The Sinful One Another
Of course we all sin. Here I am talking about the believer who is living in sin and is seemingly unrepentant. We recognize this because she keeps doing the same sin over and over. Often these one anothers are very close to us and that is why it is so hard to love them day in and day out. Let me say up front, that if you are being abused by anyone, believer or not, remove yourself and those under your care immediately! You’re not loving them by staying in harm’s way. You will see what I mean shortly. Right now, get out and get help!
Along with abuse, there are many other painful, complicated, and damaging sinful behaviors that Satan wants to use to take everyone involved to a breaking point. At this breaking point, we not only stop loving one another, we stop loving and trusting God. This is Satan’s ultimate prize. We cannot let him have it!
This sinful one another may be your husband who continues to view pornography though he always vows to stop. It may be your child who continues to steal from you to support his drug and/or alcohol habit. It may be your daughter who is on live-in boyfriend number four. It may be your teenager who has decided it is easier to cheat to make it through school than it is to do the homework. It may be a sibling’s angry outbursts whenever you dare to disagree with her. Or it may be____________ you fill in the blank.
Whatever the sin, whoever the one another, however long it’s been going on, all you know is that you don’t know how to love them anymore. These are real, serious, and complicated one another living situations and I would not be so arrogant to think I could solve them in just a few pages. In fact, if I wrote a thousand volumes I would not be able to solve them. But I am confident Jesus can not only solve them but redeem them. My goal is to point you to His Words and solutions. He will help you with the day to day and moment by moment thoughts, decisions, and actions you need to make.
The first thing I believe we have to do for these habitual sinful one anothers is to pray for them and maybe not in the way you first think. Of course we want the sin to stop. Of course we want them to turn their lives around. But first and foremost, we must pray for them to want God more than their sin. This relieves us from the burden of figuring out if they are truly born-again or not. In this prayer, the question of salvation rests squarely with God where it belongs.
If they are believers, then God will deal with them as His children and do all that is necessary to bring them back in fellowship with Him. If they are not truly saved, then God will continue to call them to Himself. Neither of these processes will be easy on you, but your heavenly Father will sustain and empower you. That leads to the second prayer.
This prayer is for you personally and asks God to use you as He sees fit and to keep you out of the way as needed. We are usually more than willing for the “use me” part, but the “keep me out of the way part”…not so much. It is hard for us to fathom that God will have victory in the life of our one another without us, especially if that one another is our child. But for the eternal sake of our one another and for the sake of God’s glory, we must be willing to be used or to get step out of the way.
I believe most often these two prayers are answered with parameters for us and for our sinful one another. We must remember that Jesus didn’t just go around spreading a hippy kind of “all you need is love” gospel, giving license for people to do whatever they wanted. Jesus consistently taught about his parameters, not to earn our salvation, but to live out our salvation.
One Another Living 