"And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will." 2 Tim. 2:23-26.
The reality is people in general....and often times are deceived. This is huge because they often think that they are serving Him, but scripture says they are serving him. There are a lot of nuggets in the scripture above.... be careful not to be deceived; be on guard against satan; acknowledgement of sin is not enough when we are wrong- repentance is necessary. The jewel I find here today, however, is that when someone else is off, deceived or ignorant to the truth, we are to bring that person the truth. But how we bring it is key. First off we need to bring it without argument. The minute our help becomes an argument is the minute our help should be withdrawn. Teaching someone who is in deception requires gentleness and patience and humility. When we are able to bring help we can bring it with a hammer or we can bring it with gentleness and patience (maybe requiring several confrontations, meetings or calls). That is not what I want. What I want is, "you listen to me so we can move on past that." God is teaching us that His servant must be gentle, patient and humble. If that is the character of the servant of the Lord then two more things have to occur before our friends can receive personal victory or breakthrough. 1) The Lord "perhaps" may grant the repentance (and bring them to their senses) and 2) They can break out of the snare that the devil has them in.
All this helps me remember that I CAN'T SET PEOPLE FREE. Only God can (perhaps)...."if" they come to their senses. I don't have to fret or worry about being right, validated, or effective. I just have to bring the truth.....in gentleness, humility and patiently.
God help me!- Stu
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