I wrote this just before the other thread was closed. I want to post it to you for possible further discussion. As you can see by my first paragraph, I had some concern about disucssing the religous part on that particular thread.

***My comments before the thread was closed.***

I wasn't going to get involved in this thread. And personally I feel that if we wish to discuss it further we should create a new thread.

THEOPHILIS, and Everyone,

Am I the only one who sees the religous aspect of this thread(which is the only reason I am replying, I need these types of discussion)as a bit confusing?

First, it is simple to copy from the Bible many verses one could use to benefit his/her point of view. There is a great amount written on repentance. I would not compare repentance nor forgiveness to the analogy of the chicken or the egg. This is much more serious for our future eternity.

Rev 2:21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.
Rev 2:22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit ******* with
her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.

(removed a word so as not to shadow the intent of the discussion)

Seems pretty clear to me that there will be NO forgiveness from God without repentance. But of course this is taken out of context to the surrounding verses and chapters. But the particular verse still speaks for itself.

Act 26:18 To open their eyes, [and] to turn [them] from darkness to light, and
[from] the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
Eph 1:7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins, according to the riches of his grace;

Col 1:14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, [even] the
forgiveness of sins:

Jer 36:3 It may be that the house of Judah will hear all the evil which I purpose
to do unto them; that they may return every man from his evil way; THAT I MAY
forgive their iniquity and their sin.

Seems that the main theme is that God wants repentance beforeHe Can/Will forgive. But I admit I may be biased a bit, causing me to think this means what I want to believe.

I guess what I really wanted to point out is that we, as humans, are not gods. By the Grace of God are we able to forgive. Now, we may or may not be able to forgive without help from Above. But I do not believe(and I challenge anyone to show me otherwise based on scripture)that we are required to forgive without repentance, or rather, simply being asked to. If the offender asks then I believe we are required to forgive. Otherwise this would mean God is holding us to a higher standard than He Himself follows(assuming you believe God does not forgive us without us FIRST asking. He WANTS to forgive us. But I ask, WILL HE DO THAT WITHOUT OUR ASKING? I don't think so.

Yes, you are a special person if you are capable of forgiving so totally without being asked, or apologized to, for whatever sin is committed against you.

If the moderators do not want to allow for this discussion, I will be happy to communicate through email. As I said I need, even hunger for, these types of discussions at times.

To your Wife, I ask that you reconsider leaving this site. Most BSes simply have a passion to get WSes to understand what has been done to us. To our very souls. Please do not take it so personally.

jd

<small>[ November 24, 2002, 02:02 AM: Message edited by: jdmac1 ]</small>

That religious digression interested me also, will offer my 2 cents, though I am no theologian, but I am Christian. Personally I found theos argument more compelling than melody's.

I do not think forgiveness and repentance are linked, in fact, I don't think they have anything to do with each other at all. If God required repentance from imperfect humans (who can never perfectly repent), before forgiveing us... then we are all doomed, and the whole exercise (Christianity) is moot.

Further I find it nonsensical to project God's behaviour (whatever that is) onto our behaviour. We are not God, can never even come remotely close to behaving like God, so why judge ourselves (or others) by that standard. Ok so someone says, yeah that is true, but one can try, and we can assess that....I say fine then, do I get to set the standard....or do you?

Everyones relationship with God is unique, none of us can comment in the slightest whether someone is acting "Godly" enough (or repentant enough, or will be forgiven etc.), it is entirely the wrong focus, and God commands us to not do exactly that (someone else will have to supply the verses).

So having disposed of the God/human and forgiveness argument, what about human on human? I agree with theo's arguments (and supporting Scripture), and I find the Bible very unambiguous in toto on this subject also. Forgiveness is something we do for OURSELVES not for someone else, I think it is tied up in the concpets of Grace as well. Attaching any requirements to forgiveness turns it into a selfish demand, who are we to assess that someone else needs to repent of something? That is an awesome usurpation of God's power. Bad enough to even think it, much less communicate such a demand (shudder). I know I don't want such a responsibility for dictateing another human beings choices, and then judgeing the executuion of those choices to boot.

