This Day in History: 0000-05-22

May 22 – Galatians 6:1-3

Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important.

Do we take seriously the importance of living in community with other believers?  God designed His church with very specific guidelines about how we should relate to one another.  The way we love is supposed to stand out.  It’s supposed to be radically different from the rest of the world.  It’s supposed to draw them to Him.  It’s supposed to be a love that doesn’t just throw flowers and sunshine on every problem and ignore reality, but rather faces sin head-on, knowing that true love doesn’t leave people in the misery that results from sin.

We somehow know that if we were to walk past a loved-one sinking into a pit of quick-sand, love wouldn’t just leave them there.  Love would do everything it could to pull them out. To save their life.  Yet when we see a brother or sister sinking into a pit of sin we so often shrug our shoulders and convince ourselves that it’s none of our business. We fall victim to the lies of the enemy and fail to be obedient to Scripture.  And the world misses an opportunity to see Christ’s perfect love demonstrated through us.

So let’s decide right now to be different. Let’s decide to be obedient.  Let’s open our eyes and look for other believers who are sinking into the quicksand of sin.  Let’s grab a lifeline and throw it to them, being careful not to be pulled into that pit ourselves.  Let’s be sure to keep our feet planted firmly on the Solid Rock, and fight with every ounce of energy God gives us.  We’re sure to get dirty.  We’ll probably get some scrapes and bruises too.  But we’re all in this together, and we should be willing to suffer a little for each other.  After all, He was willing to suffer a whole lot for us!