If 'Sorry' Seems to be the Hardest Word...

So if sorry seems to be the hardest word...then 'i forgive you' must be the next hardest!

We had our youth leader's Bible study this evening on the topic of forgiveness. One of the passages we looked at was Luke 17:3 "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him." Wowser! 'If' he repents? I always thought that if someone sinned against you, you should forgive him anyway! But this is saying that you should forgive them ONLY if they repent. I was thinking as we discussed that this has gotta be in context of helping to bring them to repentance with God. The aim in any human relationship is reconciliation and the same with God. So if a believer sins against you, you hold out on forgiveness ONLY for the purpose of them identifying their sin and repenting and reconciling to God. Also, this is in line with Matthew 18 where it talks about the appropriate ways to approach a believer who has sinned. Confidentially, with a witness, etc.

So this has given me a bit of a different spin on forgiveness. As it also says in Matt 18; forgive them 70 times 7 'if they repent', I am willing to forgive over and over with the strength and grace of Jesus. But if they need to come to repentance for the sake of their relationship with God, maybe public forgiveness must be held back for that sake... Hmmmm, still working this one through! The Bible: always bringing out the pearlers!