WINNING THEM BACK

PREPD: JULY 14, 2012

PAUSE: My dear friends, if you know people who have wandered off from God's truth, don't write them off. Go after them. Get them back (James 5:19). Did a specific person come into your mind after reading the verse? Think about that person or those people. LISTEN: 2 Corinthians 5:18 [God] has restored our relationship with him through Christ, and has given us this ministry of restoring relationships.

PRAY: Dear Lord, our lives are Yours. Keep us united in one purpose and in serving our one Lord. Amen. GO: Proverbs 27:5 It is better to correct someone openly than to have love and not show it. MORE: According to Paul's letter to the corinth, God has given us this ministry of restoring relationships. Matthew 5:9 Blessed are those who work for peace.

Matthew 18:15 If your brother sins, go and show him Here are a few insights I got after reading the his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won guidelines from a bestselling book, Purpose -Driven your brother. 16 But if he does not listen to you, take Life: one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. 17 If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if Pray more about them. Be honest with God. he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to Tell Him exactly what you feel. you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Matthew 5:23-24. Take the initiative. Fellowship is so important that it even takes THINK: Psalm 133:1 "How wonderful it is, how greater priority than group worship. pleasant, for God's people to live together in harmony." We desire real and authentic fellowship, but Focus on their feelings, not the facts. Begin there always seems to be something wrong. There's with sympathy not solutions. Listen not on always that someone who just doesn't seem to get their words but on their feelings! along. How do we react? Some of us, lets the person Confess your part of the conflict. 1 John 1:8, be. Some tries to solve the problem. Some attacks the "if we claim that we're free of sin, we're only person. We start to aim for something, then expect fooling ourselves." Don't make excuses or shift something, and when things doesn't go well, what do the blame. we do, then? Attack the problem, not the person. Remember The problem is that we are often in so much of a hurry that God hates the sin, not the sinner. to fix things that we don't have time Cooperate as much as possible. to sympathize with people. Or we're preoccupied with Emphasize reconciliation not resolution. Focus our own hurts. (Warren, 2002) on the relationship, not on the problem. Matthew 7:5 says, "You hypocrite, first take the log God expects unity not uniformity. out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to Acknowledge your differences. take the speck out of your brother's eye." Begin with These steps are simple, but they aren't easy. It admitting your own mistakes or sin. Ask yourself takes a lot of effort to restore what has been these: Am I the problem? Am I being unrealistic? lost. Therefore, work hard! Insensitive? or too insensitive? Remember that God wants us to love real people, not ideal people. He loves them just as He loves you.