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We’re working our way through the topic: How do you restore someone who has stumbled?

A few years ago a private detective was hired to search for a homeless man. The homeless man didn’t know it, but he was actually wealthy. His brother had died, and left his entire fortune to this homeless man.

Here’s what jumps out at me from this story: We act from our identity. Who we think we are determines how we experience life. If we understand ourselves to be homeless, we might—depending on our support system—sleep in the streets and eat our meals from garbage dumpsters. If we are wealthy, and we understand ourselves to be wealthy, we dine on the finest foods. We don’t eat from the garbage bin.

This is pivotal. This changes everything. If we are going to restore other people, we need to understand this.

When we know who we are, we lose our desire to eat from the garbage dumpster of sin. The rich inner wealth that Jesus provides (John 10:10) means that we get what we need from a much better source.

But if we don’t know how to tap into that rich inner wealth, we become like that homeless man who didn’t know he was rich. We find our meals in the garbage dumpster of sin.

If we are going to restore those who stumble, we need to find a way to help them tap into the rich inner wealth that Jesus provides. How do we do that?

More next time…

This entire series is available as a pdf document here…

We’re working our way through the topic: How do you restore someone who has stumbled?

I want to share a Bible passage with you, and then ask you a question. Here’s the passage:

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
John 8:1-11 NLT

Here’s my question: How and why did this woman change as a result of this incident?

Think about it. More next time.

This entire series is available as a pdf document here.

In Galatians 6:1 (NLT), we read, “Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself.”

How do you do that? How do you restore someone?

Let me begin by identifying something that doesn’t work:

anger

I say this because years ago I discovered that a dear sister in the Lord had a problem with alcohol—a serious problem with alcohol. I was shocked. I was angry. I hated seeing what alcohol was doing to this person. It was destroying her life. I was angry—not so much at her, but at this thing that was tearing her life to pieces.

I was angry; she knew it; I made no attempt to hide it.

Do you know how she responded to my “righteous” anger?

She drank more. She got drunk more often. More than once, I had to call 911 because she was so drunk I didn’t think she would survive. I took her to the emergency room. I took her to detox. Horrible things happened in her life because of alcohol. I begged her to get help, but she refused. I spent hours and hours trying to help her, and I was rewarded with a string of profanities, and a request that I get out of her life.

Thank God I’m married to someone who has much more sense than I do because Kim took a very different tack. She listened. She empathized. She cared.

As I started learning from my wife, I gradually started changing my approach. One day Kim and I were sitting in this person’s living room, and she confessed to us, “I messed up.” She explained how she went on a binge the day before, and ended up horribly drunk.

“It’s okay,” I heard myself saying. “We all do crazy things sometimes.”

I don’t know if I can explain to you what happened at that moment, but something changed. We weren’t enemies any more. I felt that our relationship mended, that we were all now on the same team.

And I noticed that the more I took Kim’s approach, the more the drinking faded into the background. It didn’t disappear altogether, but it got much better.

I’d like to take a couple posts and talk about what it means to restore someone who has been overcome by a sin.

If you have any thought, comments, questions, please chime in.

What would your world look like if you could create it any way you want it? What would you have? Who would be in it? What would you do? And what would you be? I believe God gives us a certain amount of freedom to create our own world in partnership with Him. Some things we have control over; some things we don’t. With that in mind, here’s what’s on my list…

I want my wife to be healthy, happy, much loved. I want my kids to live beautiful, heaven-bound lives, fulfilling their potential, making their mark, loving and being loved.

Kim and I have a vision for the kind of home we want to live in for the rest of our lives. We don’t yet have the money to build it, but we want to find a way to make it possible.

I want the stuff I write about and talk about to reach the people it’s designed to help. That’s part of the reason I’ve created a web page of free giveaways. (It’s here.) I have thousands of pages of good stuff that I want to get into the hands of people who can use it. So finding a way to connect what I have to offer with the people who need it is a big, big priority for me.

How about you? What’s on your list?

Being a good man, Joseph didn’t want to publicly disgrace Mary, so he was pondering how to break things off quietly. Matthew 1:19 DCP

As we unwrap the package of life, sometimes we panic, look for the receipt, and try to find a way to take it back to the store for refund or exchange.

Let’s face it: Sometimes God’s will doesn’t make any sense to us. We want smooth waters, but God sends a storm. Joseph was bewildered. He felt betrayed. His world was crashing down, and he was looking for a way out.

But we need to keep in mind that God’s will takes into account all the elements, even our bewilderment. Joseph here had the good sense not to make a public scene, and, in so doing, he left room for God to work.

God sees your confusion and mine. He knows that His ways often make no sense to us. Let the plan of God unfold—there is more to come, and it will all make sense in the end.

This is an excerpt from my latest book, A Beautiful Christmas. There’s a video that goes with the book that I think you’ll love. (Scroll down when you get to the page.)

When I was a boy, I was enthralled by the bubble lights on our family’s Christmas tree. They were shaped like candles, with some sort of bubbling substance—alcohol perhaps—inside, boiling from the heat of the light bulb. I don’t think you can buy them any more—at least I wasn’t able to find them for over thirty years. I imagine they were probably a fire hazard.

Too bad.

I always wanted to share them with my children before they grew too old to appreciate something like that.

