25 And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses. 26 But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses. (Mark 11:25-26 KJV)
William Burkitt’s Commentary
There are two qualifications requisite in prayer if we expect to find acceptance with God, namely, faith and love; to the first Christ had spoken in the former verse, to the latter in this. When ye stand praying, forgive. It was ordinary for the Jews to pray standing, yet in their solemn days of fasting they did kneel and prostrate themselves before the Lord; but the Christians usually kneeled down and prayed, Ac 9:40.
Now the command here to forgive those that offend us before we pray shows,
1. That no resentments of what our brother doth, should stick long upon our spirits, because they indispose us for that duty we are to be continually prepared for.
2. That there is some sort and kind of forgiveness to be exercised towards an offending brother before he asks it, and though he does not show any token of repentance and sorrow for it; because I am to pray for him out of love to him, and must lift up pure hands, without wrath.
Learn hence, That they who are suing for, and expecting forgiveness from, God, must exercise forgiveness towards others, or else their prayers are a sort of imprecations on themselves.
2. Observe, Christ speaks indefinitely; When ye pray, forgive. He doth not say, your brethren, but men: If we forgive men their trespasses Mt 6:14 that is, all men, good and bad, friends and enemies; if we forgive one another freely, our heavenly Father will forgive us fully. Our forgiving one another is the indispensable condition of God’s forgiving us, and of hearing the prayers which are put up by us.