Reconciliation
Too often the popular christian perspective is as long as my walk with God is "fine" while a relationship or sin-strained relationship with a brother or sister in Christ remains, I can walk with and worship God rightly. This mentality promotes individualism, not corporate bodily unity. Scripture makes very clear that the offender must seek forgiveness from the offended. No problem there. But here, in Matt 5: 23, we see this emphasis from our Lord, in that a man has gone so far as to bring his gift to the very altar, and should remember that anyone had anything against him, it was his duty there to leave his offering and go and be reconciled. Matthew 18: 15 makes it clear that even if the brother or sister who has been sinned against, should go to the offender and be reconciled.
Jesus' emphasis, is to be reconciled! Both the offender and offended are to seek reconciliation. This does not mean they must be best friends. Nor is this sadly always what will result when once christian seeks to be reconciled with the other. Leave the results to God and seek to obey, as your own worship depends on it. The one that comes to worship his Maker filled with malice, and hatred, and envy, and at war with his brethren, is a hypocritical worshipper, and must meet with God's displeasure. God is not deceived, and he will not be mocked.
Succinctly, let me lay out a few bullet points:
1. To worship God acceptably, we must do justice to our fellow men
2.Our worship will not be acceptable unless we do all we can to live peaceably with others
3.It is our duty to seek reconciliation from those we sin against...before we give our "offering" of worship to God.
4.This is often the reason why God does not accept our offerings, and we go empty away from our devotions and sermons. We do not do what we ought to others; we cherish improper feelings or refuse to make proper acknowledgments, and God will not accept such attempts to worship him.
Spirituality is not measured in side stepping, rationalizing, or justifying reasons not to obey God's command. Nor, is it measured on your ability to turn the proverbial "coin over," on one particular command or area of scripture and disect it until you have every "possible" reason not to obey it. Or you may say to yourself, "what about _____" and fill in your blank. There is a time to "turn the coin over," and we should dig deep in God's word, and it is fine to say "what about....." but is there ever a time in your life where you must simply obey? God told Moses to go to Pharoah, and Moses began to make excuses why he shouldn't, to the point the Lord's anger burned against him. Is it not better to simply obey than sacrafice?
"I would anxiously desire to be at peace with all men before I attempt to worship God, lest I present to God the sacrifice of fools."
C. H. Spurgeon