There are many things that only children understand. One day when my children were young, we were sitting on the edge of a slightly raised platform at church. No one else was around, so we took off our shoes and counted all our fingers and toes.

Adults understand that almost everybody has ten fingers and ten toes. But children understand the wonder of making that discovery.

Innocence. Discovery. Wonder. These are precious things.

It is no coincidence that I lingered so long by the Christmas tree when I was a child. For the only heart that is really ready to receive the Christmas Child is the heart full of wonder.

To me this is precious: that God has little time for our jaded sophistication, but has open arms for our wide-eyed wonder.

Enjoy this season of wonder and awe!

This is an excerpt from my latest book, A Beautiful Christmas. There’s a video that goes with the book that I think you’ll love. (Scroll down when you get to the page.)

They didn’t have a cradle. They didn’t have a crib. They didn’t have expensive baby clothes. But what they did have, they gave.

What is a manger? It is nothing by itself. Yet, given to Christ, it has become a powerful message that has rocked every generation for centuries.

God transforms plain things into works of wonder. A picnic lunch became a miracle meal. (Matthew 14) A jar of oil became an investment property. (2 Kings 4)

What do we have? Our homes might not be spotless, our cars might not be fancy. It may seem like we have nothing to give but the plainest of gifts. But let’s not hold back! Let us give what we have to Christ. Our plain gifts, every one of them, is an opportunity for God to work wonders.

Who knows what He might do!

This is an excerpt from my latest book, A Beautiful Christmas. There’s a video that goes with the book that I think you’ll love. (Scroll down when you get to the page.)

In the 2002 movie version of The Count of Monte Cristo, the count makes a spectacular appearance to the elite social circle of his day. He arrives in a hot air balloon, complete with fireworks, dancers, dozens of servants—all the fanfare you could imagine.

By contrast, the first appearance of Jesus seems like an entry of stealth. Tucked away in a Judean village, in a cave or a stable, a traveling Jewish woman stops to give birth to a baby. It seems out of place.

But Jesus’ birth became a metaphor for His whole life. Years later, Pilate couldn’t understand why Jesus didn’t vigorously defend Himself. It didn’t occur to Jesus to bother. He knew that He had no lasting place in this world, until He returns to take possession of everything that is rightfully His.

Today Jesus is being born into the lives of people all over the world. Again, His entry is mostly unpublished, unrecognized, quiet. Quiet. Sort of like the Joshua’s first six trips around Jericho.

This is an excerpt from my latest book, A Beautiful Christmas. There’s a video that goes with the book that I think you’ll love. (Scroll down when you get to the page.)

Mary shared her heart with Elizabeth: “Everything inside me feels like singing because I am in awe of God. From highest heaven He looks down and sees me. What will future generations think? God brought me—an ordinary woman—under His wings and cared for me. But this is who He is—gathering into His care those who tremble before Him, and tossing the arrogant into history’s ash can. Seeing the hungry, He prepares a banquet, but He slams the door on the indifferent and unmerciful. Everything we hoped for and more—everything He promised in the past—all of this, He will perform, giving all of us reason for song.” Luke 1:46-55 DCP

Some might scoff at Mary’s song. The boot of the Roman empire was on the neck of the Jewish nation. Mighty deeds were measured in columns of marching Roman soldiers. The great miracles of deliverance for Israel were history—ancient history it seemed. The people of Israel lived and died under the watchful eye of the Roman state.

But God gives a great gift to His children. God enables us to see what others cannot see. The unbeliever may look at our lives and see financial calamity, terminal illness, pain of every kind, addiction, hypocrisy and failure. But we look up and see the Shepherd bringing us to quiet waters. We see the Father opening His arms to us. We see our Defender demolishing the schemes of the enemy. We see our Savior holding our hands in His own, looking us in the eye and telling us that we belong to Him.

We look up and see the truth.

This is an excerpt from my latest book, A Beautiful Christmas. There’s a video that goes with the book that I think you’ll love. (Scroll down when you get to the page.)

Sometimes our lives are defined by a single prayer. It may be a prayer for a child, as was the case with Zechariah and Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-25). It may be a prayer for healing or deliverance. It may be a prayer for prosperity, as was the case with Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:9-10).

Think about your prayer. Look at what the Lord did. Zechariah and Elizabeth could no longer have what they longed for. They were too old. Their dream had died. It may be that you can no longer lift your face heavenward. Maybe your dream has died.

Think about your prayer. Zechariah and Elizabeth endured so many years of silence. Pleading with God. Faithfully obeying His commandments, yet moving through life with a silent cry of anguish. No response. Nothing. Where was God?

But God hadn’t given up. How long had God planned the miraculous birth of John the Baptist? Let me suggest it was planned from the beginning of time.

Our grief, our lack, our pain, our need, the betrayal and impossibilities we have experienced—none of these have escaped God’s notice. His solution—our miracle—is already on the books. When our miracle shows up, we make some discoveries, just like Zechariah did: God’s plans are bigger than ours. God hasn’t forgotten, and He hasn’t stopped caring. What God does for us isn’t just for us alone. It has a ripple effect that will touch people all over the world.

This is an excerpt from my latest book, A Beautiful Christmas. There’s a video that goes with the book that I think you’ll love. (Scroll down when you get to the page.)