He ain't heavy, he's my brother...

Thinking of the words of this lovely song has helped me realised something that I must confess that I have failed to do several times over and most probably more out of ignorance and fear than purposefully.  What do you do when someone you know, a beloved brother/ sister in Christ or a family member or friend falls into sin?  What if it is so bad that they are living in it and appear to have given up on God?  What if you were the only one that knew?


Sometimes it is the most critical of us that ends up stumbling.  However Galatians 6:1-9 provides some pointers on this and funnily it is not addressed at fallen brother/sister as you might expect rather it is addressed at their restoration not the person.  Further it is directed at you and I (by this I mean we who have discovered such an issue with a brother/ sister).  It reads as follows:  "Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. ² Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. ³ If anyone thinks they are something when they are not, they deceive themselves. ⁴ Each one should test their own actions. Then they can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, ⁵ for each one should carry their own load. ⁶ Nevertheless, the one who receives instruction in the word should share all good things with their instructor.

 ⁷ Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. ⁸ Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. ⁹ Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. ¹⁰ Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."

Therefore in response to Galatians 6 there are a couple of things we need to know about...


... the stumbling believer...
After we are saved we are not free from the pitfalls of sin. 1 John1:8 says if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Verse 10 states that if we claim we have not sinned we make him out to be a liar and His word has no place in our lives.  James 3:2 reminds us that we all stumble in many ways.  If believers did not sin then the New Testament would be irrelevant.  The Devil goes about seeking who he may devour.  Sin is like a trap once you get in and not careful it entraps you and further consumes you.  Nobody gets up in the morning and decides to go out and lose their integrity on purpose.  So if you know of someone that has been caught up in a trespass, look to do what Jesus did with the woman that was brought to Him "caught in the very act" by restoring gently.


...the spiritual believer...
Verse 1 also refers to "you who live by the Spirit" - a believer living by the Spirit will exhibit some characteristics that will enable them (you and I) to be able restore our beloved brother/ sister.  Galatians 5:22, 23 addressed this earlier.  The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Being aware of the particular issue means that we have a responsibility to that person.  We are not to stand aside with a pretext and not get involved.  A classic modern day Christian (also something that I had sadly observed in myself) will respond with an attitude of "it is not my business" or to look at them and despise or condemn them in our hearts; and when they suffer for it say it serves them right or wish them bad.  These are wrong attitudes!  Neither are we to report them to the minister or church leadership or gossip about them or tell it to another Christian (often with the pretext of telling them so as to put it in prayer).  No we are to restore them gently and help them back onto the right path.


...the aim of restoration...
That is to restore in the spirit of gentleness.  This means that we are not to exploit the fallen brother, look down on them or bear judgement against them rather we should have tears running down our face understanding the heart of our Heavenly Father that does not want to see any of us fall away.  Tell him his fault face to face and privately. We are not aggravate his/ her grief, do not scold or condemn him/her instead lift him up and gently restore his faith, run up to him, reach out your hand and comfort him with the gospel and embrace him like a mother would a child.  Think of the joy of the father when his prodigal son returned home (Luke 15).  Think also towards the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves the 99 and risks himself to find the lost one and in the same way he rejoices on finding his lost sheep so heaven rejoices (Luke 15 1-7).  So as someone of whom a fellow believer's condition has been brought to your attention think of yourself as an instrument to be used by the Lord in restoring that brother back but in order to qualify as being such an instrument you yourself must be spiritual.  This is because you will be risking yourself to help pull out your fallen brother.  Romans 15:1 states that we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. We also ought to warn those that are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak and be patient with everyone (1 Thessalonians 5:14).  We also need to look into your own life too and we will touch on that in following paragraph.



... the attitude of restoration...
Watching ourselves and being careful not to please ourselves in the restoration process is extremely important.  We need to restore back our brother in consideration for ourselves lest we fall into the same temptation as we are putting ourselves at risk of it. Verse 3 in the Galatians text tells us not to think we are something when we are nothing.  1 Corinthians 10:12,13 also tells us to watch out if we think we are standing firm but also reminds us that no temptation or trial has seized us except what is common to man.  God being faithful will never let us be tempted or tried beyond what we can bear rather He has provided a way out of every temptation or trial that we face such that we can bear it.  Everybody is tempted, it is not a sin to be tempted but a sin to be yield to it. What comfort knowing though that when it comes God has provided a way out such that we do not need to yield to it. Thus in restoration we need to be careful if we think we are standing firm.  Do you know that it is when you think you could never do something that is when you open yourself up to the possibility of it?  Take for example Peter (Matthew 26:33-35) that was declaring his solidarity for Christ and ended up denying him three times that very night.  This is how the enemy works, he picks up on these things and works to make us unworthy servants of Christ and tries to instill a spirit that will make us give up and continue to dwell in sin. So in that light when you see a brother that has fallen, remember but for the grace of God that could be you.  In our  reaction we have the potential to break anybody's heart and the heart of God thus we should be vigilant and put on the whole armour of God.


