Forgiveness vs. Reconciliation

It took me years to get over the bitterness and anger of my wife cheating on me. It's not an easy road to learning to forgive. As for reconciliation, that's not always possible. My wife eventually told me, "I won't change." That was when I gave up. Years later, she asked, "Would you ever marry me again?" My answer, of course, was "No." She told me she would never change. How could I ever trust her again?

 

If your wife was broken over her transgression, showed genuine repentance and remorse, sought your and God's forgiveness, and asked to be accepted again, although it would be a long, hard road to trust again...would you have done it?

 

Mat. 5:23-24
23Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

Hosea 1:
2When the LORD began to speak by Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea:
"Go, take yourself a wife of harlotry
3: 1-3
1Then the LORD said to me, "Go again, love a woman who is loved by a lover£ and is committing adultery, just like the love of the LORD for the children of Israel, who look to other gods and love the raisin cakes of the pagans."
2So I bought her for myself for fifteen shekels of silver, and one and one-half homers of barley. 3And I said to her, "You shall stay with me many days; you shall not play the harlot, nor shall you have a man—so, too, will I be toward you."

Reconciliation is taught all over the bible, Jacob and Esau, Hosea and Gomer, Joseph to Mary, us to God. And according to Hosea reconciliation is a picture of God reconciling us to Him.

 

Very good post DonnA, may God bless this. :applause:

 

We are reconciled to Him, when we are saved. The scriptures give us examples of reconciliation between people, reconciliation is a Godly/ Christ like virtue. It is clear in scripture it is what God desires for us. According to Matt. 5 if we negelect it we do not offer anything to God that is acceptable to Him.

 

Christ died to reconcile us to God by being the propitiation for our sins. We are reconciled by grace through faith.

I don't know anywhere in scripture that Christ's death was to reconcile us to each other.

 

Never said it was.

 

never said you did

 

Dear suerwoman,

I think you are missing something here. You have repeatedly posted that you do not want to reconcile with your husband. This reveals unwillingness on your part to be an agent of reconciliation in this situation. Christ gave his life to reconcile us to Himself, His word also commands us to reconcile with one another, and you made marriage vows that bind you to your husband. Jesus said, "But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one" (Matt. 5:37, NKJV). Notice, Jesus did not say let your Yes be Yes so long as the other party upholds their end of the agreement. Thinking along such lines is from the devil according to the Bible.

What you need to understand about reconciliation is that you alone can not bring it about. In order for reconciliation of your marriage to take place both you and your husband would have to be willing to reconcile and then both of you would have to rely on the power of the Holy Sprit to make it happen. In order for your marriage to be reconciled your husband would have to come to you broken and repentant (before the Lord) asking first for forgiveness and then to reconcile. Then the burden would be on you to forgive and reconcile. As I said previously, forgiveness does not equal trust (on a 1:1 basis). Your husband will have to demonstrate by his actions that he is indeed trustworthy. This will take time, hard work from both of you, and healing by the power of the Holy Spirit. In order for any of this to happen it must begin with your husband repenting of his sin and turning from the life he is now living. All you have to do is be willing to forgive and reconcile should the Lord cause your husband to repent and seek forgiveness and reconciliation.

This is where the process of church discipline (Matt. 18:15-20) will help you most. It will either bring about repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation or it will expose your husband as an unbeliever. If he refuses to repent then he will be put out of the church and treated as an unbeliever. This will free you from him as the Bible says in 1 Cor. 7:15. "If the unbeliever departs, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases. But God has called us to peace" (1 Cor. 7:15, NKJV). The goal should never be to have your husband declared an unbeliever. The goal is repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. However, if your husband is determined to reject Christ, the church, you and your son in favor of his life of sin the end result is your freedom from him.

