Do I Have To Be Their Friend?

I'm swamped at work (grading, grading, grading) so I'm going to make this one short and to the point. I'll try to write more over the holidays.

Continuing on the topic of Forgiveness:

At first blush Matthew 18 can seem confusing. Verses 15-19 contain the portion where Jesus describes confronting a person who has sinned against you, ending with the admonishment that if the person doesn't change their ways then they are to be put out.

After saying this, Jesus spends the rest of the chapter teaching the disciples to forgive everyone and stating that if they don't forgive everyone then the Father will basically punish them severely.

Think about that again: In one section, Jesus is saying that if your "brother" sins against you and never changes then you are to leave them alone. In the next section Jesus is saying that if you don't forgive everyone "seventy times seven" then you are in serious trouble with God.

To understand these two sections you need to understand that Jesus is referring to two different things. Vs. 15-19 are about reconciliation. Vs. 20-35 are about forgiveness. Reconciliation is defined as enemies becoming friends. My definition of forgiveness is releasing my anger toward the offender and replacing it with unconditional love (two parts).

What is clear from these sections of Matthew 18 is that reconciliation and forgiveness are two independent concepts. The whole truth is this: as Christians we are called to forgive everyone but we are not required to be in relationship with people who continue to harm us and refuse to change their behavior.

Forgiveness is the only requirement. I must forgive whether or not the person acknowledges their wrong or changes their behavior. However, once I forgive a person and attempt reconciliation, if they are unwilling or unable to change, I do not have to be in relationship with that person.

What do you think? I'm curious for some feedback.

Responding to a Kick in the Face

We've all been kicked in the face by someone else. I don't mean literally but the result is the same. Hurt, offense, sadness, anger. You overhear people talking about you. Someone gives you the stinkeye. Your roommate uses the last of the milk but leaves the jug in the fridge. You overhear people talking about a party to which you apparently are not invited. Your spouse or significant other has a bad day and decides to use you as a verbal whipping post. Relationships are like that, it's just the nature of life. Stupid happens. Mean happens. Inconsiderate happens. Right? We all know what that's like. It sucks! (of course, most of us give as good as we get, don't we?)

So, how do we respond when someone offends us or hurts us in some way? I want to take the next few blogs and work through this idea. I don't know the percentage but I would say that the predominant cause of trouble in our lives is relational. Therefore, if we can start to get a grip on this issue, we can begin to lessen the amount of stress in our lives.

First things first: There is too much info here to do this in one post. This is going to take a few weeks, I think, to hash this all out.

Forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation, and justice are vastly different concepts. Perhaps this is one reason that Matthew 18 can be so confusing.

My take:

Forgiveness is a personal act on the part of someone who has been offended. It's intrapersonal, in that it happens within an individual who has been offended. In forgiveness, I replace my anger and hurt toward an offender with unconditional love.

Repentance is a personal act on the part of someone who has been the offender. In repentance, I acknowledge the wrong of my former behavior and turn away from it.

In an ideal world, when a wrong occurs, the offender repents and the offended person forgives and they both move on with life. But this doesn't always happen. A key concept: Forgiveness and repentance are seperate acts and do not require the other act to occur. Because both are intrapersonal acts (occuring within a person) I can forgive another person without the other person being repentant, or I can repent without the other person being willing to forgive me for my wrong.

If you are like me and have a sibling, you probably remember your mom making you apologize to them at some point for hurting them (i.e. when ernie held me down and chewed up food and spit it in my face, or when I chunked a ceramic elephant at his head, or when he chased me in my room and caused me to split my pinky finger open, or...well, you get the idea). I think this is a noble thing for parents to do but it may set an unrealistic precendent. In real life, those who hurt you don't have to say "sorry".

As Christians, we are called to be people of forgiveness, regardless of whether or not the offender changes their behavior. "...Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors..." This is the reason forgiveness is so tough. To me, forgiveness sometimes feels like death. In fact, if you look at notable passages on forgiveness (Colossians 3 for example) it seems like forgiveness is discussed in the context of our death. "Therefore, since you died with Christ..." I'm giving up my right to hate another person and seek personal retribution. I'm giving up my right to repay evil with evil. Which is tough enough when the offender is repentant but nearly impossible when the offender doesn't give a damn.

People don't want to forgive because it feels like letting the offender off the hook.

Okay, I'm tired of thinking about this for now. More later. What do you think so far?

Oh My! This is about to get exciting!

Are you sitting down? (I assume you aren't reading your computer standing up.)


I have something to tell you that may come as quite a shock.


Lisa is pregnant. That's right, I said pregnant! We are going to be parents. Does that scare any of you? She is 13 weeks today, so the due date is April 6th.


Notice I didn't go with the PC "Lisa and I are pregnant". The reason is because Lisa informed me yesterday that "we" aren't pregnant. "We" aren't nauseous. "We" aren't bloated, dizzy, and foggy-headed. "We" don't have to get up 5 times in the night to pee. She has a point.


