The Word to Live By: 3-14-26
Phil Waggoner
Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you your transgressions. Mark 11:25
The Word To Live By: This is the lynchpin of the prayer of faith. I knew what a lynchpin was because I’ve used them for over fifty years in farming and pulling construction trailers. But I looked it up and the definition is exactly what I want you to see in this verse. “A lynchpin is a type of fastener used to secure components on an axle. It prevents parts, such as wheels, from sliding off by being inserted crosswise through the end of a shaft or axle. The term can also metaphorically refer to a crucial element that holds a system together, ensuring its functionality” A good lynchpin fits exactly in the hole of the wagon or trailer and the tow bar on your vehicle, and at the bottom of it is a little lever that after the pin is attached will lock itself out so that, say you are pulling a wagon load of grain out of a field or up and down steep hills, the pin won’t pop out. (This is such a great picture of how forgiveness acts as a lynchpin to your faith.) Remember, the prayer of faith is a declaration from your heart and mouth, declaring the will of God being done in your life on earth as it is in heaven. The lynchpin of forgiveness keeps the wagon full of the promises of God hitched to your spiritual tow bar (which is your spirit and your mouth). For you that aren’t familiar with it, let me describe picking and hauling corn. It works best with two people and two wagons. One running the picker and one running the full wagon back to the corn crib. (You can read Matthew 18:18-19 into this if you like.) When one wagon is full, you unhook it from the picker and hook to the back of a tractor and haul it to the crib to empty it. Then repeat the process. You must always double check and make sure the safety latch is open and secured on both lynchpins. If you don’t, the rough terrain can cause it to pop out. If it does, you have a big mess and won’t be able to recover all of the spilled corn. Life is full of rough terrain; sickness, poverty, fear and other junk are constantly trying to upset your wagon full of the promises of God. Forgiveness is not a feeling; it’s an act of your will. Remember, we live and walk by faith and not by sight. If you believe in your heart that God has forgiven you and His mercy continues to forgive you, then then you can forgive others the same way. You do it with the words, “Lord, I forgive them,” and by your actions to them. (We’ll get into the action of faith at another time. For now, stick with the scripture in James, “Faith without works is dead.”) Let me talk more about the feeling of forgiveness tomorrow. For now, just do what Jesus told us to do when He taught His disciples to pray, in Matthew 6:11,12, “Give us this day our daily bread (the promise). And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us” (the lynchpin).
Read through the Bible in a year: Matthew 15:1-20; Leviticus 24-25; Ecclesiastes 1:1-11;
Read through the New Testament and Proverbs: Proverbs 14, Mark 9:1-25, 2 Corinthians 13
The sum of Thy Word is Truth Psalm 119:160