Blogspot Message #6

The Necessity of Reconciliation

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosever shall say to his brother, Raca [thou worthless], shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.” Matthew 5:21-24

There are negative consequences for not reconciling with those whom we have offended or who have offended us. Much of the church today needs to take a time out from its busyness and its supposed pursuit of God’s business. I use the word “supposed” deliberately. Much of what is being done supposedly in the name of the Lord and to build His kingdom was not commissioned by him. The scripture quoted above from Matthew advises us that unresolved conflict and offense with other people renders your sacrifice or gift to the Lord ineffective and unacceptable. If our relationships with others are out of order, it may be that our alleged service to God is also out of order.

There is a mistaken notion prevalent in the church today that we must be busy doing the Father’s work. While it is true that we must serve Him, this service must be in Spirit and in truth (i.e., prompted or led by the Holy Spirit and it must be based on true scriptural principles). However, we as the church of the Lord Jesus Christ still have too much of Martha in us (see Luke 10:38-42—Martha “encumbered about much serving,” whereas she needed instead to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn from Him, like Mary was doing).

We have gotten away from the principle of the saints of God being trained and equipped for doing the work of the Lord. So much of what passes for ministry is actually self-promotion, entertainment (not worshipping in Spirit and in truth—see John 4:23) and busy work. The attitude of “just do something” is far too prevalent. It has been all but forgotten that before Moses could effectively lead Israel out of Egypt (i.e., bondage), he first had to spend 40 years on the back side of the desert being prepared. Jesus spent approximately 30 of His 33 years in preparation before entering into a public ministry of approximately 3 years. Think about it: Jesus Himself spent ten times as much time in preparation for ministry as He did in ministering. When Paul was born again on the road to Damascus, he thereafter went to Arabia for a period of time to learn directly from the Lord before launching out into ministry (please see Galatians 1:15-17).

A time of preparation is necessary before we can be truly useful and effective in service of the Lord. Consider that the military does not take raw recruits and send them immediately into battle. The haircut, outfitting with military clothing, basic training complete with its indoctrination in military attitudes, procedures and mindsets is pumped into the new recruit, training on basic small arms like rifles and pistols, physical conditioning, and much more, is necessary to turn a new recruit into a warrior. The kingdom of God is no different.

CONSIDER THAT PART OF YOUR PREPARATION TO SERVE THE LORD IS IN RECONCILIATION WITH OTHERS WHOM YOU HAVE OFFENDED OR WHO HAVE OFFENDED YOU:

“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation.” 2 Corinthians 5:18

The primary mission of Jesus Christ was and is to reconcile us to the Father. Without his work of atonement for our sins, we would never have been reconciled to the Father and would have been lost for eternity. If you are a born-again Christian, you are called to the ministry of reconciliation. This involves you doing the following:

1) Being reconciled first to The Father, through His son Jesus Christ. This involves not only receiving the new birth, but is an ongoing process of continuously coming before Him in humility and repentance, to insure that you are cleaned spiritually and in right standing with Him. Repentance and salvation are not a one time thing. Self-examination to find sin to be repented of is a continuous process on our part and we should view it in that light;

2) Once we have reconciled with God the Father, we are then to set out to reconcile with others whom we have offended or who have offended us. As we will see in a few moments, lack of reconciliation is a dangerous thing, with potentially fatal and eternal consequences;

3) When we have our own house in order, the Lord can then use us to minister reconciliation of persons to each other and persons to the Lord.

Take a look at I Timothy 1:1-5. Focus on the requirements for being a proper “bishop” (that is, overseer, watcher or what we commonly call a “pastor”). Those in the ministry must first have their own family (“house”) in order, and this includes one’s own children “in subjection with all gravity (seriousness, sobriety).” I say this with all humility, If you are in the ministry and your own house is not in order, if your children are not in subjection to the Lord and serving him, GET OUT OF THE MINISTRY UNTIL THIS AREA OF YOUR LIFE HAS BEEN CORRECTED AND HEALED! You may think that what I am saying is pompous, impractical and unfounded, but consider the consequences of not having your own house in order first:

1) In I Samuel 2:12, we see are told “Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial [ the devil, worthless]; they knew not the Lord.” The scripture goes on to inform that these two evil sons of Eli, who was the priest at the tabernacle (a special tent used as the temple at that time), stole the meat offerings from the boiling pot at the tabernacle and thereby caused the people to abhor the offering to the Lord. PASTORS, IF YOUR CHILDREN ARE UNRULY, REBELLIOUS OR OTHERWISE NOT IN SUBJECTION TO THE WILL OF GOD, THEY ARE AN OFFENSE TO THE CONGREGATION AND THE WORLD AND THEY ARE PUSHING PEOPLE AWAY FROM THE LORD, NOT DRAWING THE PEOPLE TO THE LORD! Do not assume that your grown children who are not serving the Lord are not your ministry responsibility. You could take the attitude that “well, they’re grown up now and there’s nothing I can do about it.” WRONG! You need to get on your face, repent of not raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and seek Him for His strategy for reconciling your adult children to the Lord. In the meantime, stop pastoring and make it secure in your family first, whether your children are 3, 33 or 53. To do otherwise is nothing but selfishness and irresponsibility.

We see later in the chapter that Eli’s sons were seducing and fornicating with women at the front door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Eli made a feeble attempt at correcting Phineas and Hophni, not surprisingly, to no avail. We see in Chapter 4 that eventually both sons died in battle in one day, and when Eli got the news, he fell backward and broke his neck and died. Verse 18 says that Eli was “an old man, and heavy.” His corpulent body is symbolic of being very carnal and fleshly. He was fat with sin and carnality, so, he was not especially concerned with rescuing his sons from sin.

Are you too preoccupied with yourself and your concerns to see that your children, whether they are 3, 33 or 53 need your prayer, admonition and intercession? Come out of yourself, before it is too late. Isn’t your family’s temporal and eternal welfare more important to you than anything other than the will of God? However, know that the will of God is for you to minister to your family first. If your family’s spiritual condition is lacking, ministry to the rest of the world can wait.

2) You will need to review and consider the situation with David and his son Absalom. In 2 Samuel 13, Amnon plays sick, gets his sister Tamar to bring him a meal, and he rapes her. Absalom learns of his sister’s rape and gets “pay back” on Amnon, eventually having some folks execute a contract (a hit, an execution) on Amnon. This was the result of David’s inattention to the matter. Had David adequately addressed the issue of the rape of Tamar, he would have defused the explosive situation with Absalom. Eventually, Absalom went into full-scale rebellion, which had to be crushed militarily. The end result of this situation was Absalom’s death in 2 Samuel 18:14 and David’s tragic, heart-rending statement:

“ And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son! 2 Samuel 18:33

Please, I beg you; do not let this happen in your family. If things are not right between you and any of your children, start taking substantial steps today to correct that condition. Fall on your face, repent to the Lord for how you have wronged your children and not been what they needed, then seek the Lord for his wisdom on how to make things right. If things need healing between you and your spouse, your parents, your siblings, your friends, other Christians or anyone, take similar steps. Reconciliation is necessary so that curses will not come:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Malachi 4:5-6.

I am praying for each who reads this. It is well (in the Lord)

Pastor Ben