Bitterness And The Church

My thoughts and prescription for us all follows.

We've all been tempted and many succumbed to bitterness, unforgiveness toward this or that parent, sibling, boss or co-worker, classmate so why is such surprising towards church people? I say this regardless of their attitudes, doctrines, literal abuse of any sort. And for that matter, why not?

A dead-on honest look in my own mirror reveals a sinful, imperfect, often ignorant, wrong-minded and sometimes arrogant, foolish human who has often hurt others and myself as well. You and I, dear reader, whoever you are and whether or not you follow Jesus or not, are truly alike one another on this point. If you refuse to face the truth and harsh reality of it you'll always have a reason to hold bitterness toward those who have brought hurt, shame and misery into your life.

Have you ever struggled to forgive yourself? That's likely due to all I've just stated here -sin isn't exclusive to those whom you blame for your pain. That goes for us all, for we've all sinned and been sinned against.

In trying to protect ourselves, if imbalanced without forgiving we may well become pros at fault-finding. Neither you nor I have ever met anyone besides Jesus Himself who has zero faults -true?

For years I've pointed out what to me is one of the most intimidating though -essential- teachings of Jesus which boils down to "Forgive and you shall be forgiven. Hold the grudge/bitterness/unforgiveness and you'll pay for it." I've seen the fallout from this many times over many years and on many continents in my travels.

Indeed someone stated in truth that it is "the poison we drink to kill our enemies".

Jesus: "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins." -Matthew 6.14, 15

Whew!

Oh He said more and His call to "love your enemies" includes forgiving them. He offers no "wriggle-room", no option.

Believe me, it may take a great deal of hard work, a long, long time, counseling, therapy, and of -course- you need people to help you via listening, allowing you to vent, at least to a point. All of this is legit if you have in fact been wronged by someone.

I'm not saying we must trust a person or group nor that God calls us to be best friends or even to interact with the person/s again in this life, for some sin is so great, deep and in some cases has been the norm, a repeated thing that your best bet is to work through your responsibility to forgive, not entirely forget or pretend nothing ever happened.

One more point on this very sore subject for many readers:

It is not victim blaming/shaming to state the truth that we often enter ANY relationship with expectations far beyond reality figuring this person or group will be X, Y or Z for me and in time those desires go south, our needs felt or for real are shot down and the "bubble" pops, the relationship goes off the rails, however you wish to put it. This happens to everyone and is not at all uncommon in the wide world much less church.

In my own life I'd experienced it so much via so many and different individuals and groups that by the time I began to follow Jesus and interact with church folks, their mess didn't really faze me, no surprise for Anything happening or seeing it happen in our or other churches world-wide!

Whether emotional, verbal, "silent treatment", physical, sexual or you-name-it wrongs, to expect mature, full-on love, grace, holiness in all people is wishing for what only heaven is literally going to be like where there is no more pain, crying, tears, temptation, sin or anything other than the Triune God's presence and purified saints with none of the negatives. That is THEN, this is NOW my friends...

Therefore, one of the most obvious major issues of Jesus coming to live, then die on the cross and walk resurrected from the grave is indeed FORGIVENESS- ALLELUIA! We, in this area, must each and all become more like Him in moving down that road or it will sooner or later find us in the ditch.

Living Water means flowing, not stagnant, decaying, dead. The Spirit of God calls us all to forgive.

In conclusion, here is a link to what I believe is a solid study with Scriptures that speaks to the matter well: https://jesus.net/articles/jesus-about-forgiveness

As always, thanks for stopping by. -Glenn