It is amazing how the Lord connects our relationship with Him with our relationship with man. Everything God has shown us in the Word about His character is a picture of how we are to act toward our fellow man.
When the Lord commanded us to come to Him for forgiveness and confession of sin, it was for the purpose of reconciliation. His death on the cross was His offering to us, to come and receive freely His forgiveness and salvation from sin and hell.
“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6
God never says that He forgives if we are not repentant, or if we do not come.
Acts 3:19 “Repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”
We must make the effort to come, and so is it true that we must go to our friends to be reconciled to them, just as we needed to with Christ. When we pass over this step of repentance with friends, we leave out a very important step in our own growth and we can not be reconciled to our friend fully.
So often we think that all we have to do is a good deed or two to make up for our sin against a brother, hoping that time will dissipate the wrong and the good deeds will outweigh the bad ones causing reconciliation. The problem with this understanding is that God requires us to confess our sins to Him and one to another. God does not like our gifts when we are attempting to buy His forgiveness.
James 5:16 “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
It is interesting to me that right after the statement, “confess your trespasses one to another” is the statement “the effective prayer of a righteous man avails much.” I believe these statements are together because our prayers are hindered when we refuse to go and confess to someone our sin against them, hoping the effect of our sin will dissipate like a fog as the warmth of the sun falls upon it. The problem with this theory is that it is not what God said for us to do. The sun of our good deeds on the fog of our sin, will not dissipate a harm or emotional hurt that we do to another believer. The offended may chose to obey God in the verse that says “bless those who curse you.” But there is always a mistrust in the heart of the offended because there has been no confession of wrong doing. The Offended is left with the conclusion that the offender must have thought it was alright to do what they did.
The Lord made provision for reconciliation with Him through our confession and acceptance of His free gift on the cross. It is also true of the believer who has offended someone. The provision of forgiveness is there in the heart of the offended, but the offender must confess to receive it.
Unfortunately our culture thinks that there is no confession required as the pagans think, that as long as enough good deeds are done to the offended it will wipe away all sin against them. This thinking comes from all the pagan religions of the world that say we must do more good works than bad works to earn heaven. Even in relationships we think of God the way we think of our personal relationships, that if we do enough good to them, it will wipe out all the offenses. God did not operate this way.
It is my belief that God wanted us to come and confess our sin and receive His free gift, the same way He desires us to go to the offended party and receive their free gift. But if we do not go to God to confess, and we do not go to the offended to confess, then we are still prideful and think that if we just do good works to obtain forgiveness to our God and to our friends, then we are living a Christianity of works, not only in our Christianity but also in our personal relationships. God is not concerned about many good works, He is concerned with the heart. Only those who confess can be reconciled to Him and the same is true in human relationships. God desires that we be reconciled and so does the brother who was harmed. The one, who does not confess, is the one who does not care more deeply about the relationship than they do their own pride.
If I have been wronged in some way, I will be suspect of the person who comes with gifts. Perhaps the gifts are to relieve their own conscience and really has nothing to do with the harm they have done to me. The relationship can be cordial but it is never close until the offending party is broken enough to place himself in a position of humility and coming in sorrow that He not only offended a Holy God, but that He harmed the one he claims to love.
Love and humility can not be separated. If we love God, we can not knowingly ignore the fact that we have harmed another human being. With this kind of humility there is no thought of “my rights.” The humble brother cares more that he may have harmed someone than he does about his own justifications for his sin.
If we are to follow Christ’s example and obey His Word, we will set aside any pride that may be keeping us from admitting our sin, or even just going to find out what our sin may have been if we think we have not sinned. If someone is offended, we must go to that person, not with the attitude of winning them to your side, but in humility desiring to find out where we failed.
Matthew 5:23-24 God does not say wait until your brother tells you, He says “IF you remember that your brother has something against you” then we are to go before our brother has a chance to tell you. If we do not know whether we have harmed someone and they clearly tell us, we do not look for ways to justify ourselves, we place ourselves in our friends shoes to attempt to understand why he was offended, this is love.
God’s way is best! It is never effective to bring gifts to the altar of God and expect that He will be pleased with us when we show no sorrow over our sin. The same is true of human relationships. It does no good to bring a gift to a hurting friend, when we caused the hurt, and never clearly state our sin against them. The gift becomes suspect, and the relationship can only remain superficial because there is the belief in the offended party that the offender was not sorry they harmed us, only sorry there is a strain on the relationship.
Satan loves when we can not talk things through and clear things up. He loves it when relationships remain superficial. We have a problem in our culture of treating human beings the way we treat God. If we can not openly speak with friends about our sin, we are probably hiding from God too.
God does not want our sacrifices, He wants our heart.
Man does not want our gifts, he wants our love.
Gifts only count when there has been love displayed previously.
Gifts given from a loving heart are two gifts given.
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