Repentance/remorse on the other hand, is something we do ourselves but for SOMEONE ELSE. We already have moved on from whatever circumstance there was, no need to communicate with anyone (other than God perhaps), but if we communicate this repentance/remorse to the aggrieved party, that has an impact on future interactions with them. However, like forgiveness, one does so without expectation, it must be freely offered, or it is a manipulation, and therefore not actually repentance. So if you apologize to someone, do you expect acknowledgement (acceptance, forgiveness, apology in return)? If so, both the repentance and the forgiveness (if given) are phony, it is a quid pro quo...a bargain...and I do not think God is teaching us that about morality. Moral behaviour is unilateral, and has absolutely nothing to do wiht anyone elses behaviour...IMO.

However, we do have the right to protect ourselves, and dictate our own behaviour. To that end the voicing of repentance type feelings from someone we percieve has "hurt" us will influnence the nature of our future interactions with them. This however, has nothing to do with forgiving them. To forgive is to give up hate, vengeance, vindictiveness, spite, in all it's ugly forms, and continue to be that brothers keeper if called on.... IMO bs have a tremendous opportunity for spiritual growth, and it is not in the arena of saving a marriage, that is self-serving, that has a pragmatic benefit (getting needs met presumeably)...it is in learning not to hate (in other words, to forgive without benefit). For those who believe we live in a state of constant spiritual warfare (and I do), what a good tool for satan to seperate one further from God, then to persuade one to be unforgiveing. The point people seem to forget about morality and ethics, is it is easy to be "righteous" when you are not tested too hard....the proof of the pudding is your behaviour when you have been torn to shreds. I sympathize and understand why left behind loved ones express hate and unforgiveness at the execution of the unrepentant murderer of a family member et al....but I also cry, cause they have lost far more than a loved one, satan has them in his grip.

Re the common rebutal of walking in ones shoes (the my pain is greater than your pain game). I think probably just about all of us (due to the nature of human beings) has been in situations of forgiveness/repentance often, to one degree or another, both as the "guilty" party, and the "victim"..is kind of a universal experience. I blamed my H for many years for some stuff he was definitely guilty of, and which hurt me a great deal.....I finally gave it up to God, I realized it was not up to me to require this, or "educate" him any further....it was an immense relief. I forgave him, and it really makes no difference if he ever shows any kind of remorse or repentance. However, it is my choice whether to continue in the marriage (for a whole bunch of other reasons), and likewise, my choice to do so has nothing to do with whether he expresses remorse or not.

Back to lurkdom (my time is very limited), interesting discussion.

<small>[ November 24, 2002, 05:05 PM: Message edited by: LurkingAbout ]</small>

LurkingAbout,

The bottom line is that what counts is what God thinks, not me, not Theo, and not you. And how does He communicate with us? Through the Bible. So while you might not like the aspect of repentence being connected to forgiveness, it is a biblical principle that is supported throughout the Bible. We don't get to make it up as we go along - otherwise we would be God. Your argument is with the Bible, not me, and not JDMAC.

So I am not sure where you get your ideas, but if you could show the passages that have led you to your conclusions, it would be helpful.

Just briefly, I am usually v. careful to not hijack, and want to apologize to Bandit for any way in which I contributed to hijacking his thread. Re-reading through it, it appears that it got out of control when Psycho_B picked apart every sentence of my topic-related second post to express her points on the psyche of the WS in a very long post, and then my H (he's a newbie, pls. remember) got onto the subject of forgiveness which opened up a more religious arguement. Thank you, jdmac1, for starting the new thread and I am glad, atleast, that you and LA you're finding some worth in the discussion. By the way, I told my H about it and he's cleaning up after our dog's "accident" <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> in the living room right now, but I'm sure will check in later today.

Yeah, I do tend to be kinda sensitive and the site does depress me often, but, again, don't feel it's the place for me to be right now for the reasons I stated. It's more important to spend my time in person in recovery right now w/H than on-line where there's a lot of understandable pain.

Peace, PP

JDMAC, L-A, Melody

Again, thank you all for your responses. JD-Thank you for posting on a different thread. Thankfully the other was closed...at least in my opinion.

The matter of forgiveness is profound as it is intriguing. I fail miserably as a theologian, but gain only from what I've experienced in a very limited way. As Paul stated about this "mystery" and how we see through a glass darkly, so it is with me.

The "chicken or the egg" comment was in no way meant to make light of this serious matter. It did peak your interest and maybe the interest of others. Some may wonder how I interpret and apply the act of forgiving and the heart or attitude of forgiveness.

IMO, forgiving is the act, forgiveness is an attitude. And as for the Scriptures and how God CAN forgive us baffles me.

