What should we do if a fellow brother or sister in the Lord falls into sin? Should we ignore that person? NO! We should try to restore them back to intimate fellowship with the Lord. Galatians 6:1-4 teaches us that this is what “spiritual” people are to do. In fact it is our duty to bear one another’s burden in this matter. This does not mean we do not rebuke them or call them out in their sin, but we do all of that from a heart of love with restoration always being our goal.
There is a catch to this that verse 4 brings out. Before we do such restoring for believers that have been “caught” in a sin our lives must be right in our relationship with the Lord. This is what Paul means when he says, “but let each one examine his own work…”. This is what Jesus meant when He told us to take the plank out of our eye before we get the speck out of our brother’s (see. Matthew 7:5). When the plank is out, however, we need to get our brother’s speck out. It would be unloving to do anything else!
No comments:
Post a Comment