A church is more than an architectural masterpiece designed to impress the neighbors.

The church is a close-knit family where we demonstrate the love of Christ, and that includes forgiveness,

even toward those who fail and others who are hard to love.

Today on Insight for Living, Chuck's Wendall explains why forgiveness is a secret weapon in the

family of God.

Extending forgiveness provides us with freedom and the offender with grace.

Chuck's message comes from his series called

Contagious Christianity.

The term translated unruly is a military word

that means to be away from one's assigned post.

If you've ever done military service and if you've ever walked guard duty, you know that

one of the requirements of the guard is that you will walk your post in a military manner.

And if you have a four-hour watch, you won't cut it short for an hour, nor will you take a tour of the more scenic areas.

You stay in your assigned location.

When you leave it, it is called in this Greek term an unruly act. Let me illustrate it this way. We all drive cars.

And we know that there is a place that cars belong on a street. They don't belong in a yard.

As I was driving to this meeting today, I turned a couple of corners from my home, and I saw a lady in her bathrobe out in front of her home talking to an officer of the law who had pulled up and his light was spinning, and their discussion, I am sure, was about two deep ruts that were up in her front yard

that had torn up her yard and her flower bed as the car had been driven in an unruly manner.

And her hope was that the officer would admonish the fellow who did that.

Which is another way of saying, punch his lights out.

But the officer was standing there very controlled, listening to her complaint and looking at

the ruts that had been dug into her yard by a car that had left its correct location.

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