So I read this� on Sunday.
Quickly, I jumped to the conclusionÃ? this makesÃ? us Christian types look bad…Ã?Â
….. and that IÃ? most certainlyÃ? would notÃ? give up my faith like that if anyone I loved was killed.
I would realise that God is in totalÃ? control and I would forgive the suicide bomber as Jesus forgives me…Ã? just like I would have not committed adulteryÃ? if put in David’s position;Ã? I wouldÃ? not haveÃ? run away from my calling like Jonah and I most certainly would have completelyÃ? trusted Jesus. I would haveÃ? walked on water, understood all his teachings and parables first time, I wouldÃ? not haveÃ? panicked during the storm or denied that I knewÃ? him three times…… errrrrm.
I ask myself, why� is it that when� I see other people being so openly truthful,� honest and admitting weakness in their� faith, that I get so high and mighty?
My ‘religiousÃ? mind’Ã? jumps to the conclusionsÃ? that they must not beÃ? reading their bible or praying enough… orÃ? even more outrageousÃ? ….Ã? that it is probablyÃ? becauseÃ? they don’t knowÃ? what it ‘really’ meansÃ? to loveÃ? God anway…. ouch 
On the other hand you have this� story.
Is itÃ? the secondÃ? articleÃ? that contains theÃ? ’better’ Christian? Some might say…Ã?Â
But let me ask a better question…
Who would God be more� disappointed� with? The lady who was honest, the other� lady who was honest, or my� heart, that� I decide to� judge other people with such blatant hypocrisy?
Mercy and Grace for me please……
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Something i’ve been wondering is about forgiveness as a state of heart and not an action. If you forgive someone of actions or words which have hurt you, is it more of a blessing to forgive them and TELL them they’re forgiven….or is it better to forgive in your own heart and wait on Gods peace and grace to fill your own heart. Surely that is the true sense of forgiveness, it being an action which removes that barrier of bitterness and hurt in your own heart. Forgiveness is about setting your own heart right with God, isn’t that more important?
Just as a side point, the second article you refer to Felix, the woman talked about Jesus forgiving those who were crucifying him. As far as i am aware, his prayer was “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”. This suggests to me that in that moment of agony, he found it so difficult to forgive for himself, he interceded on their behalf…..or am i off line on this one?
Forgiveness is something we have looked at before on Threedays. Back in July 2005 I looked at the idea of forgiveness the journey, which you can read at your leisure so I won�t repeat to much here.
Only to say that while I agree that forgiveness is a state of our heart I would say that this needs to be followed by action. Forgiveness is a proactive thing. This is not necessarily telling the person that they are forgiven but it could be the way which we interact with them; being nice to them when we really don’t want to be etc.
Also, I am not sure about Jesus finding it too hard to forgive so he asked his father to do it for him (slight paraphrase I know, forgive me please Dan), it would have been an act of will for him to pray for the people who were killing him, which reflects that Jesus’ heart was in the correct place. He was certainly on the journey of forgiveness (probable, I would think, at the journeys end).