Grace for the Broken

Grace for the Broken

I've been thinking about sin, more specifically, how we as Christ Followers are supposed to react to the sinful nature of our fellow Christians? How do we, as a Church, treat our fellow sinners? What does God ask of us? And how do we add up? I'm sure you've seen a well-meaning Christian, call out a fellow believer in their sin. Perhaps, like me, you been the one dolling out the judgment and condemnation in the name of sanctification. Perhaps, like me, you've justified your actions with saying that you’re just “looking out for them.” Or even that it’s your job as a Christian to point out the sins of your brothers and sisters in Christ? Or perhaps, you've been on the receiving end of a thorough condemnation.

As I've begin to study what the Bible teaches about rebuke, I am struck by how we, as Christ followers, are often leaving out some very important steps in Biblical rebuke. In those moments where I have rebuked unfairly, or in the devastating times where I have received or witnessed a harsh condemning rebuke; something has always been missing. In fact, I can count on a single hand the rebukes that I have received that lead to fruits of repentance, most have led to shame, embarrassment and seclusion. Most of the time we tend to give a lot of advice and condemnation, and rarely address the heart condition that lead to the sin, nor do we use the word of God to lead and teach a way out of the sin. 

 Sin is a symptom, and God is the great healer of the core disease.

Proverb 29:6 Describes sin as a snare, or a trap. Think about this for a second, you have a friend and this friend has been dealing with a really struggling time, after a few years of this you start to notice that this friend has developed a shackle on their leg. “Friend!” you say, “What is this shackle on your leg? How did it get there!? You need to take that off…..” you continue. “Friend, I love you, but I cannot continue to see you if you continue to carry this chain.” Then you leave, you offer no key to unlock it, nor do you stay and help your friend figure out how the shackle got there in the first place. You simply state the obvious, shame them for it and go on your merry way. I’m sure you see the ridiculousness of this kind of response. But how many times have you seen it echoed in a rebuke from Christian to Christian?

Look as this scenario: You have a friend, this friend has shared a bit with you over the years of her broken marriage, or wayward children, perhaps her sister or father passed away and she’s not “gotten over it.” You've noticed that she’s been a bit more sullen then normal and you start to feel concerned for her. So you pray for her and you start to feel that you should talk to her so you invite her for coffee. As you sit and chat, she mentions that she’s needs to refill her pain meds, and you notice that she smells of cigarette smoke. That’s funny, she never used to smell of smoke. Perhaps she laughs about the parties she’s been going to where she’s been drinking and chatting up some male colleges of hers, even though she is still married to her husband. Suddenly, you see it…. This woman is sinning, she walking the thin and treacherous road of the grey zone. You gather the courage to face her and tell her that you are concerned about her, you don’t like what she’s told you about the parties and she can’t quite point down why she needs those pills. So you tell her something like this. “Friend! You’re drinking and smoking and spending time with other men rather than your husband! That’s not ok, you shouldn't do that! You need to stop doing that!.” You watch as her face flushes and her guard raises, “I love you, but I can’t be around you until you stop. I’ll pray for you.” And with that you give her and awkward hug and walk away. Behind you is a lost opportunity. Like the person in the first story, you have failed to give your struggling friend the key, and left her just as trapped as she started.

But what if, instead of shaming her for her sin, you instead spoke the truth of the gospel over her. What if you spoke of how God has restored and redeemed your relationships, how he has been faithful to rescue you of your sins, of which you saw no way out. Perhaps, you could have taken the time to speak the truth of who she is in the eyes of Christ. That she has been made new! That God has given her a spirit of power and strength to overcome!  How God has not left her alone to fight her own battles but that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob has come with power and has given her the Holy Spirit to change her and that God desires to heal her brokenness if only she’d allow him! You see the Bible teaches us what the key to unlocking the chains of sin is, it is the Truth of the Gospel.

2 Tim 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

Heb 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Gal 6:1 “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”

2 Tim: 2 “Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching”

It is quite clear in scripture that we who are spiritually sound should rebuke our brothers and sisters, but it is equally clear as to how that should be done, in the spirit of gentleness, by the word of God, and with complete patience and in teaching.

My challenge to you and me today is to remember the grace that God has given us. When God called us he didn't shame us and point to our sins, we most likely were well aware of our sins. No, when God called me, he did so by offering me a way out. Total dependence on Jesus Christ. He called me by offering me freedom, the freedom that comes from allowing God to call the shots in my life. If I am to look at my fellow Christian and point them away from sin, then I must point them to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And I will do so with the same grace and compassion that God extends to me.

Marriage Isn't For You, And It's Not For Him Either

Marriage Isn't For You, And It's Not For Him Either

Social media has done it again!