 

okay, folks, the bottom line is this:

the lady doesn't want to reconcile with her ex-husband. period.

she is willing to forgive, but reconciliation (remarriage to the same man, living together again with him, sharing the marriage bed again with him) is out of the question.

fine.

it ain't okay, but if that's how she sees things, then there ain't much we can do 'bout it.

i can certainly understand where she's coming from.
my sister's husband works in Saudi. to get a better treatment and better chances at his job, he converted to Islam. of course, that opened up the gates of temptation for him.
as a muslim, he may marry up to 5 wives according to his financial capacity.
he is far away from home, young, virile, and lonely.
so he married a woman, also from our country, who had also converted to Islam. Never told us or my sister, who found out about it two years after the fact, when he already had a child by the woman.

big fight. big issue. the guy got beat up on by my two brothers.

being married to my sister, with four kids (they married in their teens), he tried hard to reconcile with her.

my sister would not because she says she will cringe at his touch and his kisses thinking those same lips kissed other woman, and she loathes at the thought of you-know-what because (best leave this out).

it'll take the Holy Spirit to overcome these reasons.

in His own good time.

 

Except give her good solid compassionate biblical counsel when she askes for it or brouches the subject.

All these facts may well be true (and I believe they are becuase you say so). However, the most important thing you have said here is the last two sentences. All things are possible with God and He will give us the strength to see it through (Phil. 4:13).

 

So to all the men out there who believe the faithful Christian woman should always take back the erring, cheating, whoremongering husband--- is there seriously any man out there (if the situation was reversed) who would want to touch his wife again knowing she had "been with" another man or several other men for that matter?

Can we get real, please?

 

One man probably, after that it's too out of control. But you never know, depends upon what the Lord revealed.
It would also depend upon how much, if any, lying to my face occured. Can't trust a liar....that would be the biggest problem.

 

Yes, they should and many godly men have done such just as many godly women have. Funny thing is.. even the 'ungodly' or 'unsaved' have done it as well.

So it is as real as it can be.

 

Hosea

........

 

Yes christianity is difficult and I'm sure Hosea didn't want to take his wife back after she protestuted herself out again and again and again. Her children not his but he was to love them all. And Forgive....
Imagine what he had to deal disease ect...
But I still stick with my first thought. Some people should never gotten married to begin with and other people who are abusers ect... should never get married. Unfortunately, they do and then the hard work begins. God is forgiving and will forgive divorse but I don't think we should be presumptous on his grace. Following Jesus is hard not easy. Women who have married abusers should stay away from them. The question is should they remarry?

 

until there are no more men who are able to take back their wives despite their infidelities, there is no "getting real", and I am sure there are people on this board who know of men who have done so.

there are reasons why a spouse should reconcile with the erring spouse, and he or she does not necessarily have to be a Christian or a believer.

# 1. the children - this may sound corny to a lot of people in this "mine, me, my, I and number one" society and culture. the children have nothing to do at all with these problems and issues. their sense of belonging and security is shattered by having parents separate, one of whom they see only on certain days, and whose availability is at the whim of the offended spouse or of the court. Visitation rights may be cancelled because the offended party may think the offending party has violated certain terms.
Or we have seen cases of parental abduction, where one parent runs off with the child or the children.

There are many on this board who will be offended at the thought of a homosexual couple adopting children. Why ? think of the reasons. some or all of those reasons may be applicable to children of divorced parents.

if divorce is something that has to happen, then I think the decent thing to do would be to avoid remarriage, Bible or no Bible.


#2. what happened to the offending party can also happen to the offended party. both are humans. both are fallen creatures.

From the point of view of an unsaved individual the pros of divorce and remarriage may be more than the cons, but we don't really know that.

I am not saying that those on this board who have divorced and remarried are unsaved. I am not the judge of that. the Lord is, because only He knows those that are truly His, by His choice, and not by the professor's conduct.

However, given the daily bombardment of screwed up values on tv, print, and broadcast, Christians can be influenced and the principles by which the Lord want them to live by put in the backburner, or corrupted.

The "real" world is the Lord's world.

That is why I don't sing "This is My Father's World" because this is not my Father's world.