In this life you can do almost anything that you want to do. You do not need to be a hardened criminal to know that if you do not get caught, there will be no repercussions. You are not required by any act of man to offer love, care, compassion and concern towards anyone or anything, but the question for us who have been born again is not whether or not we are to enact these traits within ourselves, but what if we do not.
“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” (1st John 4:16)
If this is the only verse that you adhere to, you do not fully comprehend who the Almighty is, and possibly have become part of the problem, the enabling society. How do we reveal those four traits, love, care, compassion and concern towards those that we are to apply 2nd John 1:10 to?
“If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed:”
If you would say by telling them about the salvation offered to them by grace through faith, then by default you must inform them of their need to repent, to cast the lifestyle they are living away. You must tell them they are sinners on their way to eternal damnation.
Almost immediately you will be hated, for they will not hear compassion, but unwarranted judgment. They will not view you as a caring person, but one that is attempting to make them change. Your supposed concern will be cast back in your face, for everything that you have told them, even though it is the truth, will not be seen by them as loving.
And so, many who profess to serve the Most High either remain silent, or only bring up those parts of the Scriptures that reveal the love of God, allowing those they speak to, to believe that His love is so outstretched, so all encompassing that no matter how they decide to live their lives, they will be accepted. And with these half-truths, these incomplete words of the way to salvation, those speaking will believe they have won another soul for the Lord, thereby easing their minds, and enabling them to believe the deceitfulness of their own hearts.
“Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” (Matt. 7:22)
I would like you to be aware of a truth here, one that falls right in line with the subject matter. There are two ways to train up both pets and children, the first must be used to its fullest possible extent. Love, care, compassion and concern. But if that does not reach them, then the other option will. Pain.
“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” (Heb. 12:6)
If you had a momentary thought, or even a lasting revulsion to that other option, to pain, then it is highly likely that you are part of the enabling society, and therefore the problem.
It does not matter who they are, if they are unrepentant then somewhere in the conversation they must be told that they are sinners in the eyes of the Almighty, that His wrath is abiding on them, and if they do not repent, they will die in their sins and be forever lost, eternally damned.
“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
Many of us, myself included, will do everything humanly possible to show compassion and concern to those we meet, revealing a caring heart because of the love that has been revealed to us from Christ, but we will fail at times to inflict those words that can have no other effect than to cause some form of pain. “You are a sinner in need of repentance.”
If you have been witnessing for any length of time, you know the response that you usually receive, but those rare moments of joy when one hears and obeys, are worth all the pain we received from those rejections.
