Holy Spirit Deep Dive - Let the Spirit Convicting You to Know When To Accept, When to Love Yet Still Say Sin is Sin

 Read Romans 14:1-6 first if you can. We don’t often read Scripture first with these, so it’s a nice change, & goes perfectly with the lesson.

I had a really nice, gentle Golden Retriever for 14 years. I don’t have time for a dog now, but Max was so sweet and kind. Yet, I put him in a big cage (his “house”) if I had club at my house, since some kids were scared of dogs. They’d been so scared by big, angry, barking ones they didn’t feel safe around a kind, gentle one unless he was enclosed. (He went in there for clients, too, so he was used to it.)

Some are really bothered by things that are harmless because of what they went through once. Romans 14 isn’t just talking about physical weakness, but those who are bothered by the fact some meat, in those days, was offered to idols. In other words, pagan worshippers put it in front of a state of wood or stone & ask it to bless the food. The Bible says that meat was okay to eat since the idol isn’t real, but if a weaker believer would be tempted – or scared – by the idol, we shouldn’t tempt them to disobey their conscience.

I’m sure you see good applications even now. Like, some kids are allowed to read/ watch some things; others aren’t. If your friend isn’t allowed to watch X and you are, it’s not right to tempt them to disobey by making them watch X with you. (We shouldn’t make fun of them because of their homes, either.) Let’s go further, though – and I don’t just mean recall how easy replacing X was once you start learning algebra. 😊

That passage goes on to say some honor days (like Jesus’ birthday) and some don’t. What matters is if they are making that choice to honor God. That gets into how some things can scare others, and why we need to be understanding and caring.

Our small club now has 4 kids (with one friend) whose grandma/great aunt is part of a house church. She & her siblings are saved, but grew up in a severely strict home. They were made to treat Christmas and Easter not as happy times but as times of endless rituals, bowing to images and confessing sins to people while being told they might not be good enough anyway.

They are so thankful to know Jesus saved them and washed all their sin away. They can talk to Jesus directly, not through a mediator like they were forced to do as kids. He helps them to overcome sin by living in them. They know they’re going to Heaven. (1 John 5:13,Eph. 1:13-14, etc.) and nothing can separate them from His love and salvation.(Jude 24, Rom. 8:-36-39, etc.) But those holidays are traumatic because of memories of how they grew up with the good parts – honoring Jesus’ birthday, celebrating what He did for them – drowned out by the pagan parts some people bring in (not to mention the commercialism.) pagan rituals. They have nothing to do with those holidays, and neither do their families.

Thankfully they celebrate Jesus in other ways throughout the year. But you can see how some things can be scary for people, just like my dog was scary for some kids even though he wasn’t like those other dogs. This could be why my great grandpa never spoke of his childhood, too, except to praise Billy Sunday’s 1912 Canton revival (when he likely got saved). He never returned to the church he grew up in. He knew God loved him, but people failed, if it was like some back then maybe even shunning him for being lefthanded.

God brings good out of things, of course, even if it’s just so we can help others. Still, we need to be careful we don’t scare people away by accident.

Of course, we shouldn’t condone sin, either. But, remember what I shared before; we can still love the sinner but hate the sin. I treated someone in that situation, when I learned they'd gotten pregnant as a teen, with love, for instance, and simply asked if they were keeping the baby or giving her up for adoption. Then, when I learned they were keeping it, I prayed consistently for them. Just like Jsus would as a person. Shaming her would have risked turning her away from God. Even someone who is arrogant about their sin needs us to speak lovingly and point out, for instance, “That is a lie” without calling them names.

Usually, just talking kindly helps someone reveal things they might not have, or at least attitudes. A year earlier I saw her on visitation. I asked her and her younger sister if they knew Jesus as Saviour. She said “yeah” like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar before a meal. That’s when you know the person is saved but struggling. (I led her sister to Christ then, by the way.) If she hadn’t been saved she might have said “yes” real fast or avoided it; but the witness was in her and she hadn’t gone so far she was shutting God out. She is back in church & doing well but please pray for her and her little girl, almost 2.

Of course, God doesn’t mean for us to always be so weak we don’t know that it’s okay to eat meat sacrificed to idols. It’s one thing to be traumatized like the family I mentioned. It’s another to not try to grow spiritually. Those older women have asked God for help and they have grown to accept others more. It is just a “thorn in the flesh” like Paul had; he asked God to have it removed & God told him His (God’s) strength is made perfect in Paul’s weakness. (2 Cor. 12:6-7) But Paul overcame other things. 

So, if people give excuses like “so-called Bible believers said this mean thing.” Teach them what the Bible really says, how Jesus loves us. He just loves us so much He wants us to change and be more loving, gentle, merciful, etc., like Him while staying away from sin. In other words, He loves us too much to let us stay like we are.