The questions before us as we go forward are simple but challenging: will we throw sinners before God in judgment, or will we extend a hand of grace?
All tagged Forgiveness
Rejoice when Reviled
Individuals preaching a pure gospel with false reasons, whether for selfish ambition or as part of an attack upon us, should be be disassociated with unto their shame. Not because they are enemies, but precisely because they are our brethren. We are to leave them to God in their lack of maturity as they serve Christ for it brings disunity to the church to highlight their immaturity beyond an initial rebuke.
Carrying Loads
"O how he springs up before your eyes, how he deafened your ears, how he forces his way even into your dreams and disturbs your thoughts and wastes your time! O how he gets on your nerves!" - Karl Barth
Love that Reconciles
This is the fulfillment of the second great commandment that we live as those reconciled one to another.
Until We Murder
How long will we continue to be angry with one another if we neglect contentment in God? Until we murder.
Freed for Confrontation
How Christian forgiveness looks in the real world cannot be reduced to a formula. Or if only, the formula must be called Christian faith. Mutual confession of faith in Christ and the faithfulness of His Spirit is the path of reconciliation.
The Necessity of Reconciliation
When Christians focus on reconciliation, they must look outside of themselves to the active work of Christ. The example found in Jesus Christ removes the judgment of self-justification and false, self-gratifying forgiveness.
Forgiving is not Forgetting
Forgetfulness implies that our history is irrelevant to the redemption of God. It almost suggests our time in this temporalness is something God merely wishes to whisk away through the cross.
Atonement in Barth's Forgiveness
God's effort to reconcile with humanity through Jesus Christ becomes a tremendous encouragement to work through reconciliation with one another.
Unmerited Forgiveness in the Lord's Prayer
We pray for this gracious forgiveness then because it has been promised to us (1 Jn. 1:9). We pray for it because it has already been accomplished.
Unapologetically Broken in "The Forgiven"
Christian are in a tough spot today. The old "sin free" stigma is refuted at almost every corner of the church. But the world demands the old facade if only as a rhetorical device. It allows them to love the broken but not the forgiven.