Today’s Devotional Written By A Devoted Woman, Wife, Mother and Mommy to Be: Mrs. Tracy A. Dixon
Judgment….Skating on Thin Ice
Galatians 6 (New Living Translation)
1 Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer[a] is overcome by some sin, you who are godly[b] should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. 2 Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. 3 If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.
Today’s message in the music comes from The Pretender’s hit song “It’s a Thin Line Between Love and Hate”. As a Christian it’s hard to draw the line of loving the person and hating the sin. The past few days I’ve been in a Facebook dialogue about whether it’s right or wrong to judge others and what criteria qualifies one to be a Christian.
I don’t believe that drinking, smoking, fornicating, or cursing disqualifies anyone from being a Christian, but being free of the above doesn’t make you one either. I do believe that for some God’s transformation happens instantly, but for the majority of us we are required to go through a process of turning from the sins of our B.C. (before Christ) days. The Bible says that we are to become new creations when we accept the Lord as our Savior. The very definition of the word Christian is to be Christ like. So unless we can find a scripture that says Jesus was a drinker, a smoker, a fornicator or a curser then we should be striving to turn from these things daily.
I believe the hardest part of being a Christian is coming into the full knowledge of God and understanding how great life is when you live for Him, and then seeing others living the life of sin you use to, and wanting them to have the peace of God that you now enjoy. It’s like telling your kids “hey I’ve touched the stove and trust me it’s hot”. You pray that they listen to you and follow your words and save themselves a lot of heart ache, time and scars. The problem comes though, when they decide to touch the stove anyway. That’s when the Christian in us should rise up and love them through the process of healing. Instead, too many of us condemn, look down, shake our hand or give up on them and they feel they have no choice but the world.
Today use your light to shine the love of Christ around you, and not to out shine anybody else. Celebrate your progress but never forget your process. God didn’t win us by beating us down; He won us by loving us through. If you’ve been saved for five years, no you shouldn’t still be battling with the sins of your first year. Don’t misuse God’s love, grace and mercy to stay where you’re at. Love Him enough to turn to Him, confide in Him, and trust Him to deliver you. Baby steps will get you there, but you have to keep walking.
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