BEWARE INFECTION

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted.

Galatians 6:1b

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

If you catch someone in sin and you are living by the Spirit, you are to restore them gently.

This was the command that the Apostle Paul issued to the Galatian Christians at the very beginning of the sixth chapter of his letter to them. It would have been easy for believers to condemn and judge the sinner but this wasn’t their place. They were sinners just as much as the transgressor they were to confront. Only God had the right to condemn and judge, and Jesus followers were to remember that they were squarely in the crosshairs of God’s wrath and punishment before they believed in His Son as Savior.

Indeed, God so loved the world that He surrendered and sacrificed His one and only Son so that whoever believed in Him would not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). In doing this, God restored the unsaved to a place of honor through His Son, making them co-heirs to His kingdom. Works weren’t required because it was a gift of His grace.

This is the same grace we are to extend as we restore sinners while being led by the Spirit. But note that there is a second part to the first verse of Galatians 6, a warning for Christians as they seek to minister to sinners.

Beware infection.

You see, Jesus believers, who chose to trade in their prior wickedness for the righteousness found in following Jesus while led by the Holy Spirit, were still sinners and vulnerable to temptation. If they got too integrated with the sinner they were restoring, they ran the risk of being infected by the transgressor and participate in their iniquities. Believers need to always remember that Satan is working overtime every day to influence Christians to fall back into their old self, the self that always sought to satisfy the desires of the flesh. Paul didn’t want this to happen to the Galatian believers and today, we continue to receive the caution through the words of the Apostle.

So in sum, we are to gently restore sinners while under the leading of the Holy Spirit but we do so with the full awareness that temptation could come knocking at our door, trying to draw us into wicked behavior.

Through Jesus, God has taken us away from the devil. Don’t allow the enemy to try and get you back.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

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