The "70X7" Issue

In my studies and from other leaders of of the faith (modern-Swindoll, Ryrie, Stanley, Hayford) this offense of "seven times" is the SAME offense from ONE person is to be forgiven 70X7. This implies to me that the offender has a bit of a problem repenting from that one offense. In the matter of Biblical numerology, 7 is a very significant number and I doubt Christ meant for Peter to actually count up 490 instances of one offense from that one person before the hammer falls! Being a traditional Jew, I'm sure Peter thot he was being extremely generous with 7 instances of forgiving, but 490 times?

Confession, Repentance, Forgiveness

Should a person come to you in confession, repent from the offense that they may be fogiven? In human terms and in a perfect world, perhaps that is what one expects to do. A+B=C. Makes sense. Shall I go deeper? The story of Jacob and Esau is interesting. Genesis 27-33. Jacob robs Esau of his brithright with some help. Years go by and now he must confront his betrayed brother. In this exchange, there was no specific pleading from Jacob to Esau. Esau ran to meet Jacob to embrace him and to kiss him and they wept. And while not specified, forgiveness was implied between Esau and Jacob.

Hosea's story is one that strikes me as it relates to this website. Hosea was COMMANDED to marry a prostitute--an unrepentant prostitute. There was no hope as I read for repentance on her part. "This is allegory--a fable," some would say. He buys her out--redeems her and "Plan A" her. There was no report of her repentance but Hosea still redeems her. "But God told him to do this--he HAD to obey," others would say. So how shall we view His commands?

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.' But I say love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven." Matt. 5:43-45a

"Wait a minute, THEO, this applies to something other than what we are talking about." "Aren't you manipulating the Word to fit your concepts?" Cafeteria/buffet style Christianity? Well, I AM in the restaurant and plan to sit here and eat too. What's in the dessert rack?

Some may say this applies to the persecution of the faith or church. Not only that, but it applies to US as believers. "Well, it doesn't say to forgive our persecutors--it only says to pray for them." And pray for what? Would I be SO wrong to say that in that prayer, you would include forgiveness for them? They haven't confessed NOR repented and yet Christ said "pray for them." You are right--He didn't say HOW or WHAT to pray for them. What would or should the content of your prayers be--that of grace or that of vengeance?

Peter is someone that seems to be picked on a lot. So let's pick on him again. Why let up? Jesus said to Peter at the Last Supper, "You will deny me 3 times." "NO WAY!!" proclaimed Peter. And it happens. Peter was remorseful I'm sure. In reading through the Gospels, there was no exchange between Peter and Jesus concerning the matter of denial X3 after the ressurection. It isn't recorded that Jesus forgave Peter for that. But should we say that Jesus never forgave Peter for his sin just because it isn't written?

In BANDIT's thread, I was concerned about the ATTITUDE OF UNFORGIVENESS. And it is the ATTITUDE of forgiveness that I beleive God wants us to embrace. We go back and forth in our relationship with God, stumbling over and over again on one sin or another. Yet, He is ever gracious to forgive us. "Yes, but you must first confess and repent BEFORE HE FORGIVES YOU," is your point. My point is HE HAS AN ENDLESS SUPPLY STORED UP FOR YOU--WHETHER OR NOT YOU ASK FOR IT.
It is the ATTITUDE OF FORGIVENESS that I believe is important to embrace for ANY healing to begin especially in marriage as we are all here posting and sharing. It is in the ATTITUDE OF FORGIVENESS that one receives blessings from above. Go on and harbor a grudge and the result is loss of blessing even to the point of physical illness.

"A man's discretion makes him slow to anger, and it is to his glory to overlook a transgression." Proverbs 19:11

What levels the playing field is this--we are ALL sinners in need of forgivess--Salvation. For us to NOT forgive others, requiring (in the case of the OP/M or W)to repent and confess to you, seems self-righteous--selfish. Then you are forgiving for yourself and not for obedience to God.

Wow--long post. Look forward to hearing from you all.

Lurking and Theo,

I like what you are saying. I understand the scripture you quoted. With everything I have endured the past 18 months I admit to having forgotten that I should pray for my enemies. Having said that,

I ask a simple question of you. Does God forgive us our sins without our asking, or repenting?
This question in no way implies one way or another whether or not God has enough forgiveness for our many sins. But rather, are we forgiven without asking God to forgive?

