Share and Apple with Your Enemy

“In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, [was there] the tree of life, which bare twelve [manner of] fruits, [and] yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree [were] for the healing of the nations.” (Re 22:2 AV)

I had a question regarding this passage that was very profound.   If there is no more sorrow or pain, why would there be a need for healing?  Excellent question.  It caused me to search out the word “…healing…” to see what was meant.  The Greek word is therapeia from which we get the English word, therapy.  We may have a glorified body and not physical sickness a possibility, but, there will be memories of which we must deal.  What I think some of the commentators suggest is this tree of life wherein the nations heal one another is a place where folks will meet for the purpose of mutual fellowship and edification.  It may just be the place where we meet and have to, once and for all, release one another from the bitterness we have harbored all these years.  It will be a place where we finally realize all those injustices were not that big of a deal and as Joseph learned, God meant them for our own good.  It will be a place where personal differences, which were removed at the point of glorification, are verbalized with those whom we disagree. It will be a place of emotional and social healing.  A place of therapy!

 There have been times when my parents would send two arguing siblings to the same bedroom to figure things out.  We wouldn’t be allowed to come out for any reason, including to eat, unless we had buried the hatchet.  If it is one thing that saints know how to do with complete unity, it is to eat!  Put a pot luck on and all the petty differences we shared are all of a sudden forgotten.  The LORD knows this.  He can remove the sin nature; which He will when we arrive home.  But He cannot force us to reconcile our differences.  With the sin nature removed, reconciliation will be a joyful pursuit.

But herein is the application.  If we will not reconcile, it is because of sin in our own heart and not necessarily what the other has done.  Why not confess our bitterness now and reap the rewards of restored fellowship rather than wait for the tree of life?  We will have to reconcile eventually.  No reconciliation, no heaven!  You and I will reconcile!  So, why not make our own little tree of life in our churches that forgiveness might be granted and we can once again walk in unity?