I've been tagged to confess...

• I am sorry for being an impetuous friend: for the times I have hung out with you waiting for the 'gospel opportunity', being disappointed when there wasn't one and so resenting my time spent with you.
  
  INSTEAD: "So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us."
  
  
• I am sorry for the times I make a mockery of my God and don't display His worth and value to you by treasuring other things more highly than He.
  
  INSTEAD: But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
  
  
• I am sorry I look down on your life's pursuits and laughed at your attitude of "if you dig it, do it".
  
  INSTEAD: "When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd."

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Christians are viewed by the world often as judgmental, arrogant, do-good party-poopers... and sometimes we deserve rightly this criticism. Christian brothers and sisters... Christ didn't save us to a religion of moral correctness and boredom but to serve the living God with joy and true lasting fulfillment. We are a community of dirty, fallen, broken, transforming YET perfectly forgiven people! Thank you Jesus!


This blog entry is in response to being tagged by a friend, as part of a thing called...

CHRISTIANS CONFESS: Where Christians are encouraged to apologize for three things that Christians have often got wrong.

Your apologies should be directed towards those who don’t view themselves as part of the Christian community. Alternatively, apologize for things you personally have done wrong towards those outside of the church.

As we forgive those who sin against us…

We know all to well that if we a Christians we are commanded to forgive as Christ as forgiven us… How can we as Christians have an unforgiving heart when we have been given the greatest gift of an eternal pardon for our sin...

How hard is it to forgive an enemy who has done evil against you and treated you poorly? How righteous is the anger of fallen yet forgiven people?

When can you forgive? If you raise it with someone that they have hurt you and they don’t repent, can you forgive them? Luke 17:3-4 says to “Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him”. Is full forgiveness only possible in response to repentance?

Knowing that the world is divided into two categories those who repent and are forgiven by our heavenly Father and those who don’t repent and so are not forgiven. Is this our model? If so what does a forgiving heart look like then, especially in the circumstance of an unrepentant brother or sister?

What does forgiveness look like? Thomas Watson (Body of Divinity) says “When we strive against all thoughts of revenge; when we will not do our enemies mischief, but wish well to them, grieve at their calamities, pray for them, seek reconciliation with them, and show ourselves ready on all occasions to relieve them.”

I think that sounds very biblical in light of the passages that say we should bless and pray for our persecutors, love our neighbours, not repay evil with evil or seek revenge. But they do sound all very private. Are there public displays of forgiveness that we should extend to our forgiven brother?

AND How do you say "I forgive you" without it sounding cheesy?