You Who are Spiritual

Galatians 6:1 ESV

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

An Exhortation

Brothers and sisters in Christ, fellow Christians, those of you who have died with Christ to sin and were raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer as slaves to sin, but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness, I have something to say to you. I have some encouraging words for you. And these words are going to be helpful to all of you.

If anyone of you is caught in any transgression, and thus one of you falls away from his pure relationship with Jesus Christ after he had been walking closely beside the Lord, and if that individual has now deviated from the truth to again follow after the lies, those of you who are walking closely beside the Lord in walks of holiness and righteousness should restore the brother or the sister who has fallen back into sin.

Those of you who are steadfast in your walks of faith should assist that fallen brother or sister back to good working order, spiritually speaking. You should make every effort possible to bring that fallen brother or sister in Christ back to his or her proper spiritual condition, to a walk of obedient faith in Jesus Christ and to living a holy and righteous life in the strength of the Lord, by God’s grace, and for the glory and praise of God.

But you should do so in a spirit (attitude, character) of gentleness or meekness, which is gentle strength (not too hard and not too lenient), which expresses power with reserve. Yet, this involves no compromise with truth nor with righteousness. For this does not involve coddling the sinner in his sin nor giving him a “pass” (an out). This engages tough love which speaks the truth in love and which insists on genuine repentance.

For we should follow the example of the apostles and what they taught in their letters to the churches. They gave the fallen Christians no easy out and no elongated chance to continue in their sin while they muddled their way through some program designed to help them overcome their sinful practices. Their solution was to “repent,” to turn from their sin, to stop sinning and to now obey the truth and to walk in holiness.

Warnings Included

And then there most always was a warning included that if they persisted in their sin, and if they continued in their sin, and if they did not repent, but they dragged their feet and so they did not obey the Lord, and that is where they landed, they should not expect that God was going to let them into his heaven, but they should anticipate that he will cast them out and that he will deny them since they denied him and refused to repent and to obey.

For you might recall that Jesus Christ was meek, but he was not weak when it came to the subject of sin and of our need to repent of our sin and to obey our Lord. Yet, far too many people today are coddling sinners, those who profess faith in Jesus Christ, in their sin, rather than insist on genuine repentance and on surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord, and on walks of genuine God-persuaded faith in Jesus Christ in holy and godly living.

But now when we attempt, under the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit, to bring a wandering brother or sister back from his sin into proper fellowship with Jesus Christ, we must guard our own hearts against the possibility that we might, too, be led into sin. Especially if the specific sin area is something we ourselves once struggled with in the past, trying to help someone out of the same sin could tempt us to return to that sin.

So, we should never get “high and mighty” and think that we have so arrived that we could never fall again. We all could! So we have to be prayed up and armored up with the armor of God, and we must walk in the wisdom and counsel of God in what we say and do, and we must not let our shields drop to the floor. We have to consider that we could fall, too, and so we must be very guarded to turn and walk away, if need be, so we don’t fall, too.

And going right along with that subject I will add here that men should counsel with men and women with women unless a man or a woman is attracted sexually to the same sex or unless the man or the woman trying to restore the other person is that person’s spouse or blood brother or sister or parent or child (son or daughter). For too many extramarital affairs have resulted from counseling sessions where a sexual attraction formed.

So, in all of this we must seek the counsel of the Lord and walk in wisdom and in discernment and be armored up spiritually so we do not fall to temptation to sin. And we must be ready and willing to walk away from any situation which has the potential of leading us back into sin or where we can see that the fallen sinner is not serious about having a true heart change and is just “playing games” and wasting our time.

And let me add one more word of caution here. Before you go confronting a brother or sister in Christ with his or her sin, make certain that person truly has committed sin and has truly fallen spiritually back into sin. Lots of damage can take place by falsely accusing people of wrong when they did no wrong, which usually happens when people judge other people by their own selves, or off the word of someone else, or by their own traditions.

[Matt 7:21-23; Matt 24:9-14; Lu 9:23-26; Rom 1:18-32; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14,24; Rom 12:1-2; Rom 13:11; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; 1 Co 1:18; 1 Co 15:1-2; 2 Tim 1:8-9; Heb 9:28; 1 Pet 1:5; Gal 5:16-21; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:5-17; 1 Pet 2:24; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; Heb 3:6,14-15; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15] 

Seek the Lord  

An Original Work / July 20, 2012

Based off Isaiah 55

“Come to Me all you who thirst; come to waters.

Listen to Me, and eat what’s good today,

And your soul will delight in richest of fare.

Give ear to Me, and you will live.

I have made an eternal covenant with you.

Wash in the blood of the Lamb.”

Seek the Lord while He may be found; call on Him. 

Let the wicked forsake his way, in truth.

Let him turn to the Lord, and he will receive mercy.

Freely, God pardons him.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways,”

declares the Lord, our God.

“My word that goes out of My mouth is truthful.

It will not return to Me unfulfilled.

My word will accomplish all that I desire,

And achieve the goal I intend.

You will go in joy and be led forth in peace.

The mountains will burst into song… before you, 

And all of the trees clap their hands.”

https://vimeo.com/379408296