Seth Adam Smith, has swept across social media with a post he’s called “marriage Isn't For You."
With all that wildfire, there have been some resounding YES’s and some heated NO’s!
 One of which was posted on the Huffington post by Wayne Self entitled
“Young Singles, Seth Adam Smith's "Marriage Advice Isn't for You”.

So what’s the heat all about?
Where do you stand?
What’s the big deal with Marriage anyways?

Well here’s my stance on the subject.
Both of these articles have interesting ideology, and both are greatly flawed.
Marriage from a Christian perspective, as opposed to Seth’s Mormon view and ‘Uncle Wayne’s’ liberal view on marriage, is that marriage is not about you……and it’s not about your spouse.

The Biblical view of Marriage is this:

It’s about Godliness.

The Bible has more than a few things to say about God’s design and purpose for marriage.
Starting with the burden of marriage and the great calling to remain celibate and unmarried.
If you can go through life without the burning desire of sexual intimacy, then you are better able to serve God if you are not burdened with marriage. ( 1 Corinthians 7:8-9)

Marriage is a burden.

It’s is important that we understand this.
We send young couples into a marriage with an ideology that, to quote the beetles:

 All you need is love

 Although love and passion are often at the forefront of our choice to marry, and are valuable traits to grow and cultivate in marriage, love is a choice we make that comes with a price.

For we know that choosing to love a spouse means that we choose to be kind, patient, to not be jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
When we choose love, we choose to not demand our own way.
We choose to not be irritable, and to not keep record of wrongs.
But instead we choose to rejoice in truth and to never give up or lose faith, we choose to be hopeful, and endure through every circumstance. (1 Cor 13:4-7)

That calling is more then we could ever actually do.

God knew that we are unable to have a healthy, thriving marriage without His work in our lives.
For who could possibly live out this description of love?

Jesus can, and he does.

This brings me to my second point:
 Godly marriage is a picture of our intimate relationship to the true bridegroom.

You see this marriage will only last in this life, we do not take it with us. (Matt 22:30)
We have not prepared our children enough with this important truth.
Marriage is not the purpose of our Christian life...

Serving God is.

Some of us will be called to serve God without being married, and some of us will choose to enter into a marriage covenant and serve God through it.

I am perplexed and frustrated by the lack of discussion, within the Christian church, about this!
 It seems to me that somewhere along the way we started shifting our focus from serving God to serving our spouse.
Paul makes it clear in his words to the Corinthian church, that THIS is the danger of getting married!
Your attention and devotion can be so easily divided!  (1 Cor. 7:32-35)
We should always bear in mind that we are first and foremost called to serve God, and secondly to serve our spouse.
As we serve our spouse we do so with the purpose of seeing them better able to serve God!
For the witness of a serving spouse is so strong that it can even bring the unsaved spouse to a place of redemption with Christ!

Because when we serve God, people are saved.

There is no other way, for the whole reason and purpose of God is this redemptive work.
When we submit our lives to God and serve Him first, the natural consequence is, lives around us are changed.

This is not to say that no one should marry.
 Paul says this so that we can have freedom to serve God best, knowing our weaknesses and strengths.
We as a society of Christians need to counteract the worldly view that there is something wrong with the unmarried.
Instead see that they are being called to a work for God that we as married people cannot do.
We must hold them in high esteem.

For the world will break them down.

We can hold them up and call out God’s work and purpose in their lives!

Paul describes a healthy marriage by calling husbands to love, as Christ has loved us.
To wash us in God’s word, to care for us. (Eph 5:25-30)
 JUST AS CHRIST HAS DONE FOR THE CHURCH.

Wives, we are called to submit to our husbands, AS THE CHURCH SUBMITS TO CHRIST.

Do you see the picture yet?

When our marriage is filled with two people who are actively serving God, then we serve our spouses by loving and submitting.
This is the picture of the true marriage that is coming.
Christ has come for his bride, the church.
Christ demonstrates his love for his bride by loving her, washing her in his words and providing for her.
Her, the churches, response is to submit to the authority of the one who loves her!

Have you swooned yet?

Can you get that picture and understand that our marriage on this earth is a metaphor for the relationship that we have with our Lord?
Do you see that this is only able to happen in a marriage where two people are actively serving God?

This is the perfect model, but the truth is.

We are not perfect. 

This kind of marriage is utterly romantic and filled with beauty.
But our real marriages are filled with hurt and pain.
How do we live out this kind of Godly marriage in the fallen and broken reality of our world?

By serving God first.

Your marriage and my marriage are not about us, and they are not about our spouse.
They are about our relationship with God.

Men, it’s hard to love an angry and bitter wife.
God wants you to submit to Him, to grow and cultivate a relationship with Jesus Christ and as you do so you will start to be transformed into the image of God and He alone will give you the strength and ability to lavish love on even an angry, critical and bitter wife.

Wives, it is hard to respect and submit to the authority of a harsh and cold husband.
 God has asked you to serve Him.
As you submit to the authority of Christ in your life, God will give you the strength and wisdom to show honor and submit to your husband.

