Q: I understand that God forgives me, but I don't just want forgiveness; I want reconciliation. I don't want to be forgiven and left to my own devices. I want to become like Him. 

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A: (This was kind of written on the fly. Please let me know if I can say this better!)

First, I commend you for recognizing that forgiveness and reconciliation are two different things. Forgiveness is the cancellation of a debt; reconciliation is the restoration of a relationship.

Forgiveness is a gift that an aggrieved party gives to the person who injured them: a debt that is released. True forgiveness acknowledges that you’ve wronged me, but I will no longer hold it against you. Again, it’s like a debt that the bank “forgives” – says you don’t have to pay back. When I forgive, I’m not saying you’ve done nothing wrong, or that I don’t care; I do care, and you have done wrong.

Reconciliation is when you and I begin to trust each other again. Forgiveness is the first and necessary step to that – we can’t move forward properly unless we first deal with why the relationship broke in the first place. Only after that is the rebuilding of trust, which takes the longest and requires the most work. You know how it is in human relationships: trust that is built over years can be snapped in an instant. Rebuilding it requires proving trustworthiness over time.

I also commend your desire for reconciliation; imagine it from God’s perspective. When we ask him for forgiveness, and he gives it to us, I can’t imagine him being thrilled if we say “OK, thanks! I’ll call you if I need you again.” God desires relationship with us. He wants to complete us – he designed us to be completed by him. He forgives us because, without that, we’d have no shot. Such is his great love for us. But he wants more for us; he has more for us. He wants reconciliation.

But we have to be honest about something. Once you’ wronged someone, and they’ve forgiven you, it’s impossible to know whether the relationship is back to where it was. No matter how much they assure you “we’re fine,” the sensitive mind always counters with “they’re just saying that, but they don’t really mean it,” and “my sin is still there, and they’ll use it for ammunition when they need to.” That cynicism is usually earned; experience has shown us this can happen. And my cynicism about your forgiveness and our reconciliation can be just as damaging as if they never forgave you at all.

So then… reconciliation might be harder for the one who sinned than the one who was sinned against. The injured party must be able to a) forgive the offense and b) work on trusting the other party. Likewise, the injuring party (the sinner) must a) repent of the offense and b) begin proving their trustworthiness. But to be truly reconciled, the sinner has one more task: c) he has to trust the forgiveness of the other. He has to truly believe the other person when they say, “we’re reconciled.” 

2 Corinthians 5 says that through Jesus, God has reconciled us to himself (v.18: past tense) and is reconciling the world to himself (v.19: present tense). Paul then calls on us to be reconciled to God (v. 20: future tense). The reconciliation has already been offered. It is ours for the taking (through repentance, of course).

The devil doesn’t want us to know that secret; he wants us to distrust God (Genesis 3). Think about it from his perspective: if we don’t believe we can be forgiven, or that we don’t need to be forgiven, then he has us forever. If we turn and accept God’s forgiveness, but still don’t trust our reconciled relationship, then at least Satan has rendered us useless. He might not get us forever, but he’s made sure we can’t multiply.

Because of Christ, because of God’s action for us, repentance brings forgiveness which brings reconciliation. There is nothing more we can, or should, do, to achieve it. Living as though we are in a state of reconciliation is both the challenge and the goal.