Israel that their sins were forgotten! That is forgiveness!!! Not half forgotten as we do so often with one another...but forgiven! Forgotten! (as they must be.)

Basis: That is what God does with us! There was a sacrifice made as God does not play with His mercy without fulfilling His justice! He brings us to the BASIS of it all...the Cross! For Christ's blood and His sake, He does not impose our debt on us as a direct result of the atonement He made. He paid the price for us! On the basis of THAT PAYMENT, we can enter into prayer and pray that our sins are not imputed unto us. In our sinful nature we find this prayer on our lips DAILY do we not?

Possibility: "As we forgive our debtors..." This is NOT a conditional petition. We too (like the lord and his servant) often forget about the forgiveness we have received from God. We sin against God but we also sin against one another! We forgive one another and we seek forgiveness of each other when we have done wrong. Sorrow brings confession and confession brings forgiveness. We do not live with our sin committed against God and committed against one another do we? May we be able to see this very thing in our daily life as we experience our forgiveness....