...bearing one another's burdens...
 Verse 2 in Galatians 6 tells us to bear one another's burdens so as to fulfill the law of Christ.  Bearing a fallen brother's burden will relieve them of it.  The new testament shows how to be towards each other as believers by commanding one another, praying, loving, edifying, being hospitable and bearing each other's burdens.  However we also come across other verses in the scripture that asks us to cast our burdens upon the Lord such as Psalm 55:22 and 1Peter 5:7.  God does His work through people and we are doing God's work.  To do so in fulfilling the law of Christ would mean doing so in love. John 13:34 states " a new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another"  Galatians 5:14 confirms this by stating that the entire law is summed up in a single command of "love your neighbour as yourself".  if you love your neighbour as yourself you don't steal from him, betray him, gossip about him etc...   Further we should not think that we are above carrying people's burdens.  We should rather have genuine concern looking back to verse 3 how can you think yourself  something when you are not abiding in the law of Christ? We ought to test our actions verse 4 and check that we are not doing what we do out of selfish motives but does not mean taking it fully upon ourselves as verse 5 states that each should carry his own load.  Rather we are relieving the brother and helping them to gently restore their faith.
 Bearing each other's burdens is not easy and in every situation there is something we can do and it can help to focus on what we can do rather than what we can't do.  Prayerfully consider what you can do in each situation and approach sensitively.  Most importantly do not shoot the wounded because you can assured that the brother that has fallen into sin is hurting and most probably feels more at home in the dark places or with unbelievers due to the judgmental attitudes shown to them in church or among believers.  Remember God welcomes home anyone who would have Him.

Prayer

Mighty God thank you for the unbelievable love and care that you have for us.  Thank you that you do not turn us away as you are a faithful and loving father.  Forgive us for breaking hearts knowingly or unknowingly and help us to realise when we are doing this such that we do not turn a hurting brother or sister away.  Give us  a heart of love to welcome them back with open arms.  Teach us patience, humility, self-control and equip us with all the traits that we require in order to carry the burdens of a falling brother such that he may be fully restored and that we might rejoice with Heaven for the return of your children.  Help is oh Lord that we do not yield to temptation in the process.  We ask all these things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who died to set us free from the burden of sin.  Amen

With love...

Victor or victim... do you even know you are in a battle?

Today is remembrance Sunday and it makes me consider what it must have been like for those soldiers at war and how the outcome has led to the world in which we live in today.  In partcular recent wars and the terrorism of late. Spiritual warfare is kind of like terrorism because the demons that come to challenge us in their faith are not visible. We do not know who they are and how they come into our lives.  The Bible tells us in Ephesians 6:12 that we need to be aware that we are in a spiritual battle.  Further in 1Timothy 4:1 Paul states that The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.  In the Art of War (Sun Tzu), third chapter and 18th principle, states that-  “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you do not need to fear the result of a hundred battles.  If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.  If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” For this reason let’s talk about Satan because if we do not know our enemy we do not have much of a chance to be victorious over our enemy. 

Looking beyond people...

Our enemies are not human. We must see beyond the people attacking us.  Satan may use people to persecute us, use them to lie to us, cheat us or even kill us but our real enemy operates in an unseen world moving people like pawns on a chess board. So as long as we see people as enemies and wrestle against them we are spending our time in vain. When you focus on the people you lose sight of where the battle is being fought and if you continue to do that you will continue to lose the battle.
Dr David Jeremiah (Turning Points) highlights some verbs used in the Bible to describe the activities of Satan.  Satan beguiles, he seduces, he opposes, he deceives, he sows terror, he buffets,  he resists, he hinders, he tempts, he blasphemes and a whole lot more activities that are deceitful, divisive and destructive. Satan's activities are aimed at diminishing and defacing the glory of God; and the effectiveness of God's people.  So many of us today are being victimised by Satan's activities unaware that it is happening but aware that something is wrong.

Know your enemy...

