If your brother is not sorry for wrongs against you, then you have no obligation to forgive him.
Your forgiveness is not for you, it is to reconcile the relationship. If you say "I forgive you" and the response is anger for your saying so, it doesn't bring about a restored relationship. Because one must first have the confession of wrong to receive the forgiveness.
I have not forgiven someone I know who refused to admit what they did to me, I feel no burden at all about it. I obeyed God, went to them, they refused to hear me so I walked away with a clear conscience.
I needed not say "I forgive you" to have that clear conscience. I merely had to address the problem with them in hopes that they would repent. They did not so I do not forgive him. I have no guilt about not forgiving them because they would not have received it anyway. We cannot have a relationship because of the stubbornness of someone else to repent.
The key message here is that it is not wrong to withhold forgiveness to one who does not want it. My offender proved they did not want it, so my saying "I forgive you" would do nothing.
The desire we have to reconcile is what does something, not the words, "I forgive you." Saying words does nothing, but making an attempt to reconcile was what relieves us of any further responsibility. It also relieves us of any obligation to remain in the relationship.
We live in a culture that thinks mere words are enough to reveal character. This is not true and serves only to relieve us of guilt. False guilt to do things man's way is flying all over the place these days.
We are made to feel guilty for not giving food to the food drive because they are having a food drive. Never mind that most of the people receiving the food don't really need it if they would just manage their money better. I call these things feel good programs that are nearly useless.
I saw a food line one time on the news. It literally made me laugh. The line was over a hundred people deep to receive their free canned food. Most of the people in the line were over weight and wearing the latest fashion. They had tats and the latest model strollers while a cigarette was hanging out of their mouth, not to mention fake finger nail.
While I am not against nice cloths and fake finger nails, I find it hard to believe that a heavy person with fake finger nails, cigarettes and modern clean clothes would need to be in a food line. Not to mention those ugly tats that are very expensive. Perhaps it would be better to train these people how to manage their money better.
But of course those of us who believe in earning our way and forgiving the repentant are called mean spirited and unforgiving when all we want is for people to realize their need for Christ in order to have a changed character. Notice, all we are saying is that there must be confession. We are not saying not to forgive, we are merely saying to forgive properly as Christ taught.
Saying "I forgive you" to an unrepentant heart is the same as saying "its alright for you to be sinful and evil." Giving food and money to one who wastes what they have on foolish things in order to have their needs met by others is enabling these people to continue managing their money badly.
God's love is far different from the human love that is paraded as kindness these days. It is not loving to victims to see others coddling and pampering the perps. It is not loving to the perps to be coddled and pampered. They need to confess their wrong and resolve to live differently. It is not loving to give to the poor what they should be earning for themselves. Many people who are lazy are receiving free things that they should earn. If they earned for themselves they would retain dignity and grace.
The giving away free forgiveness is like giving away free food and other goods to those who will not work. It creates the loss of dignity in making our own way, it removes incentives to seek Christ to grow a better character.
Our character stagnates and eventually regresses when we are not required to improve. We need incentives to progress.
This is one of the things that angers me the most. Those who want to think well of themselves for giving something to someone, don't seem to care if the giving is good for the person they give to.
Sometimes withholding something from someone is the best motivator there is to giving them the little shove they need to take care of business.
Please stop enabling lazy people by giving them what they should earn for themselves. Stop enabling the sinful man in his sin by prematurely forgiving him.
In order to learn lessons in life we must have the consequences of our own actions teach us. If we go hungry for a day because we refused to fish, then that is not on anyone else who didn't give us a fish, its on us for not going fishing. And hallelujah, the one who went hungry for a day for not fishing, will learn to go fish if he wants to eat. Then he will be satisfied that he did it himself.
If someone loses friends because they do mean things then that could teach them to act better.
It is not kind to remove consequences and thus lessons from those who can learn no other way.
Most people will continue to do whatever they can get away with. If there is no loss for behavior then the behavior not only does not change it progresses toward worse behavior.
There is laziness in depending on others to sustain you and there is laziness in absolving a sinner before there is repentance. It takes courage to uphold God's standard. It is far easier to ignore sinful behavior than it is to work it out or remove ourselves.
