Forgiveness

I had an interesting conversation with a friend yesterday. His daughter and my daughter are best friends and so we end up standing off on the side talking while the girls play. My friend doesn’t go to church and has expressed no interest in ever coming, even when he is invited. God laid it on my heart to tell him, “No matter what you have done, God can forgive you. There is nothing so bad that it is outside the grace of God.” He didn’t have a huge response or give his life to the Lord right then and right. However, I sensed that it did touch something inside of him.

As Christians, we know all about forgiveness. Forgiveness is at the heart of our relationship with the Lord. But the relational forgiveness between people is still so hard—both to ask for forgiveness and to forgive others. It’s almost like we’d rather pretend like the offense never happened and yet the hard feelings fester deep down inside of us.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “If you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:23-24).

As a church, we have some underlying tensions between people. My encouragement for all of us is that we first of all pray that God would heal relationships. Secondly, if you have something between someone—either you have hurt them or they have hurt you—you should seek their forgiveness and seek to forgive them. While it is hard, God blesses us if we do the hard things for his Church.

With love, Pastor Kory