Loving Your Fellow Siblings in Christ

The Lord has been teaching me a whole lot lately.  It seems that when I turned 24 He looked at me and said, "Okay, Christy - this year, you're going to learn loads.  Can you handle it?"

I guess I have to say that, yes, I can... with His help.  How else could I handle it?

This one issue keeps coming back to me; making me wonder, making me ask questions, pray hard and determine the precious will of my Lord as best I can.

It is the issue that has been puzzling me for the past three years or so... the issue that some Christians believe needs to be treated as nothing wrong... believing Christians fornicating or committing adultery.

This is something very dear to my heart, as several of my nearest relations are doing these things while attending church and praying.  These are just a few of the things they tell me:

"Don't judge me!"

"Don't 'Bible-bash' me!"

"All sins are equal, so I know I am forgiven."

"Jesus made friends with prostitutes."

"You just hate me."

"What about you?  Don't you sin everyday?"

How is one to answer these things?  Such questions can appear very frightening and certainly make you think hard about what you know and feel to be right.  It is at this moment that I need to call on the Name of the Lord.  If my relation and I share the same God, surely He will work in and through us.  But in the meantime, how are we to treat such brethren?  Do we pretend it doesn't happen?  Do we embrace them as we do non-believers?  Are they really on the same level as those of us who believe in Christ?

St. Paul clearly states what we are to do in such cases.  I found that it is the only passage in the entire Bible where the issue of fornicating brothers and sisters in Him is ever addressed.

"I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat."*

After reading the context of the passage, one can see that Paul is speaking of a man desiring his father's wife.  But later, in verses 9 through 11 we find that he is speaking of fornication in general.  He even explains that we can't possibly separate ourselves from all sinners... just the Christian ones.  Is this really being a kind-hearted Christian?  What happens when we are looked upon as haters, and not the loving, merciful believers everyone thinks we are?

There are, of course, references on how to deal with conflicts between brothers.  One of those is Matthew chapter 18.  Jesus says that if a brother sins against you, you should go to him and tell him his fault (vs 15).  But if he doesn't want to listen, you should bring one or two others with you to confront him again (vs 16).  Then, if he still doesn't heed to the advice given, the whole church is to confront him.  Still, if he refuses to listen even to the church, "let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican" (vs 17).

When Jesus ate with sinners* He did so out of mercy and kindness to those who did not know Him as their God and Savior.  We embrace non-believers in the hope that they will yearn for His truth as much as we know and love It, not because we agree with what they are doing.  Just as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:21, we "cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils."

Which is it to be, then?  Will we heed the Lord's will for our lives and serve only Him?  Or, will we look the other way when someone we love dearly - who is a child of God by the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ - is clearly fornicating, committing adultery, serving idols, wanting something that is wrong, blasphemous, or being greedy of gain?

I believe that the Lord convicts whom He will convict; and He will teach those He will teach.  It is not our business to punish those in the wrong - it is only our business to obey His Word.  That does not mean that if we do not, we won't go to heaven.  But the Lord created a conscience in each of us for a special reason.  

I found a beautiful poem by a young woman named Susan Coolidge, written back in the early 20th century.  It speaks so clearly the words of my heart and how sadly we all feel about our fellow siblings in Christ.  May the Lord alone continue to guide our every action.

"We tell Thee of our care,

Of the sore burden, pressing day by day,

And in the light and pity of Thy face,

The burden melts away.

We breathe our secret wish,

The importunate longing which no man may see;

We ask it humbly, or, more restful still,
We leave it all to Thee."

1 Corinthians 5:9-11; Matthew 9:10