How to be effective in encouragement or exhorting a mature christian.
It is hard to just give people the Word of God. They know it and somehow they have rationalized their situation as not really fitting into the boundaries of what the Word says. Yes, I know that sounds ridiculous, but think about it for a minute. How many people do you now that hear the Word of God all the time, they have walked with the Lord for years, and somehow they still do not choose the right thing. See, now you hear what I'm saying. It's not that God's word is ineffective, it's just that their hearts have become hardened. They have chosen disobedience for so long that they now have a hardened, often times dead heart, therefore causing their minds to be without any clarity for anything in their lives. Do you know anyone like that?
So what do we do, how do we help this kind of person.???
Try to find out why their hearts are wandering. What is the real root issue going on. Try to get them to a place of choosing prayer, Meditation with Jesus. Somehow they need to find that connection of abiding back with the One who loves them more then anything. Show them how to meditate on the scriptures. Get them to pray and meditate. This is a good place to start to begin to break down those walls they have build around their hearts. Please know that I am not saying not to give them scripture but the purpose of the scriptures needs to look different. they need to find themselves in the Lord. People often have way more Bible knowledge then they are apply - so what is the missing link? The bridge between knowledge and doing is meditation. This is a place God can work.
add some wisdom to this table - trying to figure it all out. Just tired of "mature" believers not choosing God.
4 comments:
Sharing our own struggles - past and present with overt and maybe some hidden disobedience has been a great place to start for me. It creates rapport at the beginning rather than a gap speaking, I've got my stuff so together now it's time we work on you..... But if you are already friends you may already have that going for you.
It's something I've been mulling over myself. The Word says that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So Scripture is telling us that hearing the Word of God is integral to building one's faith.
However, it also says that he who is often reproved but doesn't obey hardens his heart and that without remedy. So do we give out the Word if we think the person will not obey it? How do we determine when to give the Word and when not to?
Hmmm...well, when we think of Saul on the way to Damascus...he had the hardest of hearts, and yet God's words brought him to repentance in an single moment.
I think it comes down to listening to the Holy Spirit's leading. We really don't know someone's heart, but God does. Our job is to sow and water seeds and God's job is to give the increase. We really don't know the condition of the soil because we are looking at the outer man. God says He will be in charge of separating the sheep from the goats in the end.
One thing for sure, we need to pray that the person on the receiving end has "ears to hear what the Spirit is saying."
I love your heart, Susan. You are always willing to put yourself out there to stand for the truth!
cont'd
I agree that meditation is such important key to the Word of God! How do we really get Scripture hidden in our hearts without meditation?
So the question is...how do we get people to *want* to meditate upon the Word of God?
I don't think we can. It has to be a work of the Holy Spirit if it is truly going to bear fruit. No one comes to Jesus unless the Father He draws him. (John 6:44)
So repentance has to come first. Without repentance the person will not want to meditate upon the Word. Once someone turns from their sin and genuinely turns to God, then the Holy Spirit stirs in him/her the hunger for His Word (reading, mediating, obeying).
I have counseled women in the past to meditate upon God's Word, and they nod and agree but they don't follow through because they don't have the desire; they have not yet repented.
So we keep using the Sword of the Spirit (the Word of God), but we also remember that it is God who grants the repentance (2 Timothy 2:24-26).
I think that 'self' gets in the way. People have their own agendas, insecurities, carnality and pride that they put above obeying the Lord. I believe pride blinds people to their own faults and sin.
It is so easy for me to see this in others, but I pray that God reveals my own pride to me.
Love you Susan!
xoxo
Julie
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