Matthew 5:22 (ESV)
But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother
will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the
council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
Matthew 5 is a description of Kingdom life, but if it is Kingdom life then
isn’t it truly the life of Christ that the Spirit is reproducing in the lives
of believers as we listen, yield, and believe? What concerns me then is how
seldom we fail to take these verses seriously. How many church conflicts are
the result of someone who is angry with his brother? How many result in
unforgiveness and lack of reconciliation? How many believers cut one another off
rather than truly forgiving or working toward possible reconciliation? I work
with a lot of churches. It seems to me that we might as well rip these verses
out of the Bible rather than continuing to claim to believe them given how
little we live by them. As our world gets darker we must stop turning on one
another and begin to truly live out the life of Christ. Unforgiveness invalidates
all we claim to believe.
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