Contrary to popular opinion, we are not responsible for everybody. Depending on if this is a friend or family member, our response to someone’s struggle may be quite different. For one brings spiritual battles not needed, while another brings growth.
Friends Zone
If you see someone in your class, and that person is nonstop choosing a certain sin, in fact, drowning in that sin, there is only so much you can do to help that individual.
Try to avoid the Saviour Syndrome.
When you are under the mindset of a saviour mentality, you may think a friend’s welfare is dependent on you. In the name of friendship, with this false mindset, you can be in serious jeopardy of choosing their sin in the guise of companionship or rescue. Their invitation to have a drink or a smoke or whatever, can lead to serious consequences for your life.
Friend, you don’t have to save everybody. In Luke 19:10, Jesus explained, “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.” It is Jesus’s joy to save the world!
In love, be a support to your friends. However, when they invite you into their sin, their time is up. It is your time to run! As Paul warns in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be deceived: Bad company ruins good morals.”
What about Family?
For a family member, however, you may be the only one to give moral support, whether it is your father, mother, sister or brother. You don’t want to desert your family in their spiritual battle.
With your family, more powerful than words, is your prayers. There is a certain way you can pray, contending spiritual warfare that will bring victory against the demonic spirit who is fighting your loved one. Prayers for your loved ones must come from a desperate place, like a mother who cries to the Lord when her son is sick. When your soul is crying, when you pray from a certain pain at seeing your family member fall deeper into darkness, you can wrestle with God for an individual’s soul, so that you bring God into their scene, as you plead, “God do whatever it takes!”
Jesus taught that the prodigal son had to go through many losses before he came to his senses.
Yet after these losses, sense came to him. He woke up and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father!” (Luke 15:17-18)
Sadly, for some people, sense won’t come until they hit rock bottom. Pain is their only effective teacher.
A father’s instructions are always better, but the prodigal son, he just didn’t want to listen to his father. He had to learn the hard way. The young man had to lose every blessing he had, all his friends, all his wealth and his stature, before he could truly value what he had enjoyed in his father’s house. When friends like hawks had stolen everything from him, and all he was left with were pigs, when hunger was his constant companion and sorrow was his everyday meal, only then, did sense return.
Counsel is Critical to Growth
As a Child of God, everyday, we have to pray, “God, don’t let me lose my spiritual sense. Don’t let me lose me to me! Please Lord, don’t let me give up You for me.”
You, by yourself, are capable of great damage. You, by yourself, are capable of many mistakes.
We are not designed to live without counsel. Spiritual battle are often won before arriving on the battlefield, just by whom we are aligned with. David’s mighty men followed close because victory was certain. Jesus’ disciples did the same.
As we listen and follow the instructions by those whom God has given to cover us, understanding and growth is certain and victories are imminent.
For This Journey, Please Pack Prayer
As a child of God, we must maintain a life of prayer. There is always junk waiting to hijack us in this world.
Prayer keeps our equilibrium.
With prayer, our soul maintains its sense, as our spirit keeps reaching for God’s will, His desire, His pleasure.
Prayer will empower us to flee from the constant bombardment of temptation ever present in the world and keep us in peace. As Apostle Paul reminds us, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2-3). We need prayer to stay vigilant and win against the constant pressures of the world.
Caution: Choice is Divine
For those people who don’t think they need a father, who say, “Give me my inheritance and let me go my way!”, content to sin and dismissive of any consequences, the best solution is to just let them have what they want.
When these same people come back to their senses, often poor, broken, and desperate, after trying all their own ways and choices, the harsh reality is that what they lose most is a time. Time is the most expensive commodity on earth, and the most merciless with refunds.
Remember, every person on earth gets to choose what choices they make. But for your family members, even while they make their choices, you stay on your knees in prayer for them. God will prevail in their life. As you keep loving your family like the Lord has loved you, your reward will be great indeed!
For more on this powerful subject of friends and family, watch these powerful sermons on The Deception of Worldly Friendships by Pastor Tiny Mathew and What Kills the Fire of God in you by Pastor Shyju Mathew.
We hope you are blessed!
Shalom,
Shyju