Monthly Archive for October, 2009

It is still not too late to enter the contest.  I will continue to blog through the quiz on consecutive Friday’s until December 4th.  Each Friday I will give away two copies of Unpacking Forgiveness.  On December 4th, I will give away a Flip Camera.  (Take A New Forgiveness Quiz)

The next two winners for A New Forgiveness Quiz are:

I am posting the next two winners.  I know  people don’t necessarily appreciate having either their emails or their names broadcast on the Internet.  If those of you who win would like to comment, that would be wonderful!

H Vander

http://jodylynne.blogspot.com/

So, what about questions 3&4?

3.  Local churches need to be reminded of biblical truth about forgiveness in an ongoing way.   TRUE. (100%!!)

Everyone agrees that we need to be reminded of the biblical truth about forgiveness in an ongoing way.  At least according to our survey.

In particular, we need to be reminded of grace.  So easily, we slip into a works oriented mentality.  We slip into that regarding our relationship with God and with one another.  I find myself being works oriented.  I remember one Sunday where I struggled with feeling worthy to preach.  Then all of a sudden, it hit me that if there is a particular Sunday that I don’t feel worthy, then there are Sunday’s when I think I am worthy.  Of course, I am never worthy – except for Christ.

And, we are never worthy to be forgiven by God.  Yet, the Lamb who was slain is worthy.  And, we rest in Him.  We need to preach the Gospel to ourselves every day, as Jerry Bridges wrote.

But, don’t we also slip into a works mentality in our relationship with others.  We evaluate if we think the other person deserves to be forgiven.  Or, we keep track of the offenses and when there are enough, or when the offense is too serious, then we take a pass on forgiveness.  As I point out in my book, remember that whatever someone has done to offend you, pales in comparison to what you have done to offend God.

I think we also need to be taught about forgiveness in an ongoing way because one of Satan’s primary strategies in the church is to cause friction in relationships within the Body.  I wonder if there isn’t someone right now who is in the midst of a church disagreement?  If so, then be oh so careful to be Cross-centered in how you work through the disagreement. There is just way too much damage being caused in local churches because we are not practicing biblical forgiveness.

 4.  Christians should drop some matters rather than insisting that they be discussed with the other party.  TRUE (88%). Too many relationships are irreparably damaged because people carry on about trivial matters.  And, honestly, most matters are trivial.

Here is an excerpt from my book.  You will shake your head when you read it.  Yet, how many times do we make mountains out of the same sorts of mole hills.  In Unpacking Forgiveness, I go on to explain how we should decide when confrontation is needed and when we should just let it go.

A Sad, Ridiculous Story

(This story is quoted from a newspaper article)

“It started out simply, as complicated things often do. On a night long ago, Denis O’Brien walked into a restaurant called the Mousetrap. [He] was looking for friends, and when he found them, he turned to walk out.

A cashier stopped him. Apparently O’Brien had misplaced a red tab that the restaurant issued to its customers to keep track of their food and drinks. The Mousetrap required a $5 fee for lost tabs, O’Brien was told.

It could have ended there, but it didn’t. O’Brien could have paid the fee, but he wouldn’t. The restaurant could have let him go, but it wouldn’t. Instead, the dispute escalated over a decade into a series of suits and two counter suits in two states and two countries.

The restaurant has gone out of business, but the $5 red tab has grown to more than $165,000.

On that night, Feb 29, 1980, O’Brien, who was then a University of Virginia graduate student in pharmacology, screamed that paying anything would violate his rights because he had eaten nothing and drunk nothing. At the Mousetrap’s request, he was taken by police to the Charlottesville jail. There, a magistrate refused to issue an arrest warrant. O’Brien was released.

O’Brien could have let the matter end there, his indignation justified by the magistrate, but he demanded a printed apology from the restaurant and threatened to sue….. O’Brien’s lawsuits eventually were dismissed for various reasons, writing another possible ending to the incident. But the Mousetrap sued O’Brien after he had moved….[O’Brien failed to show up for the trial and]…without O’Brien in the courtroom, the jury awarded $60,000 in damages to the restaurant.

[The prosecutor] said O’Brien is to blame for his problems. “All he had to do all these years was come and tell the judge the story. He knew the suit was coming. Had he come to the judge, the judge would have reopened it. He didn’t tell anybody he was in town. He just decided he was going to be clever, I guess.”

O’Brien did not pay the judgment and [the prosecutor] pursued him in Massachusetts courts. O’Brien said that the matter still was not decided when he left the country for New Zealand in 1984.

For nearly seven years, O’Brien found peace from the Mousetrap suit.

But the search for O’Brien had not ended…. On a cool New Zealand evening last October, an officer of the court appeared on O’Brien’s doorstep. He carried papers saying O’Brien, who is now a 42-year-old lecturer in pharmacology at the Central Institute of Technology in Trentham, still owed the $60,000 judgment plus interest.

[As of the time of the writing of this article], the matter is under consideration in a New Zealand courtroom.[1]”

Can you believe it? A hot-headed college student set out to make a point about a five-dollar bar tab. And, because he insisted on proving that he was right, he ended up fleeing to the other side of the world with a $165,000 debt hanging over his head. Ironically, O’Brien later discovered that he had the tab in his pocket the entire time. Just reading it, I wish that I could have been there to say, “Here, I’ll pay the $5!”

Of course, O’Brien wouldn’t have accepted because he was so committed to proving that he was right.

But, even as we shake our heads, most of us need to admit that there has been a time when we insisted on pursuing a matter because “it was the principle of the thing.” Looking back on it, we would have to admit that it was foolish to pursue it. It was never that important in the first place.

Stop for a moment. Can you think of a time in your marriage or friendships that you blew something up when you should have let it go?

This brings us to an important truth; we do not need to formally resolve every conflict that takes place. Some offenses need to be dropped. While there are times that we go to another party and say, “You have offended me,” and we will talk about those occasions in the next chapter. There are other times when we just need to get over the matter. Proverbs 17:14 warns,

The beginning of strife is like letting out water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out.

~ Proverbs 17:14

In The Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrases,

The start of a quarrel is like the leak of a dam, so stop it before it bursts.[2]

Starting a quarrel is like playing with explosives at the base of Hoover Dam. If you are not careful, you will end up blowing up the dam, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put the thing together again. Starting a quarrel is like flinging a glass of water across a room. Once you have done it, you can never reverse the process.

Other verses make a similar point.

· Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is his glory to overlook an offense (Proverbs 19:11).

· The vexation of a fool is known at once, but the prudent ignores an insult (Proverbs 12:16).

· It is an honor for a man to keep aloof from strife, but every fool will be quarreling (Proverbs 20:3).

· Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).

[1] DeNeen L. Brown, "U-Va. Student’s $5 Bar Tab Now a $165,000 Hangover," Washington Post, April 29 1991.

[2] Eugene Peterson, The Message: Proverbs (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1995), 58.