By David ReayTuesday 20 Dec 2022LifeWords DevotionalsDevotionsReading Time: 2 minutes
“So if you are presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the Temple and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there at the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God. “When you are on the way to court with your adversary, settle your differences quickly. Otherwise, your accuser may hand you over to the judge, who will hand you over to an officer, and you will be thrown into prison. And if that happens, you surely won’t be free again until you have paid the last penny. (NLT)
Imperfect human beings inevitably get into occasional conflict with other imperfect human beings. This can be bad enough, but we can make it much worse if we don’t resolve an unresolved conflict. Old feuds might haunt us. We can spend much time chewing the cud of old resentments and thus darkening our days.
Jesus tells us to nip this sort of thing in the bud. Don’t try to push unresolved conflict into the background by pious acts of worship. Our relationship with God himself can be clouded by our wrongful relationships with others. We need not take Jesus literally here: it is more a case of reminding ourselves to sort out human relationships as soon as we can, and not assume good works towards God will somehow make those other things go away.
Jesus also uses another analogy to remind us that dealing with a fractured relationship quickly may mean avoidance of a lot more pain and expense. Even our own civil judges recommend some sort of personal approach to healing and mediation rather than undergoing the pain and expense of law courts!
Just as ignoring a medical condition can have it become more serious, ignoring a fractured relationship can make a bad thing worse. Of course, our efforts at reconciliation may not bear fruit. After all, not even God himself can be at peace with everyone. But we make the effort. Our human relationships affect our relationship with God. We can’t avoid relational troubles, but we can avoid having them fester.
Blessings
David