Tough Love; real tough Love

Last night a group of us were taking a close look at 1 Corinthians. In chapter 5, Paul recommends taking a person with a hard heart and turn him over to the devil so he can get beat up and worked over. All this so he might be saved! Specifically Paul was talking about a man who continued to commit sexual sin and would not give it up.

1 Corinthians 5: 4When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, 5hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature[a] may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.

Now at first this seems contradictory to anything that has to do with God. The very idea: that you would turn someone over to Satan for their own good so that the end result is that the person would be saved!

So we were thinking how does this look in the real world of faith? Well, it came to mind that this is in actuality much like what Jesus describes in the parable of the lost son. The Father let the son go to “do his thing.” For the son’s own good, the father turned him loose on the world so that the evil in the world would beat him up and make him appreciate what he left behind. He let him hit rock bottom.

Often it’s only when we get to the end of ourselves, that we realize where God is supposed to be in our lives and what He can do for us. Again as in the previous post, there is purpose in the suffering if it glorifies God and brings us closer to Christ. We should not avoid it but instead work through it

The challenge for all of us is to be able to let go of the hard hearted believer. We have to remember, even if they are friend or family, that what they are doing will damage and destroy the bride of Christ, the church. It’s hard to just stand back and let them go into a season of deeper sin without rescuing them. But like the father with the prodigal son, we don’t take our eye off this individual we have cast out. Rather we wait for them to sink deep enough and become desperate enough that they hunger for the Lord more than the sinful nature. WE wait and watch expectantly and when they turn for home, then is when we “come a runnin”.”

I had a pastor once use the illustration of a life guard for another ministry situation, but it might work well here too: if you are trying to rescue someone and they continue to climb all over you dragging you down with them, you have dive deep, swim out and away, resurface, and wait for the drowning victim to become more cooperative.

So sometimes there may be an occasion when we have to put some distance between ourselves and another individual so that a change of heart can take place. It will be for the health of the church and the eventual salvation of the individual.

Tough love, real tough love.

Stay close to Jesus!

REG