Does God require reconciliation?

We are required to forgive others, but does God command reconciliation also?

In the case of family (or friend) drama, are we required to brush things under the carpet and pretend nothing was said or done, even if the other person is nonrepentent or gaslighting? From what I understand, reconcilation and forgiveness are different.

Actually, that requirement was to Israel … in the lords prayer.

Today…. in this administration (dispensation) It is to forgive as God for Christs sake has forgiven you. Reconciliation is not required because the forgiveness is not for the other person …it’s for you! because unforgiveness is a destructive disease that eat us from the inside out …So maybe in some ways there is reconciliation….. with yourself …..getting your head in alignment and harmony with the Word

Eph 4:32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Col 3:13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.

2 Corinthians 5:18-20 may be helpful. It is mainly concerned with helping people be reconciled to God, but has wider application.

Reconciliation is a two way thing. If the other party is unwilling, there is nothing that you can do.

In the church, reconciliation is essential. Yet again, if one party is unwilling, there is nothing that you can do. Even if you have done nothing wrong, the onus is on the one not offended to try and make it right with the offended person.
Matthew 5:23 & 24
"So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.…"

I've had to do this with someone I'd never met! It was a misunderstanding and the situation was resolved. I've also tried to reconcile with someone who refused to reconcile. That is regrettable but my conscience is clear.

We are told to forgive our brother.

Here's an example. A brother endangered another family member, a parent. This nearly cost the parent their life. This so upset the other child, another brother, that he was unable to see that brother for a long time for fear of hitting the brother who nearly cost the beloved parent's life. He knew that it was something he did not want to do, and would likely go to prison for carrying out the temptation. So, he took the command to heart and cried unto the Lord because of the grief and frustration.
There were many offenses in addition to that against him, and intentional wedges that the harmful sibling caused in other ways too.
You ladies can't identify with the following, but it's a true story.

He told the Lord that as much as he was tempted to hit him, he didn't want to punch his brother because he also loved him in spite of the awful deed. He was pretty sure that he would do dental damage too. Then he was tempted to punch him in the stomach, but he would likely damage an organ or tear the connective tissue. He just committed the offense to God rather than seeking retribution.

A long time went by and the offended brother was sitting in a restaurant and his brother approached him. After a brief greeting, out of the blue he explained something they never discussed. He said that recently he was just sipping soup and his tooth exploded unexpectedly!

After that, he ran into traffic to rescue a mentally deranged lady and he couldn't understand how his abdomen tore on the inside.

The brother who he approached was very humbled and didn't wish that upon his brother.

God answered the brother's prayer and used that meeting to begin a process of reconciliation in the family.

I have had to live with a mate that can't seem to forgive. It's been 25 plus years and he hasn't forgiven my offense, didn't divorce me but here we are almost 30 years into the marriage and anytime I do something he disagrees with, he brings up my past offense. I'm just learning to brake from that bondage. And I'm beginning to see how sick he is and that I must not live under that condemnation any longer. His daughter offended him two years ago and he still does talk to her beyond a happy birthday text. So sad. I pray and I pray. He is the one who brought me to Christ 30 years ago.

I have tried so many times to reconcile with my dad but he refuses. It has to be 100% his way or nothing at all. I've learned I can forgive him (as hard as that is) but true reconciliation will probably never happen. I can't force my dad. Only God can work in his heart on this matter.

Welcome!

If you believe in Yahweh and Yahshua, live like the bible tells you to, then you have been grafted in to Isreal and are adopted children if Abraham, therefore all that applies to Isreal applies to those who follow Yahshua and believe in Yahweh.

We must be willing to reconcile even if the other party or parties will have nothing to do with us.

Some will quote "Christ died for us WHILE we were yet sinners." As if that means He forgave us while we were sinners. But the reality is that He did not forgive us until we forsook our sins and turned to him.

We are not to judge unbelievers, but we can still keep our distance if they are living in a way that is evil or sinful and it is affecting our lives. It is not for us to forgive or not to forgive, as they are not believers and are enslaved to sin, and we are in no position to stand in judgement as we ourselves have been saved only by grace from such slavery. We are told that bad company corrupts good, so it is better to steer clear of such who continue willingly in sin and will not heed correction. You are just better not to cast your pearls before swine in such instances.

Proverbs 9
7 Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.
8 Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
9 Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.


When it comes to other Christians we can apply the principle - As Christ forgave, so we too ought to forgive. So, I think that means there is a definite condition required for forgiveness.

Luke 17:3 Pay attention to yourselves! If your brother sins, rebuke him, and IF HE REPENTS, forgive him.

We do not have to hold a grudge, but if we are imitators of Christ, surely we don't go around forgiving people who are still wallowing around IN their sin?

Didn't the father have to wait for the prodigal to return to him? He didn't go to him whilst he was in his sin, embrace him and put a ring of gold on his finger etc. Nope. In fact, he considered him dead all the time he refused to turn back from his sin, and when he finally came to his senses and returned, the father declared, "My son was dead, and now is alive again".