Both husbands and wives are first and foremost called to serve God.
If your spouse is asking you to do anything that God has convicted you of, that you know to be sin, you are not to submit to him/her.
Instead submit to God.

If you are in an abusive relationship, you not alone.
God does not want you to stay in an abusive marriage, seek help.

I know that this post was long.

It is important to me that I share the Biblical view of marriage since I saw so many of my Christian friends respond to the other articles.
This post was not written by a woman who has been in this perfect marriage.
My marriage has been filled with pain and almost ended.
It was this change in my personal understanding of God’s purpose in marriage that changed my marriage. Life is not perfect, a broken marriage is the hardest and deepest pain I have ever experienced.
When I started to serve God above my marriage, I started to change.
That change in me, freed me up to serve my husband.
We have now been married over 9 years and our marriage continues to grow stronger as we each grow closer to God.

Where Do You Go From Here?

Lord, what would you have me say? I've been struggling lately, I feel like I'm not sure what to say. All around me people are hurting, struggling, dying. Every time I turn around another friend is watching a loved one fight for their life. The world feels awfully heavy. How do you respond in the midst of all this?  These are the questions I ponder today as I sit at my computer and reflect. As I think about all this I am reminded of a verse.

2nd Corinthians 4:7

7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 

We have a treasure in a jar of clay. And that treasure shows the all-surpassing power of God. The power that is so strong, powerful and un-containable that there is no mistake to all who see it, they will know that it is a power from God alone. It is this power at work inside us that, although we are being pressed from every angle, we are not crushed. Although we do not see what God is doing, we are not in despair. Although we feel the odds are stacked against us, we know we are not abandoned. Although the blows of this life throw us down we are not destroyed. But what is that treasure? What could possibly give me that kind of power? And do I truly understand the implications of what this verse is saying? If we back up a few verses we will see that this verse is speaking of the Gospel of Christ. Verse 6 tells us  "For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake." As we walk our Christian life, we will have hardships. If we are speaking the Gospel, then we will have persecution. But we have this knowledge that our life is not about us, our success in life is  not dependent on our stature in society. A successful life is not one marked with worldly treasures, it's doesn't often shimmer with gold and diamonds. No, we as Christ followers know that our reward is not here on this earth and it's not here in this life. Over and over again in scripture God speaks about how hard it is for those who have much to follow Christ. 

Mark 10:23-31

  Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God!” 24 This amazed them. But Jesus said again, “Dear children, it is very hard to enter the Kingdom of God. 25 In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!”

26 The disciples were astounded. “Then who in the world can be saved?” they asked.

27 Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God.”

28 Then Peter began to speak up. “We've given up everything to follow you,” he said.

29 “Yes,” Jesus replied, “and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property, for my sake and for the Good News, 30 will receive now in return a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and property—along with persecution. And in the world to come that person will have eternal life. 31 But many who are the greatest now will be least important then, and those who seem least important now will be the greatest then.

Now if your like me, when you read these verses you struggle with them. Maybe you skip over them, "Lord!" you may say, "I want to follow you, but I am afraid to live like that! How will I feed my family, how will I pay my bills? Don't those things matter too? How can I live like that? Give up my family? My children Lord?" Ah, but that is the beauty of the jars of clay. Jars of clay are common, they are plain and no one sees great value in them. But God says, I have greatness for you! Look at what Paul says after he calls you a plain jar. 

2 Corinthians 4:13-18

But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.” 14 We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. 15 All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.

16 That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 18 So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

We can take comfort and find strength in the fact that we know that there is a higher purpose. Greater then that, is this: We display the Glory of God when we suffer. The world sees our lowly state, and they see that we've suffered greatly and yet we have this all-surpassing power! A power that is so deep and strong, that you cannot see it without seeing the the Greatness of God! What can I say when I see the suffering that is going on all around me? When I hug the friend who is losing her mother, child or spouse? I can hold them in my arms and suffer with them, and I can stand back and watch as the power of Christ is displayed in them! And as I go through my own suffering, I am reminded that my reward is not here on earth. I would never want my glory to shine in place  of God, for He alone should be glorified. The cry of my heart, and the purpose of my life as a Christ follower, is to see Christ be made much of. I know that it will mean that I will suffer great loss in this life, I will rest in the knowledge that my God will never leave me, and that God has promised that I will not be destroyed, though physically my body may be destroyed, my life and it's worth is eternal. For my glory will be found in the Glory of God that will live on forever. 

Are you suffering? Is God challenging you to give up something in order to follow and live out the calling God has in your life? God has asked us all to do one thing, to go and make disciples. If you are being challenged in your heart right now, I would like to encourage you. Our God is faithful. He will never ask you to suffer alone. Press into God right now and allow Him to change you and rest in His power. You are not alone.