What If Someone Has A Grudge Without Me Knowing the Reason For It?
Question : What if I come to offer my gifts to God in the house of God and there I find that someone has grudge against me, the reason for which that person has a grudge I do not even know? How should I respond in this scenario if I have to follow the teachings of Jesus in Matt 5:22-26?
Answer : Jesus said in Matt 5:22-26, "22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. 23 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. 26 Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny."
Here we clearly see in the context of the passage that a incident happens where we get angry with our brother and say to him 'Raca' which means 'Thou empty fellow' or 'You fool!' out of the heat of our unnecessary anger, according to Jesus' standard we are in danger of council judgment of elders where two or three witness is enough to bring a person to judgment or worse is in danger of hell fire (2 Cor 13:1). So once we have trangressed and have become wrathful enough to not only hurt the person who was hurt by our words but was prideful enough to continue with out asking sorry for our mistake and then on sunday we take a gift to be offered to God and come to the temple of God, God says that the gift is unacceptable to him unless we come with a clean reconciled heart with our brother whom we have offended. Therefore before offering our gift say the Holy Spirit shows and brings in to our rememberance our sin of anger, pride and its succeeding unforgiveness, there at that point of time Jesus teaches us to leave the gift in the temple and be reconciled with our brother first and then come back to offer our gift to God which will be only then acceptable to God.
First of all if we remember a brother has something against us, it means we have hurt them in some known way which has offended them. If such a grudge is there, we must get reconciled to the brother first and then should offer the gift to God or else it becomes a religious ritual rather than a offering to God. Unforgiveness brings Satan's control subtly in to our lives to control it. Devil must run away with no place to live willingly with our consent, before God will have his way in our lives. But if someone has got a grudge based on their jealousy or pride against us for no reason, we cannot do anything for it. They got to repent! God will not ask us to repent for which we are not responsible. We can only be peaceable with others as much as they are willing to be at peace with us (Rom 12:18). It is not our job to keep doing a research of what others think of us. We should always be focused on what God thinks about us, this verse in Matt 5:23-24 contextually points to the place where when God shows us something that we have done unintentionally has hurt others, then we should go and get reconciled to the people whom God is showing to us. When we are angry, it is better to shut our mouth and keep ourselves quiet until that angers gets cooled off, so that then we can be able to think and speak carefully and respectfully to others. Word that fly out of us unintentionally out of our anger when we are speaking emotionally, cannot be taken back, instead it might hurt others to cause a burn wound within them without our knowledge of it. When a person stumble because of their own jealously, pride and anger, we can't do much about it and we are also not expected by God to do anything about it except keep our attitude positive towards them. Positive attitude within us can be maintained by doing the attitude-maintainer instructions directed by Jesus who has said in His Word as follows, "43 "You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' 44 I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, 45 for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best--the sun to warm and the rain to nourish--to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. 46 If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. 47 If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that. 48 "In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you." (Matt 5:43-48, MSG). In other words, we should never live re-actively with hate to what others say or do, but rather act with the Love of God which He gives us towards our enemies irrespective of their words or behavior. We are told to love, bless, do good and pray for others irrespective of their attitude or behavior towards us, this according to Jesus will glorify God and will help us maintain our blessed attitude of God's love and peace within us.
Unforgiveness is the worst spiritual disease which God Himself cannot help if we are not willing to forgive and let go by the strength of God. If we have developed some sort of unforgiveness through the anger we have exhibited towards anyone or others who have hurt us in anyway, then we should first choose to forgive them from our heart and let go of the bitterness out of our heart, so that our fellowship with God can be restored and we could be able to go again boldly in to the very Presence of God through our prayers done towards Him (Matt 6:14-15; 5:22, 23-24, 25-26; Heb 10:19-25; 4:16). I have seen a very close aunty who was a believer, because of her reluctance to forgive her husband, she became mad and died miserably. Another believing aunty who was not willing to forgive her son and daughter in law for being loveless became rotten with worms in her body and died in her unforgiveness. In both cases, God judged his people like this on earth so that their spirit might be saved for eternity (1 Cor 5:5). God allows such unforgiving believers in to the hand of Satan for the destruction of the flesh because be expects His children who were forgiven of all their debt of sins of past, present and future unconditionally to forgive others debt of offenses no matter what level it is (Eph 4:32). If we do not forgive others debt against us, we cannot expect our debt of sins to be forgiven by the Father and we have no rights to even ask for forgiveness (Matt 6:12, 14-15).
Forgiveness is the foundation of the kingdom of God. Forgiveness is the character of heaven which only the children of God have access to in their lives freely. Until the day we forgive all the trespasses of men which were done against us, we will never be able to experience fully the deliverance and freedom of the abundant life of God in the Holy Spirit which Jesus promised to all those who obey Him (John 10:10; Acts 3:19; 5:32; Luke 11:9, 13). ONE REASON WE SHOULD FORGIVE ALL THE MEN WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US IS BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN ALL OUR SINS UNCONDITIONALLY BY A GOD WHO LOVED US WHEN WE WERE HIS ENEMIES. We should learn to do the same if we are really His obedient children. If we fail to forgive a person on the day they have spoken or done something bad against us, it will get harder and harder as time goes by. This is the reason if we really want the devil not to come in to our beautiful abundant life and destroy it to make us miserable, the Biblical rule is to let go those bad and hurtful things done against us in to the hands of God and receive strength of God to forgive them before the sun sets on that particular day itself (Eph 4:26-27). May God help us all consistently to forgive, forget and live the abundant life that He desires us to live on earth as it is in heaven as His dear children.
