Isn't this our job as believers--to be church (and culture) cops and show everyone how it should be done, whatever the it of the moment might be?
Shouldn't we be preaching and reaching every moment to our fellow believers because, well, because the Bible says to straighten out each other?
Last night, with a group of moms as part of our church small group ministry, I was listening to our discussion of how we should balance loving and correcting other believers. I silently prayed for a phrase that might express a God viewpoint that could give us practical guidance.
This subject literally kills churches, friendships and the pursuit of God in onlooking unbelievers.
As weird as this sounds, these words seemed to come out without going through my thinking filter:
We don't have permission to correct each other based on what the Bible says.Wait, what?
We only have permission to correct when prompted by the Holy Spirit.Prompting from the Holy Spirit is driven by Him in the moment, not by our head knowledge of the Bible.
We fail to understand that our participation in God's version of loving others in and of itself drives people toward His change for them.
A moment of morality, delivered only with permission of the Holy Spirit, looks very different from uber Christian, do-it-because-the-Bible-says-so.
We can replace church cop morality with permission only to love. If and when it becomes ours to deliver, that morality moment will tenderly coach within our immersion of God-love for each other.
(Based in part on Reason I Kneel, by Jeff Helpman, pastor at The Grove Church.)
