Most people are more aware of the absence of God than the presence of God. Most people are more aware of the presence of sin than evidences of grace. What a privilege and joy it is in pastoral ministry and small-group ministry to turn one’s attention to ways in which God is at work, because so often people are unaware of God’s work. And much of God’s work in our lives is quiet; it’s not “spectacular.” It’s rarely obvious to the individual, and normally it’s incremental and takes place over a lengthy period of time.
So, informed by Paul’s leadership I want to interact with everybody by identifying an evidence of grace, because if they are Christian I know God is at work in their lives. What a joy it is to discern where and how God is at work, draw people’s attention to it, and celebrate God’s grace in their lives! The fact that we get to do this—how cool is this?
And I also know this is critical preparation for any correction that genuinely needs to take place in their lives. Because identifying God’s work in their lives gives them faith for the correction they might be in need of, and they can consider that correction without collapsing under that correction being unaware that God is at work in their life.
See, Paul’s correction of the Corinthian church is effective because he has faith for this church. When we correct people, they can tell whether we have affection for them and faith for them. I sadly know what it’s like to correct somebody where I neither had affection for nor faith for—as if the correction alone was sufficient and most important. That is not true. This is not an expression of the character of God and that is not biblical leadership.
HT:Dani
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3 comments:
that's funny when I was in an sgm small group all we talked about was sin, and I'm not exaggerating. if we were depressed we didn't want to go, we said "i'm already depressed, let's skip whatever group (the name kept changing but 'activity' was always the same). not saying this to be critical, but with integrity, what c.j.'s teaching here is not really playing out very well. I think it's very difficult to teach people that they are terrible dirty rotten arrogant excuses for 'christians' and then expect them to be joyful expounders of grace. those are my thoughts, i'm sure many would disagree with them as well as my sporadic use of capitals.
oops i didn't realize my husband was commenting somewhere last, this is really julie.
julie ... aaron ... whoever you are ... I was thinking your point of "it's very difficult to teach people that they are terrible dirty rotten arrogant excuses for 'christians' and then expect them to be joyful expounders of grace" is what Mahaney is getting at. We must first teach that we are all that we are in Christ. If we think we can come into someone's life with confrontation first, that is wrong. If we think we can avoid confronting sin, challenging growth, etc., that is also wrong.
All of that is right to do but it must be done on a proper base. So I may be misunderstanding but I think you guys (and I) are aligned.
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