The Relationship Restorer

How often we have disagreements with our brothers in Christ. We feel they didn't handle something properly. Or that they must have had an evil motive. Isn't it easy? It's as if we feel supernaturally gifted to spot the spiritual deficiencies in others. My wife would call it being the Self-Appointed, Assistant Holy Spirit.

It's so often quoted in the context of wedding ceremonies that it perhaps doesn't get the universal treatment it should, but consider the Great Love Chapter with regard to our recreational motive judging that we like to engage in: “[Love] does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:6-7: We have to get to the point where we begin with an assumption that our brothers in Christ do not have a bad motive underlying their actions (or inactions). We have to believe and hope that our brother is trying to work out his salvation in light of his fear of the Lord. We have to bear with him when he falls or says a sharp word.

When that desire wells up within us to judge our brother's motives or when get to the place where we don't want to be around that brother, we need to start by suspecting that something is, in fact, wrong...but that the wrong is in us. Are we really in the place where we can judge other's motives? We need to be suspicious of our own sinful hearts and give the benefit of the doubt to our brother. Paul doesn't say that he and his companions are the chief of sinners, but that he is. We need to assume the problem is with our hear, and love our brother in spite of his failures. Whether those failures be motives or deeds. Isn't that how Jesus treats us?

If we learn nothing from the cross, we learn that His blood has made us--who used to have nothing to do with one another--into a community, a family. Family loves one another, hopes and believes the best of one another, and tries to fix what's wrong with ourselves for the benefit of another. The sacrifice of Jesus not only restores our relationship with God, but gives us the basis for restoring our relationships with our brothers. How I pray that He will change my attitude to be, as C. J. Mahaney put it, more that I am "depraved than deprived."