Proverbs 26:23-28 "Like an earthen vessel overlaid with silver dross
Are burning lips and a wicked heart.
24 He who hates disguises it with his lips,
But he lays up deceit in his [l]heart.
25 When [m]he speaks graciously, do not believe him,
For there are seven abominations in his heart.
26 Though his hatred covers itself with guile,
His wickedness will be revealed before the assembly.
27 He who digs a pit will fall into it,
And he who rolls a stone, it will come back on him.
28 A lying tongue hates [n]those it crushes,
And a flattering mouth works ruin."
Friday, November 9, 2018
Followers of Christ Only
If our walk with Christ is dependent on the "type of church" we are attending then that church will be our evaluation of what God wants.
Sadly most people are following leaders and churches or people in those churches instead of Christ.
When we walk with Christ we can do that anywhere when He is our focus and not leaders or attendees.
We are not mandated by God to do things the way of our gathering or leaders. We are told to follow Christ and Him alone.
Our leaders can be helpful and we should listen to them when they are biblical but correct them when they are wrong.
If we find ourselves unable to correct or chastise a fellow believer then we have idols in our lives and must return to following Christ.
Matthew 16:24
"Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
1 Corinthians 11:1-2
"Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you."
See that? We are to be imitators of Christ not of the leaders or others.
Sadly most people are following leaders and churches or people in those churches instead of Christ.
When we walk with Christ we can do that anywhere when He is our focus and not leaders or attendees.
We are not mandated by God to do things the way of our gathering or leaders. We are told to follow Christ and Him alone.
Our leaders can be helpful and we should listen to them when they are biblical but correct them when they are wrong.
If we find ourselves unable to correct or chastise a fellow believer then we have idols in our lives and must return to following Christ.
Matthew 16:24
"Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."
1 Corinthians 11:1-2
"Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you."
See that? We are to be imitators of Christ not of the leaders or others.
Let the Holy Spirit Speak
The Holy Spirit does the work in the unsaved. We are not responsible to make an unsaved person become saved with clever arguments or contrived tones of voice.
We bring the message, obey God in His principles and refuse to be responsible for the response of the sinner. The response is on the sinner not on us. God will deal with those who hear truth and their response to it.
We cannot take the blame if the sinner gets angry at truth, nor can we take the credit if they listen and become born again. We are merely the messenger, God is the One Who does the work of salvation.
1 Corinthians 3:6-8
"6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. 7 So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own [a]reward according to his own labor."
Many worry about their delivery because they are taking on the job that belongs to the Holy Spirit. All we have to do is obey the Holy Spirit and leave the delivery to Him. Then we must leave the responses of the hearer to Him too.
I am convinced that the reason so many people are worried about the feelings of the sinner is because they are looking for results. They think that if they just say things real nice or let people off the hook for bad behavior, the sinner will see this as love and want Jesus. That is not the case most of the time. Christ used rebuke as a means of showing people their sinfulness so they will see their need for Christ.
Acts 3:19
"19 Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;"
Luke 13:3
"No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."
Revelation 3:19
"Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent."
When we remove the element of chastisement, coddling and messaging the feelings of the sinner we merely make them comfortable in their sin.
Isaiah 26:10 "10 Though grace is shown to the wicked man, he does not learn righteousness. In the land of righteousness he acts unjustly and fails to see the majesty of the LORD."
The admonition from God that we will go to hell if we do not trust in Him, is all through the word of God.
If someone becomes angry over our warning that they must repent, then that is on them not us and reveals the inner heart of rebellion.
God can weed out those who are rebellious from those who are questioning and interested through our warnings. He can also cause the rebellious one to walk away convicted and thinking about what was said that they might become born again at a later time.
We must stop using human methods to win people to Christ and begin doing what Christ and the apostles did, that is warn, warn and warn. The love of God is warning of danger ahead. Those who do not love God or the sinner will care only about making themselves feel happy that no one got angry at "them." In other words their deliver is about themselves not Christ or even about the person to whom they are speaking.
