The Cost of (Un)Forgiveness

Forgiveness, or the lack thereof, is costly. There is no use sugar coating it or denying it - if we honestly forgive someone it is very costly to us personally. However, if we are seriously wronged and we chose to not forgive, it is perhaps even more costly. We live in a fallen world where offenses occur. Heaven knows, I try to be good and even when I am on my best behavior, I can still wind up offending someone. In a fallen world - sin happens.In fact, we are so prone to sin that I marvel at how much civility there is around us. Sin fractures, it alienates, it sours, and ultimately it will destroy us. How do we mitigate the harmful effects of sin, both to ourselves and to those we wrong? Is it possible to live in unity, love, and harmony with people? Or, if we are determined to live in peace with people, do we have to walk on egg shells lest we offend?The good news is that it is not only possible to live a real, robust, physical, face to face, wild, passionate, and loving life with other people, but we are called to do so. In fact, most of what makes life good is found in the deep ties of friendship and kinship. So what do we with all the sin among us. I mean, if you get two people together, somebody eventually is going to be offended or get their feelings hurt. It will happen just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow - there is no ideal community because there are on ideal people, just broken sinners who need Jesus.How do we keep things robust, passionate, full of life, and free of dead bodies? I am glad you asked, we’ll talk about it Sunday. I’ll give you a hint - Jesus carved a wide path in his life and death on the cross.Blessings,Jim