It is a new week and we will proceed in our journey through Galatians. We are gradually drawing to the end of the epistle and we will now be dealing with some more practical implications of God’s grace in our lives.
This week we are at Galatians 6:
“Brethren, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently...” Galatians 6:1 New International Version
Permit me to chip in a thought before we consider this verse in particular. A number of Paul’s epistles follow the same pattern. The initial paragraphs set out to establish some wonderful realities while the latter parts of the epistles then draw on those realities to address the practicalities of appropriate Christian conduct in those assemblies.
Faith before conduct. Belief before practice. The state of mind before the manner of life. This is the sequence that Scriptures teach as the pattern to follow in addressing issues. Is there any issue about a particular believer’s conduct? The proper way to address it is to start from looking at what the person believes. Are you concerned about any issue in your own practice of life? Then you need to consider very closely what you really believe about the issue. My slogan for this is “sort the mind, sort the man”.
Back to our verse for the week, Apostle Paul continues describing the sort of attributes that should characterize people who have experienced the grace of God. At this point he is advocating for gentle and humble restoration of an erring brother or sister.
There was a time in the past when I thought the only thing that matters is simply the attempt at restoration no matter how it is done. There is no doubt that what the erring brother or sister needs is the restoration but the Holy Spirit admonishes us to do this in an attitude of humility.
I remember vividly specific episodes in which I tried to correct fellow believers without this humble, gentle attitude. The outcome was never what I intended. The other party only perceived pride and animosity in the rebuke. This is usually the case when correction is not carried out the way Scriptures teach it should be done.
Interestingly the word translated “restore” is used of a dislocated limb reduced to its place or of mending nets. Such is the tenderness and carefulness with which we should treat a brother in attempting to restore him to a better state in his Christianity. Unfortunately many times we literarily “kill” our wounded rather than restoring them. I have been at that stage before but I thank God He has opened my eyes and I am learning that grace teaches otherwise.
What God expects of us is a synthesis of grace of character and presentation to the truth one proclaims (1st Timothy 5:1 & 2, 2nd Timothy 2:24-26). The attitude really matters. In Paul’s letter to Titus he advocated the same sort of graceful attitude in our interactions with “all men” (Titus 3:2) and in the verses following that admonition he explained why that should be our approach: we are in a position to correct people simply because God’s grace has had an effect on our lives (Titus 3: 3-7).
Since we have been recipients and beneficiaries of God’s grace, we should also extend the same grace to our fellow believers. We must learn to actually “restore” with the appropriate grace attitude. That is grace in action.
My song for the week is "Good Good Father" by Chris Tomlin.
Have a nice day and a wonderful week friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment