By David ReayTuesday 4 Oct 2016LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
Read Galatians 6:1
1 Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. (NLT)
Some of us have as our great project in life the desire to help people become better people. Fair enough too. But two problems arise. One is that our idea of ‘better’ might not be God’s idea or their idea. Perhaps we are engaging in some sort of control exercise whereby we are trying to make that person the sort of person we reckon they should be.
The other problem is that we who are engaging on this project need some changing ourselves. It is disturbingly easy to focus on the faults of others and neglect our own. Or try to clean up the mess in others’ lives as a means of getting attention away from the mess in our own life.
Perhaps this is why Paul doesn’t just simply say we are to help one another stay on track. He insists that we are to be godly as we do so. Otherwise we risk going astray ourselves. Otherwise we will not have clarity of vision and discernment to truly help others.
Beware of getting angry at those who are not who they ought to be. After all, we ourselves are not yet who we ought to be. We love imperfect others with our own imperfect love.
Blessings
David Reay