Being aware of Satan as your enemy requires you knowing some key things about him to eneble you to fight against him:

• He is the father of lies (John 8:44), the great deceiver Revelations 12:9 states that he is the one who deceives the whole world.  Have you found yourself or others lying easily and even conversant in lies?  Such is the enemy he is constantly counterfeiting and camouflaging truths.  He imitates the work of God and doing so effectively as he is the great deceiver.

• His purpose is to divide and conquer.  When he was cast out of Heaven he divided the angels and took a third of them with him.  Several examples exist in the Bible of his divisive methods such as the instigation of the division between Cain and Abel,  Making Annanias choose between God and money.  In today’s world churches go through splits because he goes to church and he loves to divide the people of God.  If you find yourself in a relationship breakdown, step out of petty differences so that you do not play into his hands.  He uses the tongue of God’s people to poison the atmosphere of churches, work places, families and communities.  He has no concept of unity and his whole strategy is division.

• He is a great destroyer - in Revelations 9:11 both words Abbaddon and Appolyon mean destroyer.  In his attempt to destroy God’s work in the universe he will do anything to delay and demolish it.  To look at this further my brother once shared with me from his life application Bible to recognise that when God calls you to do something the devil usually steps in to make you firstly doubt God’s word, if you have cleared your doubts and accept what God was asking you to do then he brings in discouragement thereby making you think you cannot do it or are not good enough or fit for it.  After that he tries to distract or divert you to take you away from doing it, when you get over distraction & diversion he brings in a sense of defeat making you feel there is no point in doing the work then make you delay or procrastinate.  So you see he will do anything to destroy the work or direction that God has placed in your hands so do not look to your needs but look to obey the word of God and trust that when you seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness EVERYTHING else will be added onto you (Matthew 6:33) as God knows your needs even before you have asked it.

He has a plan for our life and that is to destroy us and our influence for God. For example when you hear of church leadership or fellow Christians caught up in immorality why do you think that is?  No one wakes up with a purpose to hurt their loved ones and destroy their family or communities they have built.  We can review what to do in such a situation in the next article.  However in answer to the preceding question Satan does so such that their influence is diminished and through that, dishonour God.  We need to pray that he has no influence on our lives because he comes to deceive, divide and destroy.

Know Satan’s strategies...

We need to know Satan’s strategies so that we do not lose any battles.  Some of his strategies include:

Indifference – a ruse he uses to make us think that he does not exist, that he is just a figment of older active imagination of dreamers, schemers, Hollywood writers...anyting but reality.  If he does not exist then we have no obligation to resist him or hold him accountable.  It is a great strategy for any enemy to convince the opponent that you are not real making the rival believe that you are incapable of bringing him any harm.  You see Satan can keep himself invisible because firstly he is a spirit being, secondly he clothes himself in the images of this world such as art, literarture, television programmes, education and entertainment.  2 Corinthians 11:14 tells us that he disguises himself as an angel of light. So just because we do not see him does not mean the effect of him and his demons are not present because they are. 1 John 5:19 reminds us that he has the world under his control and 1 Peter 5:8 states we need to be self controlled and alert as he prowls around looking for someone to devour.  If he goes to and fro (Job 1:7) about the earth looking for one to devour ask yourself how many times has he passed near you?  We battle against so many things that include principalities, powers, rulers etc... (Ephesians 6:12) it’s like swimming upstream against the tide and we can easily fall into his trap of indifference – which takes me to my first challenge on this article:

{Do you see the earth as a battleground (BG) or a playground (PG)?} and by this I mean: Are you fighting (BG) or frolicking (PG)?  Do you wake up everyday with the realisation that you are living in foreign land (BG) or are you at home on the earth (PG)? Do you live with expectation of eternity with God (BG) or is life as you want it now with little thought for the future (PG)? 

Do not lose sight of the fact that we are in a war and become indifferent to the enemy that is organised to the hilt and his demons cover the earth with their presence.

Another strategy he uses is ignorance – in Hosea 4:6 God says that my people perish for lack of knowledge.   He depends on our ignorance of his strategies – what goes on between heaven and earth for e.g. Daniel’s answer is a good indicator of this whereby the answer to Daniels prayers was delayed because the spiritual realm the archangel Michael was had to fight the enemy to come to him.  We do not know how he goes about his work due to a world we cannot see and he is effective because we are ignorant of how he works.

