Desiring God

About 6 weeks ago I found a blog titled "Desiring God" the contributors are pastors at Bethlehem Baptist in Minneapolis. Some of their posts are informational about work their church or projects they are connected with are working on and others are truly thought provoking as they reflect on the Bible. Yes, sometimes I disagree with their theology but I overall the blog is well worth my time and is helping me grow in my faith.
The angle they approach some topics with makes me stop, look and think about the Bible in ways I have never done before. My thinking and beliefs are challenged and for this I am thankful as it causes me to learn and grow. Yesterday, Tyler Kenney posted on Forgiveness and Forgiving. It was actually a post that was an extension of a previous post. I was entrigued by this excert:
"If we tell others "I forgive your sin" even though they refuse to acknowledge their sin, we remove the very incentive the gospel places upon them to confess their sins and to seek forgiveness. If we take preemptive action by granting forgiveness of sin to those who do not repent, on what basis could the church ever follow the procedures of Matthew 18:15-17?"

This excert truly spoke to me as I have had several conversations with people where I talk about feeling wronged by another person and the response I receive is "you need to forgive them". While I do not deny the need to forgive them I tend to respond with "why should I forgive them if they've never asked for forgiveness? Aren't I telling them what they did was ok if they never had to say they're sorry?" For this reason the post made me feel a little better about my reaction to people when they tell me I need to simply forgive the other person. But it also causes me to reflect on the fact that the real missing element may be my lack of going to the person, calling them on their sin and seeing if they will repent so that I can offer forgiveness. That is the scary thought because it forces me to action when I feel wronged. It also puts me in a vulnerable position of making a situation worse.

So ultimately what do I take away. 1) that we should openly confess our wrong doings to people, say we're sorry and ask people for forgiveness 2) that we should offer forgiveness to people when they ask for it 3) we should follow the words of Matthew 18:15-17 by confronting people when they have wronged us in the hope that they will see what their actions have done to us and through that they can ask for forgiveness, we can give forgiveness and our relationship will be repaired and improved and our relationship with God will probably be even better too!