Perhaps I have no clue what it means to repent. Is it not a turning away from whatever sin we are commiting and asking for forgiveness for that sin?

If I am anywhere close to the mark on what it means to repent, how can I be held to a higher standard than the One whose Word I am taking this from?

You can quickly go to http://www.blueletterbible.org/tmp_dir/words/1038198071-3064.html
do a search on repent and repentance to view the many verses on this.

jd

I ask a simple question of you. Does God forgive us our sins without our asking, or repenting?

LA...I don't know for sure, but I think so. It is God's choice to forgive, we do not need to ask for it, or earn it, it is a gift, is about Grace. However, there is something related that is required, and has consequences. As I understand Christianity, the central issue is making a leap of faith, believeing in the existence of God, that Jesus was the son of God, lived, and died for our sins, so that whoever believes this will have everlasting life. Our existence is a test, a filter of sorts, we are sifted into those who can make this leap of faith, and those who cannot (or will not). The purpose of the Bible is to communicate this to us, and to provide guidelines on how to live our life (presumeably to resist satans temptation, and enable us to make the leap of faith). However God specifically warns us the way to heaven is not by good works, apparently it is something else, intent I think, attitude etc. We are forgiven, we need not ask, but we do need to profess belief, maybe in a sense we are accepting the gift of forgiveness (since we cannot enter heaven as sinners)....just as our "enemies" can accept our gift of forgiveness or not.

...Perhaps I have no clue what it means to repent. Is it not a turning away from whatever sin we are commiting and asking for forgiveness for that sin?...

LA...I think it is about turning away from sin, and perhaps some element of remorse as well, I do not think one can actually ask for forgivenss, cause it is freely given. I struggle a bit with how this works too, I suspect it is difficult to actually profess belief if one embraces sin (not to be confused with all of us being sinners, tempted, and failing daily).

Re verses and interpretation and such. I think we do need to discuss and try to understand the Bible, and God's word, but ultimately our relationship with God is about us and Him...it is not a group effort, or subject to any other humans judgement. Further that we are all imperfect humans, no one has a perfect understanding of Scripture and God's will, therefore every interpretation is wrong...and that I suspect is why God specifically admonishes us to not be legalistic about our beliefs, or follow any man...and that even temptation (satan) can come in the guise of righteousness.

Lurking,

I would be most grateful if you would point me to just one scripture which says God forgives our sins without our asking.

One could probably say that the Bible tells us that if we believe in Christ, that He died for our sins, that He rose again, and that He is The Only Son of God, then we are forgiven our daily sins without asking. But are we forgiven our sins?

I don't know. I am not trying to be stubborn or teach anything. I am trying to learn that I might better understand and follow.

jd

JD-

Hope you got my email and thank you for inviting me to contact you. You did ask a profound question and being pressed for time, let me put it this way.

Let's say you are on a major interstate highway. You have been driving safely, with the flow of traffic with absolutely NO problems. Then comes a person who cruises by you and just flips you the bird. No reason--just sneers at you and gives you the one finger salute. Now, in light of what we know of Scripture, (MATT 5:43, LUKE 23:34) and that we are to be Christ-like, what would be the right thing to do? The easiest thing is to give back to that person a level of disgust and maybe even act on the temptation to follow him on the road and dish back the sign-language. That person has no way to indicate to you that he has repented yet, I believe God commands us to be forgiving--to have the attitude of forgiveness.

Does God forgive EVEN IF WE DON'T CONFESS OR REPENT FROM OUR SIN? I believe He desperately wants to forgive us--moreover, I believe He WANTS us to be obedient to go on our knees and confess our sin, seek His cleansing and strength to overcome that which offends. But there are so many times and instanced that we don't and we miss out on HIS BLESSINGS. We literally stop-up the heavens and His bounty to fall on us. He knows our frame, that we are but dust. We know not what we do at times.

Supporting verses? I am not the best in hermaneutics or homoletics, but I can only see the heart of God in Christ when He says in MATT. 23:37 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, HOW OFTEN I HAVE LONGED TO GATHER YOUR CHILDREN TOGETHER as a hen bathers her chickes under her wings byt you were not willing." I believe God longs for the unrepentant to come under His wings so much so that there is much sorrow. Jesus accepted me just as I am. He forgave me just as I am. Have I any unconfessed sin? Yes--do I strive to keep the books clear? Yes. Do I fail to at times? YES.

