YOU WHO ARE GODLY RAISE YOUR HANDS

 

September 25, 2024

Galatians 6:1

“If another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path”

Restoring one another is for the spiritually minded. Galatians 6 says, “If another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path” (v.1). This identifies who should be doing the restoration, it’s those “who are godly.” That sounds mighty intimidating because most of us are not going to say, “I’m godly, I’ll take care of this.”

So let us ask the question, what does it mean to be godly? To be godly is to approach life spiritually. To be godly is to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s guidance and God's teaching in His Word. In many Bible translations of todays verse, the word “godly” is not used, but rather it is translated as the word “spiritual.” You who are spiritual – sensitive to the Holy Spirit – help others back onto the right path.I want to mention something significant about the word "you." The “you” in the statement “you who are godly” is a plural you in this sentence. Here is why that little detail matters. I believe that God is revealing that it is the work of the community of Jesus, and those spiritually minded believers in the community of faith that will engage in the restoration process. See God had the idea of an intervention long before the contemporary world discovered its value. Helping people back onto the right path is not a one person operation. It will take several spiritually minded people who know the person and care about the person to be able to walk with them and help them.

All of this is supported by the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 18. 

15 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, ... 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church.

Let's be careful about the application of what Jesus is saying here. This is to be carried out with prayer, kindness, care and compasssion. The goal is not to focus primarily on the sin but on the calling to be an agent of restoration.

We look more closely at this in tomorrows devotion. Today let us allow this teaching to sink in, people matter to God and therefore to us, as Christ's ambassadors. When a sister or brother struggles to be faithful, and remember we all do at times, we are invited into a space where God through us reaches into the life of another with his amazing grace.  If you have ever been there as an agent of restoration or as one who needed restoration, you know what I meant on Monday when I suggested that the work of restoration is messy but beautiful.