If therefore you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. Matthew 5:23,24
Sobering words.The importance of loving one another is so strong that Jesus would rather us go and be reconciled to someone who may have something against us than to make an offering to God without reconciling first.
Jesus does not say, “If anyone may have a problem with you from the past few hours.” He does not place a time delimiter on it. For us to offer up our bodies as a living sacrifice in good conscious and in a manner pleasing to the Lord, it would make sense that we would need to make sure we have sought reconciliation with anyone that may have a problem with us.
I can think of a few people I have wronged in the past that I have never sought forgiveness from and reconciliation to. And it is a humbling, sobering thought to think that for the past few years I have been laboring in vain for the Lord. I knew Christ’s words, but I performed them not. Through inaction, I sinned.
I pray everyone reading this would search their hearts and their lives for anyone you may have hurt or wronged or cheated or any other negative thing. Make an effort to reconcile. If they do not reciprocate, you have made your effort and will be clear of conscious before the Lord. But don’t let yourself enter eternity if you’ve spent your lifetime hurting or cheating or otherwise wronging people down here without ever reconciling with those you’ve wronged.