Forgive, Comfort and Affirm love

DEVOTION

2 CORINTHIANS

FORGIVE, COMFORT AND AFFIRM LOVE

2 Cor 2:5-11

5 If anyone has caused grief, he has not so much grieved me as he has grieved all of you, to some extent — not to put it too severely. 6 The punishment inflicted on him by the majority is sufficient for him. 7 Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. 8 I urge you, therefore, to reaffirm your love for him. 9 The reason I wrote you was to see if you would stand the test and be obedient in everything. 10 If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven — if there was anything to forgive — I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, 11 in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes.

NIV

Not sure who Paul is referring to about causing everyone grief, but whoever it is, that person is the central message of this passage. We can be absolutely certain this is all about forgiveness and comfort and a reaffirmation of love toward anyone who offends us in anyway so that the person who offended us is not overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. Sure it might be easier to carry hard feelings toward them. Yes it would be much easier to simply avoid them altogether and never speak to them again. It might even make us feel a little better if we would retaliate in some manner, not really harming them, but sort of getting even with them, a sort of tit for tat thing. But we simply cannot do that if we have any plans at all to be a follower of Christ. Of course it is a simple thing to forgive someone, but the problem is that we may never forget and then every time we are in their presence it floods our mind all over again about what they did, or said to us that caused us so much pain and grief. So that is why avoidance is so much better after forgiveness. But that does not work either if we are followers of Christ because not only should we forgive them but then we need to comfort them and if that isn't difficult enough we have to reaffirm our love for them. This is a real test of our faith in Christ. Sure we profess that we are believers and we live a life of obedience to God, but here we are perhaps in a grievous act of disobedience. Forgive, comfort and reaffirm love that is the plan of action toward anyone who offends us. Satan would love nothing more for us to be at some sort of odds with each other. That is Satan’s plan of attack, to divide us, for he knows a house divided cannot stand. If we allow any hard feelings to come between our love for each other, then we must make it right. Perhaps we are the one at fault in the first place. Perhaps we are starting the division unaware of our offense to a fellow believer and they have not come to this realization yet and thus get hurt, pull away from us and maybe even look for an opportunity to get even. Maybe we need to go to them and seek forgiveness starting the reconciliation process. It is quite possible we all offend without knowing it. We surely need the Holy Spirit to speak to our spirits and give us insight into our relationships with fellow believers. Forgive, comfort and affirm love.