Seven-Day Practical Faith Blog: The Command to Apologize

I don't know about you, but I imagine you are as bad at apologizing as I am.

Most of the time, I don't want to apologize. When I do, I apologize badly.

Yet, there is a good reason to apologize. Jesus told us to.

We'll get to that in a moment. But first, this is the initial installment of a four-part series on apologizing. I believe apologies are needed more than ever. As Christians, we need to be kind and considerate, healing and restoring, making good when we have been wrong. Apologies must become part of our regular practice of faith as Jesus followers.

Now that we are back to Jesus, let's hear his imperative on apologizing from Matthew 5:23-24 (CEB).

Therefore, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift at the altar and go. First make things right with your brother or sister and then come back and offer your gift.

Apologizing is so important - rebuilding relationships is so vital - that Jesus commands us not to approach God until we have apologized to the person we have offended or wronged.

Do we really follow his command? Should we? Of course. We may have a lot of work to do.

Let me align our apology definitions. I have a simple view: Apologizing takes one person. Forgiveness takes one person. Reconciliation takes two people.

In other words, you can apologize in an appropriate fashion, but your apology may not be accepted. You can forgive someone whether they have apologized or not, and whether you've even been in their presence or not, but that doesn't mean you have reconciled. Reconciliation only happens when an apology is made, forgiveness is granted, and the matter is reconciled to where normal relations can occur again.

At times, reconciliation may not be possible or recommended. For example, you can forgive your abuser, whether they apologize or not, but it may be toxic to ever be in their presence again.

While our goal as offenders is reconciliation, step one is the apology. Before we can give a worthwhile apology, we must hurdle a big issue within ourselves. That's what I'll discuss next Friday in part two.

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