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And don’t you think that being wise enough to recognize apparent wrongdoing in another person means that you are also capable of recognizing either the potential of making a similar mistake yourself or the realization that you have already made that mistake in the past?
Yes, I do. But honestly, I’m not going to go looking for it. I have learned that what works best for me is to always look for the positive in others. Look for what others are doing *right* and then emulate that. The difficulty in identifying “apparent wrongdoing in another person” is that I have no way of knowing their motive. Only God knows a person’s motive so only God can judge wrongdoing in others.
140:10.5 The one characteristic of Jesus’ teaching was that the morality of his philosophy originated in the personal relation of the individual to God—this very child-father relationship. Jesus placed emphasis on the individual, not on the race or nation. While eating supper, Jesus had the talk with Matthew in which he explained that the morality of any act is determined by the individual’s motive. Jesus’ morality was always positive. The golden rule as restated by Jesus demands active social contact; the older negative rule could be obeyed in isolation. Jesus stripped morality of all rules and ceremonies and elevated it to majestic levels of spiritual thinking and truly righteous living.
Yes, I do. But honestly, I’m not going to go looking for it. I have learned that what works best for me is to always look for the positive in others. Look for what others are doing *right* and then emulate that. The difficulty in identifying “apparent wrongdoing in another person” is that I have no way of knowing their motive. Only God knows a person’s motive so only God can judge wrongdoing in others.
I said nothing of looking for wrongdoing in others. I agree that if you’re going around looking for wrongdoing then your own motives are questionable.
What I did say is the recognition of wrongdoing in others. There’s a difference there. You don’t go looking for it, but when it shows up you recognize it because of experiential wisdom, which means you must have encountered it before. And if you have encountered it before in yourself, then you have a better understanding of the motivation behind it.
Sure, but it’s really very simple. Even young children intuitively know when they have done something wrong. I don’t need to see it in someone else first, I know because of the bad feeling I get (my TA influencing me). So I say to myself, “Woops, that was a mistake. (Recognition of error.) What I did caused me to feel badly about myself and it hurt someone else. I will not do that again. I goofed up but now I know better.” (Forgiving myself).
This is just human nature and our TA helping us.
My question that prompted this thread is about something entirely different – the formal confession of sins (or “sins” by some instiutionalized church’s definition, not TUBs definition) to another person for the purpose of being forgiven. I think the answers on this thread have sufficiently answered my question in that regard. Particularly when Bradly wrote:
Great topic and post. This has always plagued me as well Keryn, as a child primarily, when I was told that I was guilty by birth and had to confess my sinful “nature”, I was quite perplexed. I have come to believe that this “confession” spoken of is more of a sincere acknowledgment of a specific thought and/or act that is unworthy and unrighteous that we first discern, then accept responsibility for our poor response ability, and acknowledge to ourselves and to God within that there is a change of mind needed and a new will to learn and grow by this “confession”. Too often in churches one need only publicly confess or do so to a priest to be “absolved” and yet for many such an act brings no true contrition or change. Confession without change is not confession as described in the UB. It is the discernment for a need for change that makes our acknowledgement/confession a moment of transformation, progress in spirit, and transcendence from material attachment.
Confess only to God who knows you and knows your brother. Forgiveness is then instantaneous to yourself as you forgive your brother. It is automatic.
They tell us confession if sin is essential to religious growth and spiritual progress.
89:10:5 The confession of sin is a manful repudiation of disloyalty, but it in no wise mitigates the time-space consequences of such disloyalty. But confession — sincere recognition of the nature of sin — is essential to religious growth and spiritual progress.So how does the concept of automatic and simultaneous sincere confession and forgiveness work if you have never sincerely and honestly without reservation “forgiven” somebody?
Aren’t we told that we must forgive before we can be forgiven?
on a side note: who holds a grudge against Lucifer or Adam and Eve? Can you forgive them? Two have confesed while one has aparently not.
Has time helped us with these?
