Matthew 6:14
“For if you forgive people their wrongdoing, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well.”
Mark 11:25
“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven will also forgive you your wrongdoing.”
If you notice that forgiveness from the Father starts with your relationship with other people when it comes to showing them forgiveness.
The phrase “your heavenly Father will forgive you as well.” It assumes that the individual will ask [repent] for forgiveness when he falls into sin.
By forgiving those who wronged you, it shows a characteristic of God in you. When you go to the Lord to confess your sins, He will forgive you.
Also, in both Matthew 6 & Mark 11, the statement is future tense. The passage is not only referring to when it occurs at the moment but, when it happens in the future which means that repenting is an ongoing process as we are living in a sinful body on a sinful world.
1 John 1:8-10
8 If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, “We don’t have any sin,” we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.
To say that we do not sin anymore is to claim that we do nothing wrong all the time. That is self-deception. A person who convinces himself to believe that and does not confess his sins to the Lord, his relationship with Jesus who is the truth starts to die according to the passage in verse 8.
By confessing our sins to Jesus, He will faithfully, all the time we repent, forgive us and put us in right standing with Him again. When a child of God is in disobedience, He will not use us as we are in sin and He is a holy God as Isaiah 59:2 reveals, “But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have made Him hide His face from you so that He does not listen.”
Sin is a wall that gets between you and God. The wall will separate you from the Lord which will hinder your prayers from reaching Him as sin keeps you away from His presence. We see this in Micah 3:4 which says, “Then they will cry out to the LORD, but He will not answer them. At that time He will hide His face from them because of the evil they have done.”
1 John 2:1
“My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ the Righteous One.”
- Advocate-[an intercessor] When we sin and go to Jesus to confess our sins, He will support us and speak on our behalf to the Father in heaven.
God’s Word helps us from sinning against the Lord and keeps us in right standing by feeding our faith. We see this in Psalms 119:9 which says, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping Your word.”
-And-
In verse 11 of the same chapter, it says, “I have treasured Your word in my heart so that I may not sin against You.”
The Scriptures are very clear, confess your sins to Jesus so that your relationship with Him stays strong or else it will start to deteriorate.
Spiritual Minefield 