March 21, 2006

Number12

TESTING OUR REFLEXES

The following is a test.  The question you are to answer is:  “How would you respond to the following situations?”

1.         You hear a rumor about a Christian brother.

2.         Someone at church on Sunday says something to you that could be taken as a hurtful, insulting remark.

3.         A friend in town tells you about some scandals in your church’s past.

Well, how did your reflexes check out?  Obviously, these are not just hypothetical situations because we have all encountered them!  Having noted how we tend to react to these circumstances, we now turn to the follow-up question:  “How should we respond?

God doesn’t want us to be naïve (Mt. 10:14), but He does call us to be trusting.  In a society where “inquiring minds want to know” and where we regularly see investigative reporters tearing into the motivations of every public personality, it is difficult to maintain Christian trust in dealing with our own spiritual family.  Let’s listen once more to the challenge of being a loving, trusting, forgiving community.

      Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you (Eph. 4:32).

      Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you (Col. 3:13).

      Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity (1 Tim. 5:1, 2).

      Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (1 Cor. 13:6, 7).

We are called to be family, and families don’t turn against one of their own at the least suggestion of wrongdoing.  “Where there is smoke there is fire” may be an accepted axiom of our day, but we know that the smoke we sometimes see is merely the exhaust of hell itself (James 3:6).