Friday, March 31, 2017

How To Respond When Others Sin



If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. —1 John 5:16

{CHAMBERS} “If we are not heedful and pay no attention to the way the Spirit of God works in us, we will become spiritual hypocrites. We see where other people are failing, and then we take our discernment and turn it into comments of ridicule and criticism, instead of turning it into intercession on their behalf. God reveals this truth about others to us not through the sharpness of our minds but through the direct penetration of His Spirit. […] One of the most subtle and illusive burdens God ever places on us as saints is this burden of discernment concerning others. […] Can Jesus Christ see the agony of His soul in us? He can’t unless we are so closely identified with Him that we have His view concerning the people for whom we pray. May we learn to intercede so wholeheartedly that Jesus Christ will be completely and overwhelmingly satisfied with us as intercessors.”

{ELGIN}  (1 John 3:15) “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” When we judge sinners and thereby condemn them, it is if we hate them.  Hate means to have an intense or passionate dislike.  It is one thing to reject sin … God rejected our sin, but loved us, even in the light of the fact that without the blood of Jesus washing us, we were condemned to hell.  We should not embrace sin, but nor should we condemn the sinner.

God gives us spiritual discernment for spiritual purposes.  Ridicule and criticism come from the flesh, not the Spirit.  (Galatians 5:19–21) “… the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders ….” Rather than condemning we should be interceding.  What the people you see need is Jesus, not your contempt … just like you did before you received God’s grace and mercy. 

Jesus ate with sinners, that doesn’t mean that He embraced their sin, although He was accused of that.  And when confronted over it , He replied .. (Mark 2:17) “When Jesus heard it, He said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.’” Do you want to do what Jesus did?  Well, there you go.

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