nelsong wrote: Aren’t we told that we must forgive before we can be forgiven?The Father in heaven has forgiven you even before you have thought to ask him, but such forgiveness is not available in your personal religious experience until. . . .146:2:4 3. By opening the human end of the channel of the God-man communication, mortals make immediately available the ever-flowing stream of divine ministry to the creatures of the worlds. When man hears God’s spirit speak within the human heart, inherent in such an experience is the fact that God simultaneously hears that man’s prayer. Even the forgiveness of sin operates in this same unerring fashion. The Father in heaven has forgiven you even before you have thought to ask him, but such forgiveness is not available in your personal religious experience until such a time as you forgive your fellow men. God’s forgiveness in fact is not conditioned upon your forgiving your fellows, but in experience it is exactly so conditioned. And this fact of the synchrony of divine and human forgiveness was thus recognized and linked together in the prayer which Jesus taught the apostles.nelsong wrote: on a side note: who holds a grudge against Lucifer or Adam and Eve? Can you forgive them? Two have confesed while one has aparently not.Interesting question – can I forgive them? I ask: did the choices they made have an effect on me personally in my experience that I can attribute to them? No. I have no experience with them personally, and no experience with what they did, so my answer is no. I think forgiveness is between you (or me) as a person, and someone else. Lucifer and Adam and Eve are way too far removed. They have their forgiveness issues. No, I do not hold a grudge. I do not have a persistent feeling of ill will, animosity, antagonism or enmity toward them. Their confession or lack of confession is between them and our Creator.Jesus said this, in part, about divine forgiveness:174:1:3 “A part of every father lives in the child. The father enjoys priority and superiority of understanding in all matters connected with the child-parent relationship. The parent is able to view the immaturity of the child in the light of the more advanced parental maturity, the riper experience of the older partner. With the earthly child and the heavenly Father, the divine parent possesses infinity and divinity of sympathy and capacity for loving understanding. Divine forgiveness is inevitable; it is inherent and inalienable in God’s infinite understanding, in his perfect knowledge of all that concerns the mistaken judgment and erroneous choosing of the child. Divine justice is so eternally fair that it unfailingly embodies understanding mercy.”Nothing in human affairs can take the place of actual experience.nelsong wrote: . . . on a side note: who holds a grudge against Lucifer or Adam and Eve? Can you forgive them? Two have confesed while one has aparently not. Has time helped us with these?I don’t hold a grudge and I definitely forgive them all. I figure if these divine beings can screw up pretty badly, then my little screw ups must seem like chump change in the grand scheme of things. Just the same, I want my mistakes forgiven, so I most definitely forgive them. Personally, I think Adam and Eve suffered enough from their mistakes. Not so sure about Lucifer though . . . but he’s insane and madmen deserve a little compassion, I think, but only if they keep the bugger locked up (restrained by love). If he gets loose, then I don’t know about the compassion thing. Face to face, I’d probably try to kill him if he made one false move. Just being honest. I’d do the Jujitsu Jane thing and squash him like a bug . . . just kidding.Lol
But seriously, when we forgive it likely has little if any impact on the person being forgiven but it can be profound for the person doing the forgiving.
it opens us up to many possibilities for growth
nelsong wrote: But seriously, when we forgive it likely has little if any impact on the person being forgiven . . . .Oh, I think it does have an impact. It may not be conscious, but as go the parts, so go the whole. There’s no question that the person whom one holds a grudge against suffers from that grudge. When the grudge is released, there has to be less suffering on both ends. Look at Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Judas held a grudge against him and Jesus suffered horribly. If Judas had forgiven Jesus, Jesus would not have suffered, at least not by his hand. No, I think there is a real dynamic relationship between the forgiver and the “forgivee”.Here’s a personal story, as an example. I have a friend. We’ve known each other for almost 25 years. We’ve shared everything. Our kids grew up together and we’ve each gone through and shared some truly horrendous experiences. Let’s just say that she knows where all the bodies are buried, and she’s the only one who knows, so that’s a bond that cannot be broken.Well, she decided to get remarried a few years back, and asked me to be her maid of honor. Allow me to offer some advice, once you pass 60, you shouldn’t be a maid of honor in a big church wedding. That aside, it was the most difficult experience of our entire relationship. She turned into bridezilla, a she-devil shrew so horrific that I don’t even think reality TV could have handled her; she was off the charts.It upset me but I had to hold back. Problem was, when the wedding was over, I never let it go. I had seen a side of her that I actually hated, if you can hate someone you’re supposed to care about. Every time I saw her, I couldn’t help but also see bridezilla, that villainous virago. And I did really, really hate that side of her.So for years I let it just sit there without dealing with it. I did not forgive bridezilla, but I had no problem with the other side of her personality, the side I thought I knew best. She, however, always sensed that something was wrong. She feared the end of our friendship, she cried about not having the same level of camaraderie; and I blamed it all on her marriage to avoid telling her how much I hate her evil side. She suffered until I finally told her. She was shocked, she cried some more, and secretly I don’t think she really believed that she was as bad as I said she was . . . but that’s another story. I had to forgive bridezilla and bury the beast in order for her to feel comfortable again.Personally, I really didn’t want to bury the thing. I wanted to keep sticking it with pins because it was so vile and contemptible, it deserved to die a long and painful death, so I thought. But only when I forgave her was the thing finally dead, and our relationship returned to its former glory. Anyway . . . longwinded story about nothing except that forgiveness does affect those forgiven as well as those who forgive.
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