Satan also works by also infiltrating our lives.. Ephesians 4:27 warns us as children of light not to give the devil a foothold.  We give him a foothold by allowing things in our lives that should never be allowed even through the front door of our homes or our hearts.  Proverbs 6:27 states that can a man scoop fire upon his lap and his clothing not be scorched?  Your thought life, lifestyle choices, harbouring of sin, dabbling in dark practices such as astrology, fortune telling the odd lie here and there and guess what?  We wonder why we get burned!  Truth is none of us will wake up in the morning and decide we are going to hurt someone, particularly or dearly loved ones but have you found yourself consumed by a particular sin or situation that has left you wondering how did you get here and how did you wind up this way?  We have a ruthless enemy that opposes us and if we leave the devil with so much as a small nail in our house (life) he will return to hang his rotten garbage on it making it unfit for habitation.  So do not leave the door to your heart open-  Proverbs 4:23 warns us to guard our hearts above all else for it is well spring of life, everything we do flows from it.  So do not excuse or rationalise any failure to obey God in your life.  When it occurs confess it immediately and cleanse your own heart from sin by going to the Lord Jesus Christ and remember greater is He that is in you.

Intervention – is described in the dictionary as the interference of a state in the affairs of another state in order to compel it to do something that alters its condition.  Satan loves to interfere and does this with subtlety in the lives of Christians to make them do his will rather than that of God’s – by this he keeps God’s people so busy with the things of this world that they have no time to devote to their spiritual lives.  He discourages and defeats Christians from doing this by for example:
1.       Keeping us busy with nonessentials
2.       Tempting us to overspend and go into debt
3.       Making us work long hours to maintain empty lifestyles
4.       Discouraging us from spending family times for when homes disintegrate there is no refuge from work
5.       Over stimulating our minds with television and computers so we cannot hear God speaking to us
6.       Filling our coffee tables & bedside tables with newspapers & magazines so we’ve no time to read the Bible
7.       Flooding our mail with sweepstakes & promotion & get rich quick schemes to keep us chasing material things
8.       Putting glamorous models on TV & on magazine covers to keep us focused on outward appearenace that way we‘ll be dissatisfied with ourselves and our partners
9.       Making sure couples are too exhausted for physical intimacy that way we’ll be tempted to look elsewhere
10.   Emphasising Santa and the Easter bunny in order to divert us from the real meaning of these festivals.
11.   Involving us in good causes so we won’t have time for eternal causes
12.   Making us self-sufficient, keeping us busy working in our own strength so that we’ll never know the joy of God’s power working through us.

Dr David Jeremiah states  "have you figured out the difference between being busy and being successful in what God has called you to do?  Sometimes being BUSY is Being Under Satan’s Yoke!" 
If Satan can encourage us to get our lives so full of other things that we have no time for God, the ultimate end of it will not be fruitful.

Intimidation is also a strategy that he uses by making us afraid of him.  He is NOT the opposite of God.  His most likely opposite is the archangel Michael because he is a creature created by God and he is not in the same universe with the creator.  He cannot defeat us if we walk in the Spirit.  We need to respect him but not be afraid of him.  Albert Moller wrote “ We should respect the power of the devil & his demons but never fear them.  We do not need a rite of exorcism only the name of Jesus.  We are not given a priesthood of exorcists for every believer is armed with the full promise of the Gospel, united with Christ by faith and indwelt by the Holy Spirit… Everytime a believer shares the Gospel and declares the name of Jesus, the demons and the devil lose their power”.  Satan does not have freedom to do anything he wants – he is like a dog on a leash.  He cannot go beyond anything that God will allow him to do.  You need to be prepared for him, not be afraid of him. God only allows such freedom to Satan to help us learn to depend on Him (God) for victory in our lives 1John 3:8 sums it like this "The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work."

We need to be aware that we are on a battleground on this earth and 1 Corinthians 10:13 summarises this by reminding us that "No temptation or testing has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted or tested beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted  or tested, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."  So whatever you are facing today by the way of sin, trials, temptation, attacks and the likes remember who to call upon and exercise patience in all these things such that as you journey through the Refiner's fine you can come forth as gold and a true reflection of God's image.


Prayer
Thank you Father for the love you have for me.  You sent your son to die on the cross to free me from being a slave to sin but instead an heir of salvation. By this you have also given me the authority to trample upon Satan, his demons and overcome his devices through the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I therefore ask oh Lord that you forgive me where I have failed you and help me work on my fleshly desires and rebuke the enemy from all aspects of my life in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus I am a victor and not a victim! Amen.

With love...