Judging? Warning? Over the Line?

Have you ever had to scold a child to keep them from doing something dangerous?

I have…..

I have been that child…..

Have you ever lost your cool when scolding that child? I mean have you gone from a simple stop to a freak out moment? Something like “What the _____ were you thinking have you COMPLETELY LOST your MIND? GET AWAY FROM THAT!!

Yeah….  I have….

I have been that child…..

I had interesting thought today about Christians,  sin and what we are supposed to be doing about it when we see it occur in others lives.

Hmmm Parallels……

What is interesting in today’s culture is that no one likes to have there sin pointed out (Actually I think that can be said for every person in every culture in every part of the world for the entirety of time) and because of that we throw around this whole “Don’t Judge” thing which is fine to an extent but completely incomplete and out of context.

I actually don’t think that the problem is judgment but rather that we have a freak out problem.

Don’t get me wrong we have some judgmental people who go way over the line but I think there are more that just don’t know how to handle the shock of someone doing something that will harm their spiritual life and freak out. Drinking, Sex outside of the confines of Marriage, Drug Use, Homosexuality, Adultery, Divorce all these are harmful to the spiritual life but none are the end of the world. Every last one of those sins can be moved on from. The question we have to ask ourselves is how do we help the healing.

Yes. I yelled and freaked out when my daughter got close to the hot burner.

No I did not start digging a grave for her when she touched the hot burner and burned her hand.

We have to assess first of all whether or not the person we are dealing with is a Christian or not. Let’s face it touching a hot burner is not a big deal if you are engulfed in flames yourself.

If we are dealing with a Christian then we need to approach the conversation as a warning in love as we would warn a child. If they don’t listen and they get burned then we need to be prepared to give help needed. Unfortunately the realization that harm has been done is not nearly as fast as the burner analogy but you get the idea.

Turning from sin isn’t about changing who we are….

God didn’t ask for that…..

We can’t change our self…We have to give up our self….

We lose it all and replace it with who God is….

Sometimes that hurts….

Sometimes we don’t get to do what we want….

But we have one less scar.