So if you need me in the next six months you know where to find me: in my home-office in the Buddy Morton Memorial Recliner deep, deep, deep in prayer!

Culture of Differences

(I might need some help getting my thoughts clear on this, so if you have some feedback for me, I'd be interested in hearing it.)

I'm becoming aware of how much we as a human race are not like each other. The differences are staggering - ethnicity, religion, politics, interests and hobbies, jobs, worldviews. Sometimes we seem like 6 billion snowflakes all landing on the same planet but being distinctively different from each other.

Even as Christians, we seem so different. What one group does as an act of worship another group sees as an act of sin. Just look at how many denominations exist. And yet, Christ has made us all one in him. The Holy Spirit has made each believer his dwelling place. Even through our vast differences, Christ enables us to connect with one another and support one another in a way that might not otherwise even be possible.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, but its been on my mind lately. Feedback?

The Best Show You're Not Watching

I know, I know, TV Show reviews are not my normal thing. But this is important so stay focused! I want to tell you about the best show on TV that you are not watching.

To set it up I'll tell you about two of my favorite TV shows from the past. When I was a kid, I never missed an episode of The A-Team. I can hear the theme song and see the bullet holes ripping through the intro even now. A group of army commandos had been falsely accused and were on the run from the government. The group lived in the "Los Angeles underground" and survived by helping out good people in trouble. Great freaking show. Mr. T alone was reason enough to love that show.

Okay, my other favorite show occured more recently. Alias was about a spy named Sydney Bristow. She did spy stuff and kicked butt. The last season was a little off the mark but the other seasons, particularly the first, were impeccable. Alias was truly can't-miss TV for me and Lisa.

So, the best show you're not watching is called Burn Notice on the USA network. Go to www. usanetwork.com/series/burnnotice to watch full episodes of the entire first season and most of the second. Burn Notice is Alias meets A-Team. Michael Weston is a spy that has been "burned" (black listed by the government). He spends half the shows trying to figure out who burned him and the other half helping out people in need. I don't want to tell you too much more because it would ruin it. Just go check it out. For those of you concerned with moral content, there is not much in the way of foul language, sexuality, or gore. The show is smart, fresh, and way under the radar. If you do decide to check out the older episodes online, do yourself a favor and start from the beginning.

One More Thing About Sovereignty and I'll Leave It Alone

My friend Grits has me thinking about my old youth group, so I want to share some of that with my loyal readers (all 5 of you!), but before I go there, I want to address one "loose end" in my post about God's sovereignty.

I made an assumption in the last post, an assumption that a person could make requests of God and then rest in God's sovereignty, knowing that God would take our request into consideration and then do whatever was in our best interest.

This assumes that God is good. It seems to me that if I am an anxious person it revolves around one or both of the following issues: God's sovereignty and God's goodness.

Don't miss that. In order for me to rest in God's sovereignty, I have to believe that in the core of his being, he is good and wants the best for me. If God is not good, then his sovereignty would be terrifying; he'd be the ultimate terror of the universe. I would live my life in constant fear of being targeted by him for destruction.

But I believe that God is good. And not only do I believe that he is good, he is good to me. When I'm walking in this belief, then I can't help but be filled with peace and serenity. My prayer today is that each of you be filled with an experiential awareness of God's sovereignty and his goodness toward you.

Sovereignty, Supplications, and Serenity

I've been spending some time lately thinking about the sovereignty of God. People's belief in the sovereignty of God falls on a continuum; some have a fairly weak view of God's sovereignty and some take a stronger view. I heard a joke in Bible college about a calvinist (strong view of God's sovereignty) that fell down a flight of stairs. After dusting himself off, the calvinist exclaimed "Thank God that's over with". I'm not sure I'm to that extreme yet (but maybe I am) but I definitely lean toward a strong view of God's sovereignty.

I take such a strong view of God's sovereignty, in fact, that I began to contemplate the purpose of prayer. I mean, if God's will is going to be accomplished anyway, why should I pray about something? The "thing" I pray about will either happen or not. Then I remembered the verse that says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God" (Philippians 4:6). Obviously, this passage encourages prayer. So, I might not know exactly how it fits together, but God wants me to pray. God's sovereignty doesn't cancel out my supplication. Somehow, God pays attention to my desires and apparently sometimes alters (and sometimes does not alter) his will based upon my prayer. Heavy thought.

As I looked further into the passage in Philippians, I noticed that the encouragement toward prayer is flanked on both sides by remarks about anxiety and peace. Praying with a strong view of God's sovereignty releases me from anxiety. Verse 7 states, "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus". I take from this to mean that somehow supplication and sovereignty lead to serenity. I make my petitions known to God. From that point on, the ball is in his court, so to speak. He is sovereign and he can do as he wishes with my requests. Therefore, I can rest knowing that he is in charge and he knows what's best for me and will act in my best interest.

I'm curious what some of you think about this idea. I've been more at peace lately as I've thought about all of this but I'm interested in some feedback.