June 25, 2007

  • The Church and I: One Strike and Home Run

    Update for last week's post: I really think the reason it is so hard to return from a serious bout of sin is threefold.

    (1) Sin does destroy us. Hypothetically, if I have, say, a relapse to an alcohol addiction that I had before I came to know the Lord, afterwards I will have to spend so much time and energy resisting the bottle that I might not be able to do many good works or take care of other problem issues in my life.

    (2) True restoration is not possible without your fellow Christians. Galatians 6:1 explains that the spiritual must help restore the person, gently. However, when someone usually messes up in a public way, we are not eager to once again return to them and embrace them.

    (3) True restoration means completely rejecting your sin. Taking the drinking addiction as an example, you may  say "Being drunk is against the Bible's teachings, and I repent and will attempt to avoid it in the future." But soon enough you'll be tempted again, and the devil or your own nature will point out that "Hey, that one time, it was cool" in an attempt to make you befriend your sin again. There are few of us who don't fall for this trick of weakening our defenses. And once we give in again, we tend to be chained worse than before, because past experiences tend to build on top of each other.

    However, master those three things and I think you can come back from that major sin episode. Of course, sin itself will be with us in some form as long as we are alive. But we need to break down the major strongholds of repeated, controlling sin in our lives. There cannot be any question of whether some sin in our lives controls us more than God does, or demands more of our time/energy than we give to God.

     

Comments (11)

  • very wise, very, very good points

  • If you can't rebound from sin, then what's the point of being a Christian?  If "sin destroys us" and will always have a stronghold in our lives, then is there a reason to cling to faith?  It seems to me that one would have to be greater than the other, and if you're a Christian, I would think that Jesus would always be stronger than sin.

    Concerning your second point, is it really necessary to have fellow Christians restore you?  Here's a bit of my life, laid bare.  My dad was a Music Minister until I was 12.  I was extremely active in church all the way through high school and served as a youth minister during 2 years of college.  I was in church, actively and genuinely fellowshipping with fellow church members for at least 21 years of my life.  Never, EVER in that entire time did a fellow believer actually help restore me.  Judge me?  Plenty.  Condemn me?  Yes.  But "gently restore"?  Hell no.  Never once.  You must go to some Utopian church or something, because every church I've ever been in (and I've been in many) have never been into "gently restoring."  If it were up to my fellow believers, I'd be hopeless. 

    Oh wait.  According to fellow believers, I already am...

  • when did you get to be so smart? ;) And how is it that all this is so reassuring and depressing at the same time?

  • I think the best way to deal with sin is to not make a big deal out of it. You sinned this morning? Pray and read your Bible this afternoon anyway. A lot of times I think sin will result in not doing those things anymore. Once you see that God doesn't reject sinners and immoral people that go to Him, sin loses a lot of its power over you.

  • rockininkslinger...that is terribly unfortunate...but what I think you ran into was high school Christians which while its good and all, they do not typically fully grasp onto what God wants us to look like. I have seen the restoring powers of a group of men coming behind one of their fallen friends and its very powerful and strong. I guess it comes down to who you associated with there and how real the friendships were. If I told my friends I failed in some major lifechanging way right now, I know for a fact they would rally beside me and help me overcome my shortcoming. Then again, I have a pretty sweet group of friends...I am very selective though!

  • Rockininkslinger, you have a good point on the sin issue. I am being a bit of a gloomy Gus on the topic. But remember, I'm not just talking about ordinary sin; what I'm talking about is a Christian, with full knowledge of God and the Bible, intentionally rebelling against that and willfully sinning for a decent period of time. Still, I am a little too pessimistic, you're right.

    As for being gently restored...I am working with a Christian friend right now who got addicted to drugs and then managed to quit. Through his experience, yes, I am finding out that few of his fellow Christians are good at restoring people gently, ha. Yes, there is a lack of it in the church at times, because we lack a sense of community. But also...not every church with a cross on its wall has Jesus in it, you know? I'm sorry that you may have found the ones without Him inside.

  • You know, I cannot say that I fully trust that if I were to find myself deeply entrenched in sin at some point, that I would look around and find my brothers and sisters working hard to get me out of that trench!

    But, because I know that is what God has called the church to do (get in the trenches with each other), I choose to be the friend I want others to be to me. I choose to get in the trenches and help to gently restore, even if the favor is never returned. Who knows when my time may come, and I may need great grace from the family...but for now, I will offer great grace to the family.

    I have 4 close friends who have recently dove head first into sin that, frankly, I never imagined any of them diving toward. Anyway, 2 of them have responded and are clinging to God and fellow believers to dig out. The other two refuse to even hear a word we say...but fear not, we are still obnoxiously loving them. So whenever they feel like digging out, we've got the shovels all ready to go.

  • aliveuntouchable, see my comment; I was being a bit too pessimistic on (1). I still agree with what I said in (2) and (3), though. In the everyday, so right; the worst thing about sin is it separates us from God. Oh, sure, it's terrible if I steal from my neighbor, but even worse is that it makes me too ashamed/proud to speak to God as I should. Trevor77, you are laying the foundation nicely for my next post about the failings of men, ha, which comes out on Wednesday.

  • Good dialogue with your posts, as usual.  Do you set deadlines for yourself for your posts?  I'm not laughing, just wondering. 

  • Hey, i think actually you're kind of soft on 1.

    Sin does destroy us, it destroys our Spirit Man. It brings death. (for the wages of sin is death, you know?)

    But the victory comes in realizing that our sin was already paid for, by our beautiful Savior Jesus.

    But He's gotta be LORD, too! That's when the change comes, and we stop dabbling in the same sins. we stop trying to manage our sin and repent. Repentance, i think is standing at the same place with God and agreeing that whatever it is, is not what you want. That you hate the things that GOD hates and LOVE the things He loves.

    the fellowship of others certainly does help, but the gentle part is always difficult. It's like trying to reset a bone, gently, it's still very painful. but the end result is a straight bone.

    :)

  • All I can say on the subject is this:  After falling pret-ty hard and losing myself in a not-so-uplifting lifestyle, God and God alone was able to pull me out of it.  Then he led me to a church where I wouldn't be judged for the things I did, and where I made some close friends who were there for prayer, comfort, etc.  But I have to agree with rockininkslinger that most of the restoration was done by God.. with help from a few close friends, a box of three-ply and some ice cream.

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