Are you a Christian who knows a fellow believer who is caught up in an ongoing sin that he or she is justifying for some reason? This person needs your love, prayers, support, and biblical truth regarding his or her behavior (Gal. 6:1). Don’t expect a Christian who is struggling with such a sin to easily be able to “just stop it.” It could take a while, maybe even years or a lifetime. Fighting sin is difficult—indeed, it is the biggest battle any of us will ever face in this life.
Many Christians today seek to love those who feel judged by the words they find in the Bible. People search the Scriptures in an attempt to prove that certain beliefs they want to hold—or certain actions they want to keep doing—are okay in God’s sight. Behaviors Christians previously and universally viewed as sinful according to the Bible are now increasingly tolerated, accepted, and even celebrated.
Yet, things that make us feel good are not always good for us. In her recent Gospel Coalition article, “Love Your Neighbor Enough to Speak Truth,” Rosaria Butterfield writes:
The supernatural power that comes with being born again means that where I once had a single desire—one that says if it feels good, it must be who I really am—I now have twin desires that war within me: “For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal. 5:17). And this war doesn’t end until Glory.
The Christian life is a struggle, because now there is new spiritual life where there was once just the flesh. This flesh, which God originally made good, is now corrupted because of Adam’s disobedience and fall in the garden of Eden (Gen. 2:16–17; 3:1–19). The Holy Spirit now indwells all believers and is doing the work of sanctification in their lives. This is a lifelong process of dying to the flesh and living unto God.
It is not easy to give up the things in life that we love, but if they are opposed to God’s will, this is what Christ calls us to do:
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. (Matt. 10:37–38)
Love and keeping Jesus’ commands go together. Jesus told his disciples:
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” (John 14:21)
Focusing on lovingly affirming others in their desired lifestyles seems appealing at first. In the long run, however, we do great harm to people when we affirm them in life choices that the Bible calls sinful. Declaring that something is not sinful because of our careful, nuanced study and argumentation doesn’t mean we have done such research properly and are correct in our conclusions.