In relationships that are in recovery, I believe we stop up the blessings of His working if we fail or refuse to forgive the OP,or even place conditions on the other so that we CAN forgive as is the position of a few I've met in this forum. I sense that if we pause, and pray for the courage and compassion to forgive the OP without any conditions, another door of opportunity for healing opens taking us another step toward growth or spiritual maturity.

God is love, right? If we replace the word love in I Cor 13:4-8a with GOD, would we be speaking heresy? Try it...now you tell me, where are the conditions for you to forgive?

Jd...I stated I am not a theologian, nor do I think one has to be a skilled Biblical debater to understand Christianity. But I did do some searching for specific verses that may apply, will comment on those, and a more extensive reply later (including some points melody made).

Jhn 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

LA...Pretty clear, says nothing about needing to repent of sins, or ask forgiveness, simply says if you believe, you are saved. Now we cannot enter Heaven without being cleansed (forgiven) of our sins, so one can only conclude God's forgiveness is unconditional...except for a profession of faith. One can argue over verses and contexts in the Bible, to support various doctrines and suh...but John 3.16 is the linchpin of Christian belief, it is unambiguous, and specific...believe and live, or don't believe and perish.....the rest is just details.

1Jo 1:9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

LA...This does not say repent of sins, simply says acknowledge (confess) that we are sinners, and or a specific sin I suppose. But He forgives us all our unrighteousness, and it seems unlikely we make "perfect" confessions, and so probably overlooked a sin or two, but are forgiven all. I would have to say this suggests the forgiveness is not conditional on a specific repentance....nor does it say we have to ask for forgiveness, the crucial point simply seems to be we know we are sinners, and acknowledge that.

But even aside from the God/forgiveness issue, the point was human on human and linking our forgiving attitude to others behaviours....that is so clearly misguided as to befuddle me one could even hold such a view. How can we place our behaviour in someone elses hands? You either have a forgiving spirit (and the voluminous Biblical admonishments to do so) or you do not...to say you will have it when it suits you, by how you "judge" the nature of anothers intent (re repentance/remorse) is tantamount to saying you know God's will for someone else. How does on KNOW someone else is repentant? Is there a test? Does one have to sumbit proof? How?

<small>[ November 26, 2002, 12:20 PM: Message edited by: LurkingAbout ]</small>

Theophilis -

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">God is love, right? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yes He is. He is also a God of Justice, Wrath, etc. There are many attributes of God. The caution is that one cannot hold one attribute of God up to the exclusion of the other attributes.

This is a most intriguing thread. I'd love to "jump in" with some thoughts, but I really don't know that I have the time to do so.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Does God forgive EVEN IF WE DON'T CONFESS OR REPENT FROM OUR SIN? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The short, very short, answer is NO. If this were not so, there would have been no need for Christ. To believe otherwise, IMHO, diminishes and ridicules the unbelieveable and unspeakable sacrifice that God made to provide a means of redemption for us. "For God so loved the world...", God loves us as His children, created in His image, but the Holiness of God prevents us from being with Him because of the existence of sin within each of us. The MEANS for forgiveness of sin was provided by God. The ACCEPTANCE of that MEANS is a requirement, not an option. Further, it is the ONLY way to achieve forgiveness of sin and "rightstanding" before God.

Now, if we really want to get deep into this subject we can talk about the issue of "election".
There are those that God has "given over" to sin.
One small example would be the world of Noah's time. God did not forgive Man for his sinful ways. God "regretted" having made Man and went to work wiping the slate clean and laundering the world.

But this is huge topic and very time consuming. Perhaps if I can carve out some time I can compose a more cogent post for you to "chew on".

<small>[ November 26, 2002, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: ForeverHers ]</small>

F-H

Good to see you again. And again we address the issue of forgiveness as you have with Pacific Princess who is my W. And it is a challenging one. I beleive the reason JD started this thread was to respond to my concerns about the ATTITUDE of respondents on BANDIT's original thread.

I was concerned with the level or disrespect and "black humor" about the death of the OP. And it is the uncaring, uncompassionate attitude that I find unconstructive and regressive, judgemental and merciless.

To me, as a believer, this is NOT the heart of God if we truly profess to be followers of Christ and seek to be obedient, especially here on this website in seeking to heal our marriage relationships.

