Remember who are we responsible for.
I laid in bed reading “The Purpose Driven Life” by Rick Warren tonight like I have been for several nights, and something struck me. The part I was reading about was cultivating community, however my mind wondered on another track early into the chapter.
There was a passage from 1 Corinthians 5:3-12 (msg). The line that took me back was, “I’m not responsible for what outsiders do, but don’t we have some responsibility for those within our community of believers?”. Now, this was to show that we as followers of Christ need to be diligent in holding ourselves to the standards God has set out for us. I however found something else in it, (verse 12) “…I’m not responsible for what outsiders do…”. I believe what Paul is saying is that we should not be wasting our time trying to hold non-believers to God’s laws. Instead we should use that energy within our body of believers. He closes with, (verse 13) “God decides on the outsiders…”.
Aside from the obvious message from Paul about confronting problems in the Church, I think he is telling another message. Don’t judge non-believers, God will do that in His time. So, next time I get upset about some insignificant person or group attempting to remove His laws from our government, I am going to be humbled by verses 12 and 13 because those laws weren’t for them anyway.