This priceless lesson of Jesus - complete in Matthew 18 -
has its sections and its culmination.
In the end, the subject will be exposed: "forgiveness."
But to get there Jesus builds a slow structure.
Forgiveness - being so critical an issue -
calls for a patient pursuit.

In His gracious fashion, Jesus moves toward His intent with
the patience of a Shepherd, unhurrying,
waiting to see that these sheep drink the lessons
and follow along behind Him.

Forgiveness is a deep well that
opens a flowing fountain of peace with God.
Each person must dig out with patience,
the dirty malice of his secret heart
until he reaches clean water.

This rich chapter is a blueprint of the digging,
each phase leading into the next and
building upon each level.

From the search and recovery of the lost lamb,
- seeming to change the subject -
Jesus moves to the next matter,

If another believer sins against you,
go privately and point out the fault.
If the other person listens and confesses it,
you have won that person back.

Essential in the process of forgiveness is the
phase of confrontation.
And it takes the recovered child for this.
The primal self alone can name the wrong,
object to the injury,
and stand up to the offender by the
clean energy of honest anguish.

Confrontation is a kindness.
It is loving the offender enough to
help them see their wrong.
It is loving your self enough to object.

If your brother sins against you,
go and show him his fault,
just between the two of you.
Matthew 18:15 NIV 

In the pain of a deep wrong, you must tell someone.
You will tell it.
Jesus demands a spiritual integrity, that
you tell - first - the one who did the wrong.
And He added that it should be confronted
privately first, with no one else present.

The brave "child" wants to do this.
The cowardly "adult" would rather gossip.

Confrontation is a nightmare, a dread and an agony
sometimes worse than the offense.

To open yourself up is to welcome
a possible attack, the hazard of rejection and abuse.
It is risking your own reputation and . . .
the relationship involved.

Confrontation takes the courage of the "child"
and is one vital step in the
long journey that is forgiveness.

If he listens to you, you have won your brother over.

How easy it is to forgive one who will hear your pain
and see his wrong. All is resolved if that one listens. 

And you have not smeared his reputation, slandered
his name and heaped upon yourself
a fresh load of guilt by disloyalty,
not only to the person who wronged you,
but a disloyalty to God who wants us, His children to
help each other see the blind defects and
crude edges of our character.

And God, who here through the voice of His Son,
expresses His Father-way of peace in the Family.

There is not merely a "work" of forgiveness, there is
a "way" presented,
God's way of following the process
to the blessed end of reconciliation.

One step, the first step, is confrontation . . . if  the
offender will permit it.

That God-way of meeting with the offender
is not optional, but
a responsibility before Him and to Him,
an issue of obedience, a mandate . . .
not a suggestion.

If he listens to you,

A great wonder . . .
Love is the outcome.
A deeper bond is the blessing,
the union of a secret history,
kept reverent and clean.
Pleasing to the Father of us both -
an increase of His kingdom over us
by the preserving of His standard. 

And who knows?
You could meet your own confrontation.
You might discover your own
unknowing wrong
and get to make it right.

 Previous/Next in Series

Copyright © 2001 Martha Blaney Kilpatrick