“Therefore, from now on, we regard no one
according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the
flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,
he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have
become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through
Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that
God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses
to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” – 2
Corinthians 5:16-19
I attended a meeting the other evening where disaster relief leaders
were learning about ways to build effective volunteer teams. As a practical exercise, the group
shared prayer requests. Nearly every person
in the room talked about their desire to see their children embrace their faith. Have you ever been watching a movie and you become
so caught up in it that you start talking to the people on the screen. Perhaps they are going into another room and
you know what is in the room. So you
tell them not to open the door! Oh, if they would only listen. But they don’t and what you knew would happen,
happens.
That is the feeling those people had as they watched their
children struggle with life. If they
would only listen! One of my daughter reminds me of the lectures I would give
her when she was at home. I like to think of it as
a training ground for the ministry I would have in later years. But the truth is that I was speaking truth to
her and warning her not to open that door! My definition of a lecture is
someone hearing truth and not wanting to obey it. Talk to the hand! Today she
often says, “Everything you told me was true.
If I had only listened.”
We worry over our children
when they seem to have rejected their faith in favor of embracing the world and
its brokenness. The thing is, we cannot change someone’s heart, not with words or worry. Only God can do that. Prisons are full of people who will go back
to doing what they were doing before when they are released. They have been confined, but they have not
been changed.
“I [Jesus] will pray the
Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you
forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither
sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in
you.” – John 14:16-17
God, the Father, sent the Holy Spirit and sealed each Believer to
begin the heart change process. That
does not mean that we will always submit to the Spirit. Even though each one of us is a temple of the
Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16) we still want to open the doors that we shouldn’t. It is our struggle with our old nature. We still quench the Spirit’s influence. (1
Thessalonians 5:19) And so do the ones that we love. What they need in those times is to come
under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. We need to pray that the Spirit of God
will convict them of their sin and will draw them back to the Lord. And what do
we do? We love them without enabling them.
We pray for them in faith. Do our
hearts hurt, absolutely. But so does God’s.
That is why He sent Jesus. That
is why He sent a Helper. It is a
spiritual problem manifested in the natural.
“For though we walk in the
flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are
not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down
arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God,
bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.” – 2 Corinthians
10:3-5
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