Read something from another blogger the other day, (which I would link to but she has since deleted it) about sympathy sometimes crippling those who we are ministering to. The last thing people need sometimes is sympathy or mercy, sometimes what they need is a good, swift kick in the spiritual butt! now there is going to come a loud cry of, 'she's judging me!' I am tired, tired of those who would use my or God's mercy as a crutch or excuse for continued bad behaviour. The God I know is merciful, but there is coming a time when he will show himself to be a God of justice too. Hallelujah, bring it on Jesus, is my first response.
Don't get me wrong, I have a huge compassion for those who don't know Christ. I don't know how they get through life without Him and I would be the first to show mercy to those who have no understanding of His grace. But for those who know Him, i'm afraid my mercy is starting to wain.
Galations 6 says,
1My friends, you are spiritual. So if someone is trapped in sin, you should gently lead that person back to the right path. But watch out, and don't be tempted yourself. 2You obey the law of Christ when you offer each other a helping hand.
3If you think you are better than others, when you really aren't, you are wrong. 4Do your own work well, and then you will have something to be proud of. But don't compare yourself with others. 5We each must carry our own load.
6Share every good thing you have with anyone who teaches you what God has said.
7You cannot fool God, so don't make a fool of yourself! You will harvest what you plant. 8If you follow your selfish desires, you will harvest destruction, but if you follow the Spirit, you will harvest eternal life. 9Don't get tired of helping others. You will be rewarded when the time is right, if you don't give up. 10We should help people whenever we can, especially if they are followers of the Lord.
He is very clear in scripture about hardness of heart and the forsaking of His word, about ignoring the poor, the widow and the orphan. (When He speaks about those things I have always believed that he is talking about the spiritually poor, widowed and orphaned as well as those who are labeled by society as such, but that's another blog.)
There has been a huge compromise in christian leadership today. They have strayed away from His commandments and have lusted after what does not belong to them. A friend said to me the other day that 90% of the sins we face are sexual in origin. At the time I agreed, but I have been giving it a lot of thought. I think there is a deeper issue here. I believe it is an issue of compromise.
The pursuit of holiness and righteousness is difficult. We would like to believe that it is more difficult today than it ever has been but we are fooling ourselves. The pursuit has always been hard. The road is narrow. We get discouraged. We see those without god in their lives prosper and we seek to satisfy our own desires through compromise. We expect God to continue to be merciful to us in our compromise, and He is, it is part of His character. But I believe that there will come a day when He will no longer suspend His judgement of us. Those of us who know Him and have read His word will be judged with a more exacting measure.
This morning as I sat to spend time with Him He was very exacting with me and it was not long before His conviction pierced my heart as I recognized an area where I need His discipline. He does not let me go long without His correction in my life. I would not say that my heart is always as soft and malleable as I would like it to be, but I know that it is not hard either. I desire His correction because His ways are beautiful and I long to follow in His path.
It is surprising to me then when I see those who profess to know Him with obvious sin in their lives. How hard does a heart need to be in order to turn away from the Holy Spirits guidance? To be able to turn away from His holiness and the rightness of His paths? It troubles me and I honesty search and long for the answers. I have been caught up in sin before and I remember well how I justified my actions, how others warned me and how I turned a deaf ear to what they and He was saying to me. I remember how I loved my sin, it was wonderful. Until God could not protect me anymore from the consequences and released me to it. then the ugliness that had been there all along was readily apparent to me and I saw it all for what it was. The thing that cut the deepest though was the seperation from Gods' will and His path. His love never left and His salvation was mine but I was a sad example for His glory.
I have been tempted back to that road of sin, many times. Through the grace of God I have not gone back to it. I recognize where it all started and I know today it was the sin of compromise that led me down that dark place. I was deceived.
So we could look at our culture today and we could say that His laws are not practical in our modern day. That we must be open to a new application of His truths. That He would not want us to suffer hardship or lonliness or the burden of purity. The bible tells us that there is no sin that is uncommon to man. It's all been done before. There's nothing that He has not seen and nothing that He has not convicted us for in the past. We can look in His word and we will find all the situations of today. We just don't want to accept it (what He has said) because it means that we won't get what we want.
And that is exactly what He must deliver me from, getting what I want. Letting me compromise my faith so that I can have what I want instead of what He wants.
If it is a compromise of my faith for me to have what I want (or for you to have what you want) then let me have nothing. Only Him. And I pray that we would not be deceived.
4 comments:
thanks sue, for those wise words.
what words of wisdom... thank you
beautiful.
I think the word I am looking for is - Amen.
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