You donât have to look for very long online to see arguments and discussions unfolding concerning one personâs sin on display in our society and the outrage therein. I usually try to keep quiet until Iâm no longer extremely irritated to respond. Iâm still irritated but at least Iâm not in such a violent mood. It is said, and truthfully so, that the most irritating and angering people in your lives are your family. for some reason people within your family can incite such rage and emotion with very little effort. We have to work very diligently to forgive and give grace to them meanwhile we could get robbed and beaten by strangers and easily be moved with compassion. Its a mystery to me why this is so.
Judging by otherâs behavior and words, I can only assume that many believers have lost their first love. Do you remember when you first fell in love with Jesus? The first time His presence showed up in your life and in your heart? Remember the way He could whisper softly to you and every ounce of pride and rebellion just crumbles to pieces immediately? I remember when I first fell in love with Him. I remember the things I would do because I was in love. I would read the bible expecting and anticipating Him speaking to me and the scriptures became a love letter, written obviously to many but somehow speaking to the heart of me, the individual. I found it impossible not to love people. I found myself smiling at people I didnât know, knowing instead that He loved them beyond description. Their sins did not offend, scare or deter me. I understood that we are all on our journey either in Him or to Him, escape is hopeless. Some were more bound in sin than others. This fact was never to have too much attention. I just loved them, hugged them, spoke encouragement and displayed the love of the Father.
âLove is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.â - 1 Cor 13:4-7
When I read 1 Corinthians 13, I canât help but to see the heart of the Father on display in the character of the believer. These characteristics are the description of the believer who is in love with Jesus. Only through lovesick devotion can we ever hope to prefer others, to not seek our own and to be kind. This wonderful passage should be daily reading and meditation for every believer, immature or mature, young or old.
Sadly, almost as soon as I turn on my computer and click on that browser, I come face to face with a group of people who believe that writing blogs that speak against certain people and their reality in this life, are helpful. I feel as though Job is coming to us asking us for relief, comfort and help. We are answering as foolish friends from a list of procedures and principles, calling our his past, his failures and doing anything but what we should and must do; ask the Father for his heart. Our Father in Heaven knows the answer to all things in all times. The fear that kept us from intimacy on the mountain is still in play even today.
âEventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacobâs well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, âPlease give me a drink.â He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, âYou are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?â
Jesus replied, âIf you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.â
âBut sir, you donât have a rope or a bucket,â she said, âand this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? And besides, do you think youâre greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?â
Jesus replied, âAnyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.â
âPlease, sir,â the woman said, âgive me this water! Then Iâll never be thirsty again, and I wonât have to come here to get water.â
âGo and get your husband,â Jesus told her.
âI donât have a husband,â the woman replied.
Jesus said, âYouâre right! You donât have a husbandâ for you have had five husbands, and you arenât even married to the man youâre living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!â
âSir,â the woman said, âyou must be a prophet. So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?â
Jesus replied, âBelieve me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is comingâindeed itâs here nowâwhen true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.â
The woman said, âI know the Messiah is comingâthe one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.â
Then Jesus told her, âI am the Messiah!â
Just then his disciples came back. They were shocked to find him talking to a woman, but none of them had the nerve to ask, âWhat do you want with her?â or âWhy are you talking to her?â The woman left her water jar beside the well and ran back to the village, telling everyone, âCome and see a man who told me everything I ever did! Could he possibly be the Messiah?â So the people came streaming from the village to see him.â John 4:5-30
When Jesus met the Samaritan women at the well, He did not condemn her lifestyle or speak bitterly against her for being with 5 different men. Instead we see Jesus using those hidden facts about her life to display His power and identity and then speaking to the deeper need within her. She was thirsty and He was the only drink she could have that would quench and satisfy her. He did not say go and sin no more, He didnât have to. He spoke to the underlying issue and the process of transformation began.
What I see is people speaking to the symptoms of sin and not to the underlying, deeper need of the human heart. Itâs easy to point at things we donât understand, sin or not, and shout scriptures from our far removed lives. Jesus is calling us to a deeper devotion to the people He has given us. He is calling us to walk with people through their issues and love them, remembering that they are His children and that He longs for reconciliation. Remembering always the day that we first fell in love with Him and who were on that day.
I thank God every day that He is the Savior that we need and not the one that we want. If we received the God that many of us want, a merciless destroyer of all imperfection, we would be in big trouble. The problem, of course, with any of these statements that Iâm making is that it will be perceived as not speaking against sin is what Iâm asking for. This couldnât be farther from the truth. You can speak to the sin in someoneâs life all you want but please speak to it as if you love them and as if you prefer them before yourself and as if you are not seeking your own. God has called us to be a righteous and spotless bride. This is not a demand from an angry God for perfect behavior but a promise that the Father Himself will perfect and transform us. This will happen easier and probably faster if we are obedient. If we are not, if we are a rebellious people who make bad choices over and over again, I would think that the church would not react in extreme criticism but respond gracefully like a brother and sister who understands we all fall short. My hope is that we will come alongside these to walk with them and love them into their breakthrough.
We have not been given the ministry of criticism but the ministry of reconciliation. No matter how much someoneâs choices, sin or not, healthy or not may offend and upset us, they are also His children and should be treated with honor and respect. They should be approached in love, again remembering the day we first fell hopelessly and endlessly in love with our Father in Heaven. He is the Father of us all, the perfect and those with messy issues, thank God.
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