Living in community as we do, and living in the kind of community we live in, it is necessary that offenses will come. We provoke them, we commit them, we endure them, and frequently we will do one of these, thinking that we are doing another. We provoke offenses while thinking that we are enduring offenses, for example.
God is very patient with all of us, and He therefore requires one thing of us — that we be patient with one another. He has forgiven us of our trespasses, and so He says that we are to be kind, tenderhearted, one to another, treating one another in just the way that we have been forgiven in Christ.
The right to hurt others in our own authority is therefore not a right at all. And on the other side of things, the right to have hurt feelings are therefore not one of our civil rights. And when we hear such words, we rush to apply them to the other guy. Such responses only shows how strong a grip the flesh can have on us.
You may confess someone else’s sins regularly, and still not recover the joy of your first love. To do this is a sure sign that your religion is becoming a horizontal and humanistic affair. Love God. Love your neighbor. This is certainly hard to do, but it is not hard to understand.
And who is your neighbor? Remember that this question has been asked, and answered, before.