Matthew 18 confirms this approach.
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

1 Cor 6
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?....11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

In short, we warn others in love, if they refuse to repent, whether believer or unbeliever, we can distance ourselves from them after applying the biblical principles in each case without results.

If anyone refuses continually to repent, we treat them as a tax collector or an unbeliever. Not ignoring them, or gossiping about them, or treating them with distain, or anger, but rather by praying for them to repent and continuing to treat them with respect as fellow humans, whilst making it clear we have to temporarily sever our close ties with them, in the sense we cannot look to them companionship, or for spiritual advice and so on, and we cannot pursue.a friendship with them, or confide in them as a friend would.
We do not treat them as enemies, but rather those whom we can still show love to practically as we would any lost unbeliever, but we can make it clear we can have no real fellowship with them any longer until they repent.

This was great!! So true. Thank you for sharing.

I love this truth. It is such an equaliser that there is no longer Jew not Gentile, but we are all one in Christ. I wish the could be grasped by some of the people who believe people born in other countries, or with other skin colours, are somehow of less value as humans than those who happen to be more native to them, or who have the same skin colour as them.

ALL believers certainly are children of Abraham, in the same way those who heard Pauls teachings and were saved, he calls his children.
True children of Abraham imitate him by being justified by faith alone, as opposed to the Israelites who tried to be justified by observing the law of Moses, which no one did perfectly before or since Christ came. It was impossible for anyone else, no matter how hard they tried. Can. you imagine always having to try and be as perfect as Jesus?

What a relief it must have been when in Acts the disciples, headed by James, declared that the law and circumcision were not to be put onto any new converts, and when Paul condemned those who were going back to observing the law after being saved.

Acts 15:10 Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? 11 No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.

Gal 4: 21 Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not listen to the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. 23 But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh, while the son of the free woman was born through promise.

Now all God's promises and blessings are open to us all, without the added weight or the fear of the curses of the law, which in truth saved no one, and was only a shadow of what was to come, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.

Thank you for the encouraging reminder that we no longer have to strive to be perfect, rather we can rest in Christ now, and let God, by the work of his Spirit in us, create in us the image of Christ. He works in us to both will and to do his good pleasure, and He has all the glory, while we have all the blessing He has earned for us.

I do believe we are still to obey the commandments, we are no longer under the penalty of death or sacrifice of animals to atone.vBut, through the death of Yashua, we are now covered by grace when we stumble.
The commandments are our compass for morals and values.
Yahshua was our ultimate example of how we are to strive to live.

The word of God should clarify this for us
Romans 7 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives?
4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Hebrews 8
6Now, however, Jesus has received a much more excellent ministry, just as the covenant He mediates is better and is founded on better promises. 7For if that first covenant had been without fault, no place would have been sought for a second. 8But God found fault with the people and said:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah.
9It will not be like the covenant
I made with their fathers
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt,
because they did not abide by My covenant,
and I disregarded them,
declares the Lord.
10For this is the covenant I will make
with the house of Israel
after those days,
declares the Lord.
I will put My laws in their minds
and inscribe them on their hearts.
And I will be their God,
and they will be My people.
11No longer will each one teach his neighbor or his brother,
saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know Me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12For I will forgive their iniquities
and will remember their sins no more.”b
13By speaking of a new covenant,c He has made the first one obsolete; ..,

Acts 15 is ALL about this very issue
5 But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses.”
6 10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?

19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, 20 but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood….
…
They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers, 23 with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings. 24 Since we have heard that some persons have gone out from us and troubled you]with words, unsettling your minds, although we gave them no instructions, 25 it has seemed good to us, having come to one accord, to choose men and send them to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth. 28 order it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: 29 that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”



Only UNTIL Christ came and fulfilled it was the law needed. We do not need a school master as those who needed the law did.

Gal 3
You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you:
You foolish Galatians! … Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? 4 Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? 5 So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? 6 So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

19 Why, then, was the law given at all? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come.

23 Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed

.24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

I have no wish to argue about the finished work of Christ, and the nee covenant that replaced the law at that moment. The law was invaluable, as a clear signpost to point us to Christ, but having reached Christ do we now go back and keep asking the signpost which way shpuld we go? Do we ignore the law of love written by the Spirit of God on our bee heart of flesh? and go back to trusting the law carved out for hearts of stone, written only for the lawless who couldnt be saved by faith because they were not spiritual children of Abraham eho was counted righteous before ever the law was given?

All i can do is present a few of the many portions of scripture that point to the truths i have shared and leave it up to the reader/s to study further and weigh up the matter prayeefully as they exMime these passages and more besides.

We dont have to fight thankfully, the main thing is we are both trusting in Yeshua, the Christ, Jesus, as our only hope for salvation.
May He keep leading us both further and further on our journey into more of Hos truths, and transforming us more and more intl the likeness of Christ, and helping us to bear with and love one another regardless of our current differences in understanding what we read in His word.