Much Blessings.....
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Answer : Jesus said in Matt 5:22-26, "22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. 23 Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. 25 Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. 26 Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny."
Here we clearly see in the context of the passage that a incident happens where we get angry with our brother and say to him 'Raca' which means 'Thou empty fellow' or 'You fool!' out of the heat of our unnecessary anger, according to Jesus' standard we are in danger of council judgment of elders where two or three witness is enough to bring a person to judgment or worse is in danger of hell fire (2 Cor 13:1). So once we have trangressed and have become wrathful enough to not only hurt the person who was hurt by our words but was prideful enough to continue with out asking sorry for our mistake and then on sunday we take a gift to be offered to God and come to the temple of God, God says that the gift is unacceptable to him unless we come with a clean reconciled heart with our brother whom we have offended. Therefore before offering our gift say the Holy Spirit shows and brings in to our rememberance our sin of anger, pride and its succeeding unforgiveness, there at that point of time Jesus teaches us to leave the gift in the temple and be reconciled with our brother first and then come back to offer our gift to God which will be only then acceptable to God.
First of all if we remember a brother has something against us, it means we have hurt them in some known way which has offended them. If such a grudge is there, we must get reconciled to the brother first and then should offer the gift to God or else it becomes a religious ritual rather than a offering to God. Unforgiveness brings Satan's control subtly in to our lives to control it. Devil must run away with no place to live willingly with our consent, before God will have his way in our lives. But if someone has got a grudge based on their jealousy or pride against us for no reason, we cannot do anything for it. They got to repent! God will not ask us to repent for which we are not responsible. We can only be peaceable with others as much as they are willing to be at peace with us (Rom 12:18). It is not our job to keep doing a research of what others think of us. We should always be focused on what God thinks about us, this verse in Matt 5:23-24 contextually points to the place where when God shows us something that we have done unintentionally has hurt others, then we should go and get reconciled to the people whom God is showing to us. When we are angry, it is better to shut our mouth and keep ourselves quiet until that angers gets cooled off, so that then we can be able to think and speak carefully and respectfully to others. Word that fly out of us unintentionally out of our anger when we are speaking emotionally, cannot be taken back, instead it might hurt others to cause a burn wound within them without our knowledge of it. When a person stumble because of their own jealously, pride and anger, we can't do much about it and we are also not expected by God to do anything about it except keep our attitude positive towards them. Positive attitude within us can be maintained by doing the attitude-maintainer instructions directed by Jesus who has said in His Word as follows, "43 "You're familiar with the old written law, 'Love your friend,' and its unwritten companion, 'Hate your enemy.' 44 I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, 45 for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best--the sun to warm and the rain to nourish--to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. 46 If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. 47 If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that. 48 "In a word, what I'm saying is, Grow up. You're kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you." (Matt 5:43-48, MSG). In other words, we should never live re-actively with hate to what others say or do, but rather act with the Love of God which He gives us towards our enemies irrespective of their words or behavior. We are told to love, bless, do good and pray for others irrespective of their attitude or behavior towards us, this according to Jesus will glorify God and will help us maintain our blessed attitude of God's love and peace within us.
Unforgiveness is the worst spiritual disease which God Himself cannot help if we are not willing to forgive and let go by the strength of God. If we have developed some sort of unforgiveness through the anger we have exhibited towards anyone or others who have hurt us in anyway, then we should first choose to forgive them from our heart and let go of the bitterness out of our heart, so that our fellowship with God can be restored and we could be able to go again boldly in to the very Presence of God through our prayers done towards Him (Matt 6:14-15; 5:22, 23-24, 25-26; Heb 10:19-25; 4:16). I have seen a very close aunty who was a believer, because of her reluctance to forgive her husband, she became mad and died miserably. Another believing aunty who was not willing to forgive her son and daughter in law for being loveless became rotten with worms in her body and died in her unforgiveness. In both cases, God judged his people like this on earth so that their spirit might be saved for eternity (1 Cor 5:5). God allows such unforgiving believers in to the hand of Satan for the destruction of the flesh because be expects His children who were forgiven of all their debt of sins of past, present and future unconditionally to forgive others debt of offenses no matter what level it is (Eph 4:32). If we do not forgive others debt against us, we cannot expect our debt of sins to be forgiven by the Father and we have no rights to even ask for forgiveness (Matt 6:12, 14-15).
Forgiveness is the foundation of the kingdom of God. Forgiveness is the character of heaven which only the children of God have access to in their lives freely. Until the day we forgive all the trespasses of men which were done against us, we will never be able to experience fully the deliverance and freedom of the abundant life of God in the Holy Spirit which Jesus promised to all those who obey Him (John 10:10; Acts 3:19; 5:32; Luke 11:9, 13). ONE REASON WE SHOULD FORGIVE ALL THE MEN WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US IS BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN FORGIVEN ALL OUR SINS UNCONDITIONALLY BY A GOD WHO LOVED US WHEN WE WERE HIS ENEMIES. We should learn to do the same if we are really His obedient children. If we fail to forgive a person on the day they have spoken or done something bad against us, it will get harder and harder as time goes by. This is the reason if we really want the devil not to come in to our beautiful abundant life and destroy it to make us miserable, the Biblical rule is to let go those bad and hurtful things done against us in to the hands of God and receive strength of God to forgive them before the sun sets on that particular day itself (Eph 4:26-27). May God help us all consistently to forgive, forget and live the abundant life that He desires us to live on earth as it is in heaven as His dear children.
Much Blessings.....
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