Relationships

Fighting Family

I’ve never been a big fan of conflict. When I was younger, my dad used to get a kick of how I would try to smooth things over and be the peacemaker. As an adult, he cautioned me not to take it too much to heart. It’s not that I can’t hold my own when conflict erupts; it’s just that it takes me a while to recover once it happens.

Maybe that’s why I was so disappointed when I witnessed what I thought was going to be a battle of words between two Christian authors. It started when one of the individuals publicly criticized the other. Immediately people began to jumped to the defense. As I awaited the response of the one who was criticized*, I couldn’t help but thinking how antithetical this was to the Matthew 18:15 command. Instead of one individual privately talking to the other about their concerns, people from both sides started having a public exchange of opinions. Others were brought in to the fray with their views on what happened. What could have possibly been handled as an instructive and growing time for both individuals, became a public spectacle that was a poor representation of Christ.

What happened on this large scale, happens all the time in smaller arenas.

Someone offends us.

We get angry.

Then instead of going to that individual, we have our justifications and our excuses for why we think it’s o.k. to talk to someone else. We deliberately ignore what God says and in so doing forget that our love for each other is a reflection of our love for Him (See John 13:35). We tell people that we want to invite them into the family of God, but if this is how we treat one another, is it really a family they’d want to join?

Being set apart for Christ should mean that we act differently from those who are not. May our relationships with one another be one place where we demonstrate this.

*(I’m thrilled to say that in this case, the one who was criticized responded with grace. Hopefully if we’re on the wrong end of public criticism, we’ll do the same.)

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Growth

Our Offense

Recently, I’ve had a little mini-series on sin (If you’ve missed the posts, you can find them here, here, here. and here.) I’ll be honest, it’s not a topic most people want to read about. After, people would much rather read about the better things ahead, then what changes need to happen in the here and now. But I wrote anyway.

Today’s topic may be even less appealing, but it’s important too. For after a discussion about our sin before God, a natural follow-up is to wonder about when people sin against us. (You can see this connection in Matthew 18 verses 7-9 followed by verses 10-14.) After all, we know that a righteous God demands holiness and we want others to treat us according to that standard. But here are two important things to remember:

1. We’re not God.

2. We’re not holy.

So we have no business thinking that we can hold other people to the same standard that God does – in their relationship with us.

Which means, when someone sins against us, we are commanded to forgive. Regardless of whether they deserve it, regardless of how hurt we were, regardless of the consequences we’ve suffered as a result, we are not to hold on to that offense.

And if we do, now we’re the ones in sin. We’ve taken what may be righteous anger and we’ve made it into something that’s abhorrent to God – a hardened heart. We’ve stopped being concern about how their sin affects their relationship with God, and started focusing on how their sin affects us. We’ve held on tight to the repentance we deserve to see, rather than the repentance that’s needed before God.

We’ve taken their sin and made it into our own.

That’s what unforgiveness does. And that’s why God says, regardless of how often or how much is required, when someone sins against you, you are to forgive.

Because God cares more about our standing before Him, then how others stand before us.

And we should too.

(For a great book on sin, check out The Enemy Within by Kris Lundgaard.)

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