Proverbs 28: 4 Those
who forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as keep the law contend with
them.
Leviticus 19:17 You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.
----- Anderson T. Graves II
Email us at hallmemorialcme1@aol.com
Friend Pastor Graves at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
541 Seibles Rd.,
Montgomery, AL 36116
Proverbs 28:4. We have to be careful with “positivity.” It’s naïve and dangerous to blindly support our
friends no matter what they decide to do.
I mean, a crowd standing behind you encouraging you to take the next step
in a life-changing decision you’ve made sounds like a good thing. But, what if you’re standing on a ledge and
you’ve decided to kill yourself?
As a Christian, I have to love you.
I have to forgive you when you wrong me. Jesus commands me to suppress
the impulse to judge the worth of your soul, to presume that I can tell the
what you will or won’t make of your potential.
What I don’t have to do is tell you that’s it’s O.K. when you do
something wrong. It isn’t. I am not supposed to praise you for the
strength of your commitment to sin. If
you are a skilled and bold criminal then I should respect your gifts and your
courage while simultaneously condemning the evil for which you employ your
gifts and courage.
And you must do the same for me. I
don’t get better when people enable my faults and encourage my character flaws
in the name of love or grace.
As a Christian, I am commanded to pursue perfection. Freakin’ PER-FEC-TION! (Matthew 5: 48)
It’s a high mark, and I’m faaarrr from it, but it is what it is. To get there I need help. To get there you need help. Helping one another grown in Chirst is sometimes
more complicated than just hollering, “Good job!”
Sometimes you have to argue with the ones you love. Paul argued with Peter (Galatians 2:
11). Jacob wrestled with God/ The Angel
of God (Genesis 32).
As the people of God’s kingdom we have to learn how to wrestle with one
another without drawing blades and devolving into civil war. Christians must be able to hold Christians
accountable, or the devil will have an ever longer list of hypocrites with whom
to misrepresent the Christ’s church to the world.
When we fail in this key aspect of Christian love, we become a nation of accomplices
to each other’s sins.
It’s not O.K. to say it’s O.K.
when it’s not O.K.
Leviticus 19:17 You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him.
----- Anderson T. Graves II
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is the pastor of Hall Memorial CME Church
Call/ fax: 334-288-0577Email us at hallmemorialcme1@aol.com
Friend Pastor Graves at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
If you want to be a blessing to
this ministry, contributions may be made by check or money order.
Mail all contributions to :
Hall Memorial CME Church541 Seibles Rd.,
Montgomery, AL 36116
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