| Crosswords: Comparing apples to oranges |
By Richard Prow ~ rpcrosswords@gmail.com
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It’s been said that there is no worse person to be around than a reformed smoker or drinker. After eradicating a full blown addiction, they feel that everyone else should do the same. They mount their soap boxes, armed with a message of abstinence and possessing very little patience for those who can’t or won’t quit. All this despite the fact that they themselves took 30 or 40 years to purge the same habit from their own bodies.
Just as annoying and far more destructive are “reformed” sinners. They express shock and outrage at the behavior of the world and the people around them. They don’t understand why others can’t grasp the same truth they did even though they groped around in the dark for years. They believe they’ve mastered the art of holiness and think that they rest of the world should follow suit.
The Bible says that, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Cor. 2:14). In other words if you don’t have it, you can’t get it. We as believers - a.k.a. reformed sinners - shouldn’t expect the rest of the world to think and act as we do when they do not possess the means or the motive to do so. An unbeliever won’t act like a believer any more than a cat will act like a walrus. They’re two entirely different animals.
If we should be shocked and outraged at anyone it should be ourselves. What we expect of others outside the faith we often fail to do. We withhold love when it’s convenient. We judge when it’s not our place. We lack patience even though it is a sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives. We fail to forgive despite the fact that we have been forgiven. In a nutshell, we don’t always practice what we preach. So why in the world should we expect others to practice what they don’t understand when we can’t practice what we do.
Jesus didn’t come to judge the world and it’s inhabitants; He came to save (John 3:17). So what gives us the right to do what He would not? God didn’t hold my 34 years of ignorance and unbelief against me and I’m quite certain He expects nothing less of us.
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