Proverbs 27:5 states that open rebuke is better than hidden love. Ideally; of course we should take a brother aside and express concern if it appears sin is having a negative affect on their witness. The opposite of confronting in love is likely gossip.
The world often looks for inconsistency in the lives of those proclaiming Christ. Thus; we may say that the first part of those who wish to undertake discipleship as a ministry is to have our own lives in order. Such actions early on in our walk should have given us sufficient experience with relationships that went south because we no longer wanted to go party with our friends and watch unseemly and unedifying programs on TV as two examples. As a test I recommend talking about the Lord; prayer and scripture reading with those who are in our local fellowship and after a few weeks see if we are invited out to eat after the service or to someone's house as much as we are used to. This is also part of discipline; we find out much of our time is spent alone if we sincerely want to be as iron sharpening iron ( Proverbs 27:17 interestingly in the same chapter as the previous quoted verse).
Such a challenge could easily be part of evangelism as well; since many will profess Christ. It may be easier; in fact to get through to someone outside their normal social circles where they don't have to keep up appearances.
I probably should have included this in my Gospel for Dummies post. Should we encourage NON believers to get away from sin when sharing the Gospel? The answer I would say is yes; albeit the principal thing is coming to Christ. Repentance MUST be preached however; the Spirit must move someone to desiring to follow God and grants repentance according to scripture ( Acts 5:31 and several other scriptures). Nonetheless certain sins in particular can kill us so we should warn people to flee fornication; for example.
Time is a big cost of discipleship and few spare it.
Proverbs 27:5 states that open rebuke is better than hidden love. Ideally; of course we should take a brother aside and express concern if it appears sin is having a negative affect on their witness. The opposite of confronting in love is likely gossip.
The world often looks for inconsistency in the lives of those proclaiming Christ. Thus; we may say that the first part of those who wish to undertake discipleship as a ministry is to have our own lives in order. Such actions early on in our walk should have given us sufficient experience with relationships that went south because we no longer wanted to go party with our friends and watch unseemly and unedifying programs on TV as two examples. As a test I recommend talking about the Lord; prayer and scripture reading with those who are in our local fellowship and after a few weeks see if we are invited out to eat after the service or to someone's house as much as we are used to. This is also part of discipline; we find out much of our time is spent alone if we sincerely want to be as iron sharpening iron ( Proverbs 27:17 interestingly in the same chapter as the previous quoted verse).
Such a challenge could easily be part of evangelism as well; since many will profess Christ. It may be easier; in fact to get through to someone outside their normal social circles where they don't have to keep up appearances.
I probably should have included this in my Gospel for Dummies post. Should we encourage NON believers to get away from sin when sharing the Gospel? The answer I would say is yes; albeit the principal thing is coming to Christ. Repentance MUST be preached however; the Spirit must move someone to desiring to follow God and grants repentance according to scripture ( Acts 5:31 and several other scriptures). Nonetheless certain sins in particular can kill us so we should warn people to flee fornication; for example.
Time is a big cost of discipleship and few spare it.
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