We bring the message, obey God in His principles and refuse to be responsible for the response of the sinner. The response is on the sinner not on us. God will deal with those who hear truth and their response to it.
We cannot take the blame if the sinner gets angry at truth, nor can we take the credit if they listen and become born again. We are merely the messenger, God is the One Who does the work of salvation.
1 Corinthians 3:6-8
"6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. 7 So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. 8 Now he who plants and he who waters are one; but each will receive his own [a]reward according to his own labor."
Many worry about their delivery because they are taking on the job that belongs to the Holy Spirit. All we have to do is obey the Holy Spirit and leave the delivery to Him. Then we must leave the responses of the hearer to Him too.
I am convinced that the reason so many people are worried about the feelings of the sinner is because they are looking for results. They think that if they just say things real nice or let people off the hook for bad behavior, the sinner will see this as love and want Jesus. That is not the case most of the time. Christ used rebuke as a means of showing people their sinfulness so they will see their need for Christ.
Acts 3:19
"19 Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord;"
Luke 13:3
"No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."
Revelation 3:19
"Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent."
When we remove the element of chastisement, coddling and messaging the feelings of the sinner we merely make them comfortable in their sin.
Isaiah 26:10 "10 Though grace is shown to the wicked man, he does not learn righteousness. In the land of righteousness he acts unjustly and fails to see the majesty of the LORD."
The admonition from God that we will go to hell if we do not trust in Him, is all through the word of God.
If someone becomes angry over our warning that they must repent, then that is on them not us and reveals the inner heart of rebellion.
God can weed out those who are rebellious from those who are questioning and interested through our warnings. He can also cause the rebellious one to walk away convicted and thinking about what was said that they might become born again at a later time.
We must stop using human methods to win people to Christ and begin doing what Christ and the apostles did, that is warn, warn and warn. The love of God is warning of danger ahead. Those who do not love God or the sinner will care only about making themselves feel happy that no one got angry at "them." In other words their deliver is about themselves not Christ or even about the person to whom they are speaking.
We are Surrounded by Educated Enablers
Forgiveness is a remitting of debt. To send away a debt, in other words to act as though the debt no longer exists.
When we do this for unrepentant people they tend to believe they can get away with everything without any consequences. I know lots of people who have incurred college debt that they have no intention of paying because they can get "government forgiveness for their school debts." This is wrong, mainly because the money they borrowed belongs to you and I and other hard working tax paying workers. Also, if we did this with our taxes they would seriously punish us for not paying our taxes.
The fact is that the more we let people get away with their sin the more they do that sin and even move on to other sins they might not otherwise have done.
Forgiveness is for those who are sorry, however even if they are sorry about a monetary debt, they are still required to pay what they owe. Forgiveness does not remove consequences or responsibilities. And yet, in our culture this monstrous injustice is growing because of the propensity to focus on personal feelings more than responsibility and justice.
A thief or rapist may be sorry they did their crime, even repentant, they are still required to do the time. There are many criminals who are sorry they got caught but are not sorry they did the crime. That's why we must maintain accountability. Also, a truly repentant criminal will want to do their time.
The one who demands forgiveness without contrition is very likely not sorry and will continue their sin.
A good Christian witness is to do things God's way. It is not a good Christian witness to allow sinners to keep on sinning who are not sorry. They must understand the justice of God and fear Him. We remove all fear of God when we allow sin to be easy to do and easy to keep doing.
Proverbs 26:3 "
3 A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the backs of fools! 4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be like him.…"
Proverbs 10:13
"Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks judgment."
Proverbs 17:10
"A reproof entereth more into a wise man than an hundred stripes into a fool."
Proverbs 19:25
"Smite a scorner, and the simple will beware: and reprove one that hath understanding, and he will understand knowledge."
Proverbs 19:28-29
"28 A corrupt witness mocks justice, and a wicked mouth swallows iniquity. 29 Judgments are prepared for mockers, and beatings for the backs of fools."
Some of the things that foolish people are saying now were never said when we were growing up. In fact just the opposite things were being said. The reason our culture has degraded to the degree it has is because we have set aside Biblical principles in order to follow the dictates of psychology.
