One and Done

"If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and says, 'I repent,' forgive him."  The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" (Luke 17:3-5 NIV)

I like to watch college basketball, in particular the Kansas Jayhawks, but I really love watching the NCAA tournament every March.  The lose one and your done set-up adds so much excitement to the games.  Every game is a must win and players are forced to play their best each and every game if they want to remain in the running to win the National Championship.  It makes for exciting basketball!

The one and done concept is great for sports, but in the Church, not so much.  Yet, too often I have seen people take that approach in relationships.  If you offend them in any way, just once, then they’re done with you.  They move on and put it behind them, but they leave you behind as well.  I once had a woman in a church where I served as an elder refuse to speak to me.  When I approached her after weeks of this treatment and asked her what was wrong, she said I had offended her by something I had said.  She was not willing to attempt reconciliation; she was done with me.  

Forgiveness and reconciliation is the hard path in life.  This explains the astonishment of the disciples at Jesus’ command to continue to forgive a person who sins against you.  It is hard enough to forgive once and be reconciled.  Imagine seven times or seventy times seven!

Following Jesus is to take the hard path, to take a path far different than most of those around us.  With regard to relationships, Jesus tells us to give up the one and done concept of handling conflict.  If your Christian brother or sister offends you, you are to go to them and work it out.  What a difference it would make if we would actually practice that.  

As a campus minister, occasionally students are offended by what I say or by how other students in our ministry treat them.  Instead of dealing with it, they just leave.  They’re done and they move on to another ministry.  And students begin involvement in our ministry because they leave another ministry for the same reason.  

The question becomes, do we really take seriously Jesus’ command to repair broken relationships?  Sadly, I don’t think so.  If we did, then I think we’d have far less church and campus ministry hopping, we’d have far less gossiping and backbiting, and it would become obvious that we put as much value on relationships between Jesus followers as He does.  

Are there people in your life who have offended you and you decided it was one and done?  Have you moved on and left them behind? Jesus puts a high value on people and relationships.  They are not to be easily discarded.  He desires you to forgive and to be reconciled.  Jesus walked that hard path.  Are you willing to follow in His footsteps?

© Jim Musser 2014