Love Won A Long Time Ago (Part 3)

In part 1 and part 2 of this little mini-series, I was speaking about our relationships with fellows sinners inside the church. Others who, like us, have claimed the blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of our sin.

But how should we handle sin (and sinners) who are not fellow believers?

This is an area where, I feel, we often fail in amazingly catastrophic ways. Because you can’t try and get someone to turn from a specific sin in their life if they’re unwilling to recognize sin, in general, as a problem. Here again, I find myself returning to Matthew 22:39. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

If your neighbor isn’t a follower of Jesus, then the way we love them changes. We must stop and ask ourselves, “How did someone love me before I knew Christ?” The best way to love someone who doesn’t know Jesus is to tell them about Him. Not in a manner full of condemnation, but as one who has found the fire exit in a burning building and is lighting the way for others to escape as well. Be salt and light – through words and actions. And understand that salt isn’t always pleasant (rub it in a papercut sometime if you don’t know what I mean) – but it always purifies. Light will hurt the eyes of those accustomed to darkness. Don’t compromise the Truth – but allow the Truth to do the work. Because while we may sow and water the seeds of God’s Truth – it is God, and only God, who causes those seeds to take root and grow.

And in the meantime, pray. Pray that God would continue His work in you. That you would be faithful to your calling and that He would refine you into the woman or man that He’s designed you to be.

And never forget that love won long ago, on a hill far away, when the Son of God, made incarnate, fully God and fully man, willingly took on the sin of the world, endured death, and was raised again once for all so that you and I have the ability to choose reconciliation with our Creator, God the Father, who loved us enough to pursue us even in the depths of our sin.