April
20, 2003
BE
RECONCILED TO YOUR BROTHER
"Therefore
if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that
your brother has something against you, leave your gift there
before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to
your brother, and then come and offer your gift" (Matthew
5:23, 24, NKJV).
"The
love of God is something more than a mere negation [something
negative or passive], it is a positive and active principle,
a living spring, ever flowing to bless others. If the love
of Christ dwells in us, we shall not only cherish no hatred
toward our fellows, but we shall seek in every way to manifest
love toward them.
"Jesus
said, 'If
you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that
your brother has something against you, leave your gift there
before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to
your brother, and then come and offer your gift.'
The sacrificial offerings expressed faith that through Christ
the offerer had become a partaker of the mercy and love of
God. But for one to express faith in God's pardoning love,
while he himself indulged an unloving spirit, would be a mere
farce.
"When
one who professes to serve God wrongs or injures a brother,
he misrepresents the character of God to that brother, and
the wrong must be confessed, he must acknowledge it to be
sin, in order to be in harmony with God. Our brother may have
done us a greater wrong than we have done him, but this does
not lessen our responsibility. If when we come before God
we remember that another has [something] against us, we are
to leave our gift of prayer, of thanksgiving, of freewill
offering, and go to the brother with whom we are at variance,
and in humility confess our own sin and ask to be forgiven.
"If
we have in any manner defrauded or injured our brother, we
should make restitution. If we have unwittingly born false
witness, if we have misstated his words, if we have injured
his influence in any way, we should go to the ones with whom
we have conversed about him, and take back all our injurious
misstatements.
"If
matters of difficulty between brethren were not laid open
before others, but frankly spoken of between themselves in
the spirit of Christian love, how much evil might be prevented!
How many roots of bitterness whereby many are defiled would
be destroyed, and how closely and tenderly might the followers
of Christ be united in His love!"--Thoughts From The
Mount Of Blessing, pp., 58, 59.
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