CHRISTLIKE LOVE WILL HELP THEM FIND THEIR WAY BACK

​How do we help Christians who have lost their way?  How does a person go from knowing that a serious action is wrong to justifying that action? For e.g.  How does a person go from saying “I’d never commit adultery”, to regularly committing adultery?  What has happened to change their convictions to the complete opposite when at the beginning they were staunchly opposed to the opposite?   If someone was to go up to a newlywed and tempt them to commit adultery, that newlywed would say:  “Are you out of your mind?  Go away!  You are trying to destroy my marriage!” They see the end result very clearly.  And yet, many married couples begin completely devoted to each other and end up falling in this area and their marriages are destroyed.  How did they go from devotion to deceit with their mate?  There are many reasons to be sure. Often people are angry with God over negative circumstances he's allowed to pass through their lives and they let go of what pleases God to now please themselves. They feel justified to do so because "God let it happen so now he owes me".  This is another ploy of Satan. God’s word says that Satan is a liar; in fact, Jesus said that lying is his native language.  This is how Satan destroys lives; he gets people to believe his lies in a subtle subverted manner, a little at a time. Satan is the master of all lies and tempts us to justify each and every small sinful decision along a route that ends in destruction.  The Bible is full of examples, and it all began in the Garden of Eden when the serpent asked Eve:  “Did God really say that you would die if you ate from the tree?  God would not really destroy you; He just knows that if you eat from it, you’ll be as wise as He is, and He’s keeping you from this good gift.”  (My paraphrase)  Now, Eve became deceived because she chose to believe something that she wanted.  Whether it was wrong or not, became secondary.  No one who starts off with a moral compass that is in good working order makes a conscious decision to destroy their lives.  It is our fallen nature coupled with Satan working behind the scenes whispering thoughts and ideas that greatly appeal to our sinful fallen nature that we listen to and obey, when we should be kicking his butt out of our heads. 
 
So how do we help Christians that have ended up in the ditch off the highway of God’s best for them?  How do we help them find their way back? Let’s begin with the wrong way.  When we have not lost our way and our friend has, we usually feel we need to bring correction and simply tell them that they’re wrong according to the Bible; that they’re sinning; that they’re hurting people.  But here’s the thing:  They’ve already gone through an entire series of decisions that have excused or justified their behavior in getting to where they are.  To tell them that they’re violating vows or disobeying God is something they’ve already cleared in their heart.  They know that what they’ve done or are doing is wrong, so telling them they’re wrong is often like closing the barn door after the horse has already left the corral.  We are stating the obvious.

What we need to do, is to love them back onto the right road, not smack them over the head with a Bible.  In fact, I’ve never heard of anyone coming back to right behavior by being hit over the head with a Bible in a judgmental fashion.  People who love their Lord and have lost their way first need an arm to come around them to show them unconditional love like Jesus loves all of us. We all mess up after all. This isn’t saying we’re condoning their actions. It’s saying we care about them despite their actions. When a believer has lost their way the first thing a true friend should do is to begin with prayer, push and not quit. Not push with judgment, but “pray until something happens” and not quit. Ask Jesus for wisdom in our responses. We are unable to break deception off people; only Jesus can do that.  He does however need a mouth-piece to guide them back through a process of talking with them with the voice, tone, heart and truth of the Lord to undo the deceit the enemy has bound them all up in.  This takes time and effort. You may have to wait some time before that happens but in the meantime you need to continue to love them back on to the highway.  

The reason that judgment is so damaging is it often drives the wounded one to justify their sinful actions and they harden their heart even more to the voice of the Lord. This is where the saying:  “Why do Christians shoot their wounded?” comes from. How is the Lord able to minister to them if not through their family and friends? Who can they turn to if those lifelines are cut? Jesus is our example and he always brought uncompromising correction, but through love.  The only ones he blasted were the judgmental religious community who thought they were so spiritual, when inside they were full of corruption.  Jesus always showed love, mercy and compassion to those whose moral compass was way off, like the woman caught in adultery, or Levi the Jewish Tax Collector who was hated by his peers.  These two were lost in their sins, but Christ gently forgave the woman and told her to sin no more, and invited himself to Levi’s house to have dinner with him, because Jesus knew that bringing Levi to the point of repentance would require hanging out with him for a bit.  Levi not only repented, but gave back 3 times as much as he’d overcharged his fellow man in taxes, and ended up writing the first book of the New Testament! Exposure to the true love of Jesus Christ makes people want to change.
 
What an example for us to follow.  If someone we know has fallen down, our job is to gently help them up and get them back on track no matter how many times they’ve fallen, and how many times we need to help them get up until they are rescued to wholeness. This my dear readers, is Christlike love.

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