Should you or God fight sin in others?
In Zechariah 9:8 and throughout the bible, notice that God kept saying: I will protect my people. I will stop the evil. I will bring disaster and punishment. It was God who did the judging and discipline. So are you and I suppose to stand up and speak up against those who sin?
Well, there are times when godly men were sent out to fight. Ecclesiastes states there is a time for war and a time for peace. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent. The new testament tells us to rebuke one another, but it also says to love our enemies. So what is the answer? Should we wait on the hand of God or take things into our own hands?
The bible is such a bright light to our path and we must know it and keep it's instructions in context. I think step one is to pray. Step two is to be slow to speak and slow to anger. Step three is love the sinner and ask yourself does their sin grieve you? We should not forget; our sin is not cleaner than theirs. We should take the log from our eye and not judge. And finally, sometimes we should speak up with the right biblical perspective and sometimes we leave it up to God and others to deal with. The discernment of what to do comes from prayer and God.
Does their sin anger you more than your own sin? If so watch out for the sin of pride. Do you want to restore them to God? If not you may not have the proper motive (love your enemy), Should hypocrisy anger you? It made Jesus very angry. Can sin affect the purity of others and even an entire church? It can if ignored. Has God assigned you to be the one to deal with it? Only God knows that. I do believe we have a right and responsibility to stand up and speak up, however we should love the person first, know the whole story prior to giving counsel and seek God's word as we share it in love, and be willing to walk the painful mile with them to reconcile them back to Christ. If they are unwilling, you must move on ...
Sometimes we act, and sometimes we don't and we allow God to be God.
Created 11 months ago
