If you cannot bring yourself to forgive you CANNOT be part of Christ!
The words “I’m sorry” when said honestly are the most healing in the human language. It seems sometimes like I spend an inordinate amount of time having to use those words for one reason or another. But I’m not sorry about that.
Relations among professing Christians are in a shameful state because so few can bring themselves to say it and mean it. So unresolved issues lie there like rotting corpses, bringing a spiritual stumbling block to the offended, and a hindrance between God and the unrepentant offender.
A woman had posted many comments at my former blog, and I had approved all of them. Last week, she tried to post a comment that was off topic and that contained an insult about Calvinism, something akin to waving a red flag to bulls. (Nothing will bring out the ugly among Christians like the Calvinism/Arminian debate.) I didn’t approve it. The woman then turned around and tried to post an insulting comment about my censorship and on and on. It was rude and undeserved.
So having her email, I wrote to her and sincerely told her how hurtful she had been and entreated her as a believer. Silence. She’s not sorry. It doesn’t matter, see? It’s just the Internet. God’s rules don’t apply here.
There are other kinds of “apologies.” These are the kind that are not based on repentance, a tender heart or sorrow over injuring someone. These are the kind of apologies that should be left unspoken. They are based on pragmatism. The offender has lost something he/she wants back so a forced “Well, I’m sorry IF I hurt you”, is what they offer. Forget it. Those ‘apologies’ only cause more hurt. True repentance is when you realize you did hurt someone, and you can’t stand the thought of that, so you try to make it right.
Some apologies are not complete without a next step. When you have defrauded someone, slandered someone, betrayed someone, true sadness over that requires restitution. If you slandered someone, you UN-slander them by doing what you can to undo the damage. Someone who wants restored relationships (there are very few who do these days) has to be ready to do what is necessary to right the wrong.
I can count on one hand the times I have had anyone apologize in my ministry work over the years. Relationships matter to me, and when Christians you know personally blow you off like lint, or leave you wounded and devastated, it makes you wonder how many real believers there are. The instructions in Scripture are clear. “Be ye kind, one to another. Tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you.” There are so many other verses like that that deal directly with relations between Christians.
Exposing false teachers is not more important than your personal relationships. No ministry of preaching, evangelism, broadcasting or feeding orphans is more important than how we treat our brothers and sisters. Where do we get the idea that God gives us a free pass to mistreat others as long as we expose Rob Bell, or Rick Warren or Brian McLaren for unbiblical teachings? Isn’t disobedience to the Word in human relationships just as egregious as false doctrine?
My friend Lynn was an older woman, a Bible teacher who was a source of excellent Christian exhortation to me years ago. She pulled me aside one day after I had stood her up for lunch a couple of times, my mind full of other “more important” things connected to radio.
“The ministry of Jesus was about relationships, first and foremost. He cared about the individual. When you stand me up, it tells me that I’m not important to you, and it’s hurtful,” she said.
I was terribly sorry, and I’ve never forgotten her words. I didn’t stand her up again. She’s in heaven now, and I will always remember her and what she took time to say to me.
This post is a good reminder to me as well as I write. God forgives us when we come in true contrition and repentance to him. If we’ve hurt someone, we need to go in contrition and repentance to them, and we also need to forgive others who have wronged us. But the offenders make that so much easier when they say they are truly sorry.
True Discernment 
Perfect message, I have forgiven a friend of mine for committing adultery with my husband, but this same friend cannot forgive me for some harsh and hurtful words I said to her regarding a different matter many years later……did she forget the pain I endured because of her adultery with my husband? Did she also forget that I forgave her? Therefore how can she not forgive me for the harsh and hurtful words I said to her? Most would agree with me that it would be preferable to hear hurtful words than have your best friend sleep with your spouse.
Do I hear an argument?
ps…I forgot to mention the many times I called her to make this right, but she refuses to speak to me, totally forgetting the heinous sin she committed against me prior to my insult.
Some of her refusal to speak to me no doubt has to do with the fact that I exposed the false teachers and false prophets she follows like Rick Joyner, Paul Cain who was discovered to be a practicing homosexual and a drunkard, and cindy Jacobs who spews non stop one false prophecy after another.
I have another friend that I offended because I told her that I was tired of her bullying ways, this woman told me after I wrote an apology about how I said it and what I said told me that she had heard a teaching recently that said that one can forgive but that does not neccesarily mean reconciliation.
My opinion on that teaching is this….if Jesus “forgave” us and then refused to be reconciled or speak to us or refused to have a relationship with us where would that leave all of Christendom????
I don’t call that forgiveness at all.