Monthly Archive for May, 2000

The legalist goes along with Satan’s strategy of accusing our brethren (Revelation 12:10). The spiritual Christian is his brother’s keeper. There is no place for a hard heart toward someone who stumbles. Get under the load of someone who falls. Lift them up. Don’t kick them when they are down. Oh, may the church create an atmosphere of compassion and forbearance for those who fall in sin.

“We then who are strong ought to bear with the scruples of the weak, and not to please ourselves” (Romans 15:1).

The principle of grace has a practical outflow. We receive in grace and we give in grace. This is Christian fellowship. A Christian not connected to a local church knows nothing of this. They go it alone and they suffer alone. The Bible clearly indicates that believers join themselves to a body of believers who believe the Bible, share their faith and care for one another.

Legalists constantly overestimate their spiritual capital. They think they are beyond a fall. This is pride. People who have an overly good opinion of themselves are vulnerable to a fall. Once we lose the idea that our power is in Christ, we put ourselves at great risk.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

We cannot sit in judgment on those who are spiritually vulnerable because everyone is vulnerable to a fall. All of us need to throw ourselves on the power of Christ.

Christians should reconnoiter themselves. We must watch ourselves very carefully lest we fall into the sin from which we attempt to deliver others.

All of us stand on the slippery slope of temptations peculiar to us as individuals. Each of us is vulnerable to certain kinds of sins.

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us [these are sins that are peculiar to each individual], and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…” (Hebrews 12:1).

Fallen believers need mending, not tearing. They need restoration, not trampling. The objective is to restore them to an appropriate spiritual condition. We just go about the business of resetting broken spiritual bones.

“Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete [restore] in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21).

Instead of bringing fallen people back to fellowship, some churches drive them farther away. They put them out of church so they lose contact with spiritual Christians. Instead of giving them help, we kick people while they are down. We treat them worst than the lost – worse than dirt. The only time it is justified to put people out of church is where there is implacability to God’s authority (1 Corinthians 5:1f).

Do you take the responsibility to restore fallen believers back into fellowship? Many view this as an invasion of privacy but this is not a privacy issue when it comes to the family of God. Family members have the right to address concerns with one another.

Neither should a spiritual believer be overly sympathetic with a person out of fellowship. Empathy is one thing but sympathy is another. There is a delicate balance between being objectively critical on the one hand and overly subjectively sympathetic on the other. This is why God requires a spirit-filled believer to make these judgments.

If someone sins in an area where we are not weak, we might be tempted to be overly censorious with him or her. Some of us get a strange sense of elation by looking down our noses at a fallen believer because we have a particular strength in that area. They make us look good. In doing this, we make ourselves susceptible to our fallen nature because we are not alert to our own peculiar vulnerabilities. It makes us feel good that we have not committed this sin.

Pride always brings out the worst in other people. It challenges and sparks defensive pride in others. Some people provoke others to good works. Other people simply provoke others!

When we line ourselves with the Holy Spirit, we will not allow conceit to grip our hearts for it always exasperates others. We rasp others by our pride. We irk them. Some of us have a special gift with this. Some say the right thing at the wrong time or the wrong thing at the right time. They are born inside out.