first post?
well welcome to the site, i think that i do represent many many people here who do welcome you and hope you find a happy home and place of rest here.
glad to meet you.
my name is Lee.
well i certainly do not have all the answers and verses that id like to about this one, but i do know maybe one little piece of this that i think is important.
though please dont misunderstand this, this is the not so loving looking side to this, and it isnt THE WHOLE TRUTH of the matter, but it is a vital principle to dealing with people in godly and mature manner.
so please dont take this to mean what im not intending it to.
the bible says there is a time when you must leave a person and go on with your life, IF they have become so hardened that they will not by anymeans hearken to the voice of God.
a person who truely rejects the truth and the Lord has to be left alone.
though most people do know the truth enough to have actually rejected it to this extent. it is rarely completely their fault for their sinful behavior.
it is, but they really dont know how to be set free.
"titus 3.10
a man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject"
im just wanting you to know there does come a time when you have to leave that person and go on with your life and not bother yourself with them anymore. though i dont know if ive ever met anyone like this.
ok enough of that. doing that should never be a pleasent or releiving experience.
i just thought of one more thing, and its the good part.
another thing i am learning is that unless you are talking to a man who is completely rebelling agaisnt the truth willfully you do not get harsh or hard with him, most people are not. most christians or whoever are genuinely good people who are under pressure but dont know how to cope so they strike out.
and you have to have understanding and most of all compassion for these people.
i dont think some people ought to be rebuking as much as they are, most people dont know enough to be rebuked.
2 timothy 2.24-26
and the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves: if God peradventure will give them repentence to the acknowledging of the truth. and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive of him at his will.
men of God out not fight and quarrel and push.
men of God must be gentle unto everyone.
able to teach and not just rebuke.
it says that your priority should be that they recover and be saved out of the snare of the devil they are in.
i know its corny, but it is true.
people dont care how much you know, untill they know how much you care.
even if a person is dead wrong, you have to humble yourself and serve them, love them, wash their feet.
and when the time comes and they open up to you becuase of the love youve shown, then you should speak when they able to recieve it and be healed, but if they will not receive it, your wasting your breath.
most people arent wrong becuase they chose to be.
and you have to understand this and take the position of healing them and restoring them and not just correcting them or proving they are wrong.
God doesnt want that person to die and go to hell for his sin, he wants to forgive that man and forget what hes done and see him saved.
and we must be the same way.
im just trying to somehow say,
unless you have something that will come to good to say, dont say anything at all.
becuase your only priority should be helping people, anyone can expose a sin, but whats it good for?
what to do with gossipers, ubelievers, liers, swearers, etc?
get a compassion in you that does not care what theyve done, but will do anything to see them changed and saved. learn to cry for a person who attacks you, becuase you want him to be saved, and not want to hurt him back.
"p.s.
(i know there is a time and a place to rebuke and correct. but not if they are not directly to blame and in utter rebbellion, and even if they are and you must rebuke them, you can only doit for the purpose of setting them free out of love and hope for them to saved, never to simply correct and expose. if our intention is to prove people wrong and retaliate we are wrong)"
im sorry if that was a bit drown out. i tried not to ramble.