Even the church has set aside God's teachings and principles in order to be accepted by the world. Does anyone notice the world filled with psychology is getting worse with every passing day?
This all reminds me of the two foolish psychiatrists who encounter a broken and bleeding man in the ditch as they are on their stroll. They both look into the ditch with dismay and agony as they proclaim to one another, "the man who did this really needs our help."
Does anyone else see this very mentality exercised every day in our culture as though it is gospel truth?
The fact is that the broken and bleeding man in the ditch needs someone's help and the person who beat him needs punishment. Yep, that's as simple as it gets.
Proverbs 18:2
"A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion."
Proverbs 1:7
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction."
Proverbs 29:9
"If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet."
Sadly educators have been coddling the wicked while beating up on the righteous as though the righteous are doing something wrong by exacting punishment on evil doers.
Proverbs 26:3-12
"A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. Whoever sends a message by the hand of a fool cuts off his own feet and drinks violence. Like a lame man's legs, which hang useless, is a proverb in the mouth of fools. ..."
When we do this for unrepentant people they tend to believe they can get away with everything without any consequences. I know lots of people who have incurred college debt that they have no intention of paying because they can get "government forgiveness for their school debts." This is wrong, mainly because the money they borrowed belongs to you and I and other hard working tax paying workers. Also, if we did this with our taxes they would seriously punish us for not paying our taxes.
The fact is that the more we let people get away with their sin the more they do that sin and even move on to other sins they might not otherwise have done.
Forgiveness is for those who are sorry, however even if they are sorry about a monetary debt, they are still required to pay what they owe. Forgiveness does not remove consequences or responsibilities. And yet, in our culture this monstrous injustice is growing because of the propensity to focus on personal feelings more than responsibility and justice.
A thief or rapist may be sorry they did their crime, even repentant, they are still required to do the time. There are many criminals who are sorry they got caught but are not sorry they did the crime. That's why we must maintain accountability. Also, a truly repentant criminal will want to do their time.
The one who demands forgiveness without contrition is very likely not sorry and will continue their sin.
A good Christian witness is to do things God's way. It is not a good Christian witness to allow sinners to keep on sinning who are not sorry. They must understand the justice of God and fear Him. We remove all fear of God when we allow sin to be easy to do and easy to keep doing.
Proverbs 26:3 "
3 A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the backs of fools! 4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be like him.…"
Proverbs 10:13
"Wisdom is found on the lips of the discerning, but a rod is for the back of him who lacks judgment."
Proverbs 17:10
"A reproof entereth more into a wise man than an hundred stripes into a fool."
Proverbs 19:25
"Smite a scorner, and the simple will beware: and reprove one that hath understanding, and he will understand knowledge."
Proverbs 19:28-29
"28 A corrupt witness mocks justice, and a wicked mouth swallows iniquity. 29 Judgments are prepared for mockers, and beatings for the backs of fools."
Some of the things that foolish people are saying now were never said when we were growing up. In fact just the opposite things were being said. The reason our culture has degraded to the degree it has is because we have set aside Biblical principles in order to follow the dictates of psychology.
Even the church has set aside God's teachings and principles in order to be accepted by the world. Does anyone notice the world filled with psychology is getting worse with every passing day?
This all reminds me of the two foolish psychiatrists who encounter a broken and bleeding man in the ditch as they are on their stroll. They both look into the ditch with dismay and agony as they proclaim to one another, "the man who did this really needs our help."
Does anyone else see this very mentality exercised every day in our culture as though it is gospel truth?
The fact is that the broken and bleeding man in the ditch needs someone's help and the person who beat him needs punishment. Yep, that's as simple as it gets.
Proverbs 18:2
"A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion."
Proverbs 1:7
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction."
Proverbs 29:9
"If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet."
Sadly educators have been coddling the wicked while beating up on the righteous as though the righteous are doing something wrong by exacting punishment on evil doers.
Proverbs 26:3-12
"A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools. Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes. Whoever sends a message by the hand of a fool cuts off his own feet and drinks violence. Like a lame man's legs, which hang useless, is a proverb in the mouth of fools. ..."
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