There are two mainstays in the Christian faith, forgiveness and repentance.

Primarily we tend to focus on forgiveness. God forgives us, we forgive others(sometimes), others forgive us. It goes on and on, we are all familiar with the verses.

• Matthew 6:12
• Luke 6:37
• Luke 17:3,4

With that comes the subject of repentance, which we mosty deal with using 1 John 1:9 mostly because it deals, once again, with God forgiving us. It seems to me however, that we are missing something. We say "We repent to God" but if we offend our brother we demand forgiveness with no repentance. We use the above verses to strongarm a placebo for our conciences. I submit we are missing a vital element here; repentance toward one another. there is no room for misinterpretation here. Scripture is very clear.

Matthew 5:23-35 ²³"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

    ²⁵"Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. ²⁶I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.^[d]

I want to look at both parts of this. The first part is 23 and 24.

²³"Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, ²⁴leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

Do you catch that? Does it look familiar? Let's hit these questions seperately.

• Do you catch that?

God is placing the unity of believers AHEAD of worship. If we are going into worship, if we are giving our offerings and our hearts are not right with our brothers or sisters, we are to drop everything and get right, then, and only then are we to come back and resume our worship. Take special note here, it does NOT say, "if your brother owes you an apology." or "if you have something against your brother." the language is very clear, if YOU owe someone an apology, tend to that BEFORE you come to worship. "That's crazy talk" you say, "God's already forgiven me"(oooh we'll adress this too) you say "no man can judge me or bar me from worship". Lets look at the second question.

• Does it look familiar?

It should. God said something very similar hundreds of years before, something i believe ties directly in to this.

malachi 1:10 ¹⁰ "Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar! I am not pleased with you," says the LORD Almighty, "and I will accept no offering from your hands.

The context of this verse is that people were offering crippled, lame, diseased, tainted offerings at the temple. Hear this; If our bodies are living sacrifices and if we come to offer our praises in spirit, then are we not offering crippled, diseased and tainted offerings when we do so under division amongst the brethren? According to God Himself, He would rather you not even bother, it's rather insulting(to Him) really.

Let's go even further though, and look at the second part of that passage.

 ²⁵"Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. ²⁶I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.^[d]

Jesus often used examples such as Judges/courts and prisons to represent God and judgement. In this example it seems clear that He is talking about two believers, therefore the judgement in question is not a matter of heaven or hell, but of reward. We know that believers will be judged and rewarded according to their works, and it seems here that none shall escape justice. that is to say the old argument "well, if i forgive them they get away with it" rings false. It would seem here, that even if someone forgives me, if i do not make the effort of reconsilliation, it is held to my account. While this may not end in damnation, it would most certainly end in diminished reward and position in the final Kingdom.(remember, some will be saved, but with nothing to show for it, as one escaping from a fire.). How often do we allow our pride to cause us to pay this price because we feel the other person is "not worth it" or we can not humble ourselves enough to admit we are wrong, and ask forgiveness from the other person, and not only forgiveness, but a restoration of the relationship.

I have to once again(for the first time on revelife) give recognition to squeakysoul, with whom I fought bitterly for a long time. She has been the embodiment of this reconsilliation, and deserves some recognition for it.

what would you rather be, a pastor, a counselor or a biker?(think hard, more to come later.)

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the pastor and the counselor head to a booth in the back as the biker heads to the bar. while they are waiting for their food they make small talk about their day. "you know, on my way over here, i came across this homeless guy. the state of our city is getting out of hand, he was sitting there, IN PUBLIC, dressed in rags and probably drunk, it looked like he'd hurt himself, he was bleeding."

to which the counselor replied. "i saw the same guy, i thought he might try something, so i crossed the street."

meanwhile, the biker paid for the two meals he had ordered to be taken out "sorry shirley, i cant afford to tip so much this time, i gotta make sure i have enough for the doctor, i found a guy on the street all bloodied up, turns out some kids mugged him, they worked him over pretty good, say a prayer for him will ya?" and walked out the door.

</edit>

all my life i've been called a monster. when i was in junior high, i was told by a teacher that i would become a serial killer when i grew up. even the good things i did were ascribed to bad motives. no, it wasnt bad parenting, it was teachers, counselors, adults at church, and peers.

at the same time, i can count on one hand the number of friends i have had at any given time, and by friends i dont mean aquaintences who are nice to you, i mean real friends, the kind that will come into an empty classroom where you are cornered and throw your attacker accross the room. mostly, i was left to my own devices. i've been mocked, ridiculed and physically beaten by groups of people, with those who SHOULD have protected me turning a blind eye. though they always noticed when i defended myself.

this has taught me two things; one terrible, the other terribly wonderful.

1). violence, in greater doses is the best solution. this is the terrible lesson. this is the self fulfilling prophecy that others spoke over me so often when i was younger, and still do.  that i am a bad and violent person. the lesson i learned here is, respect will never come, but fear is the next best thing, and the quickest way to resolve a conflict is to IMMEDIATELY escalate it to a point that your opponent is not willing to go to. i can off the top of my head think of 3 times in my life, when i threatened to kill someone. it was no idle threat, but thankfully the threat is all it took.

i learned that, in the physical, merely hurting someone who attacked you was no detterent, they would merely come back at a more oportune time, possibly with friends. the only way to deter an attack, physical or emotional, was to ensure that the attacker understood that the consequences would be permenant. and no one is to be trusted completely, something that has even encroached on my view of God. this was the terrible thing i learned, not from a "teacher" or a book, but through trial and error and experience. and it has proven difficult to unlearn

2). ironicly, though i despised humanity,(i seriously had dreams of global genocide), i was, and still am fearcely protective. my hatred stemmed from the injustice i saw perpetrated on a daily basis, and i find it difficult not to jump into the frey when i see another being ganged up on. this seems like a contradiction, but i realize now, that what i hated was in fact the arrogance and cruelty people displayed, and i merely projected that on to the human race as a whole.

this too has been problematic however, as when it comes to others, i can more easily find a good solution to a problem, but my own pride still blinds me when i myself am attacked. my defensiveness over rides my good sense and i tend to revert back into that killer instinct mode.

im still learning alot about myself, and how to control those things within me that are contrary to what i wish to be. im thinking that this will be the place for that self discovery and repair.