Yes, I referred to I John 4:8b. By doing so I did NOT disregard HIS wrath, justice etc. As believers, I am bound to love. Love is not some soft cream-puff, push-over feeling. It is truth and sometimes a very difficult attribute to give as God has given the world...a cruel, unrepentant world that has turned away. And still, as in L-A's post, God gave His son, to die to redeem the world. More importantly, He rose again for us to be triumphant. He sits at the right hand of the Father to intervene for us--our advocate.

Inasmuch as you say God does not forgive if we do not confess or repent of our sins, I say just as emphatically that He does. Shall we put a limit on His grace? Was Christ's death on the cross in vain?

Again, I say anyone who fails to confess and repent will reap what was sown. I believe we condemn ourselves and we lose the blessings of redemption and forgivess which I believe He freely gives. If we DON'T ask, then it's on us, not God. I refer to James 1:13-15. Each one is tempted, enticed and carried away by their OWN lust. When lust has conceived it gives birth to sin and when commited brings forth death. We do that to ourselves. We have the free will to choose as we wish and "to obey is better than sacrifice." If we cannot choose on our own, God would have us as robots--all the same, none unique.

FH what do you think of the JD highway scenario. How would you respond? WWJD?

All right, I assume we are all BS's here. Is our response that which would bring glory to God or not? Would it not raise your stature somehow if the WS (whom I assume you have forgiven) saw you make the sacrifice to say that you are forgiving the OP or are prayerfully finding the strength in your heart to forgive? Place a condition--whatever--but it is most important I believe that the slate has been wiped clean BY YOUR LOVE FOR THE S not because of IMPOSED CONDITIONS.

I will not debate election/predestination, tongues, "once-saved-always-saved", KJV-NIV, pre-mil/post-mil. I will debate the question, are we living a Christ-like life that will bring glory to God and people to salvation? Because it is the Gospel which surpasses all of these debates as debates fail to win souls and succeeds in dividing the Body.

No one except Christ is perfect. I will not use "we are only human" as an out. While I can only strive for perfection, He has done it for me and leaves me an example to follow. The example I will follow is to forgive and to be forgiving continually, especially to those who didn't ask or don't deserve it.

Melody, Lurking, PP, Theo, Foreverhers,

Thank you for responding to this topic. For my part in the discussion I was interested in understanding one point of contention. That being, not so much whether God forgives our sins without my asking. But rather, would I, or Bandit, or Theo, or Melodylane, or anyone for that matter be held accountable for a lack of forgiveness ie; the OP? Especially if that person does not ask for my forgiveness or offer an apology for the destruction caused to us?

I know we are to attempt to be Christ-like to the best of our ability. Perhaps it is a copout to just not care or think of the OP at all in this whole mess. Generally that is where I am. I don't for the most part think of the OPs at all. But at the same time I would be a liar to say I have forgiven them. I honestly do not know that I could hold up to the standard of forgiveness a couple of you speak of.

Could it be that this is where Works come into play? In other words it makes no difference that I may never forgive the OP, so long as I do my best to reach that goal?

As for my need of forgiveness this is what I believe. I believe that Jesus died for my sins. I believe that if God had not given the world this gift, there would be none of us, or very few of us, with much chance of entering heaven. That I believe in Jesus means I will be saved. But I also believe a great deal is expected of me. Up to and including forgiveness of others.

It was not my intent to debate the topic to the point of causing division. As I stated from the outset, one can make huge arguements using scripture to argue their point, no matter which way you believe.

I was reading Revelation chapters 2 and 3. This was where I got the idea that perhaps Works would play a role in some of these things. Granted He was speaking of and to the Churches, but arent we the Church, or make it up that is?

At any rate, THANKS for the discussion. God bless each of you.

jd

JD, LA, ML, FH

He has shown us what is good and what He desires for us--to be just/fair, to love mercy and AND TO WALK HUMBLY with Him, our God. He has freely given so we should freely give. Is there so much harm that we forgive the OP and the WS who never returns? As my W, Pacific Princess said, "Who would stop you if you did?" The point is moot if in fact you did forgive. The blessing is mine to be forgiving and I will covet that blessing as I know the benefits spiritually and physically.

My suggestion is this--at the very least, pray for the strength, wisdom and courage to do that which you find difficult, to forgive the OP for a week or so and see what happens. And don't view the obstacles to do that as God's indication not to, but more Satan's way of preventing you. And as to the WS, whether they are in the home with you, remove some or all of the conditions and see what happens. MOVE FORWARD!!