To Restore is to show Love

What Does It Look Like? It has hands to help others, feet to hasten to the poor and needy, eyes to see misery and want, ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.

Augustine

I have been transformed! I have been changed by God through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ on Calvary and by accepting Him as my Savior, I experienced TRANSFORMATION. I am now employed. I have a job and a ministry. God has called me to be a witness. I am God's official REPRESENTATION.

We are not known in the world because we carry a name tag, wear a cross around our neck or tote a large Bible but rather we are known through our actions.

John 13:34-35 (New Century Version)
34 "I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other as I have loved you. 35 All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other."

It is easy to love people who are lovable. The Koala bear is so cute an cuddly and the newborn baby smells so wonderful, it is both addictive and appealing to love these types of people but can you love the porcupine personality or the person whose smell from the stink of sin makes it hard to embrace them. Can you love them?

What about the person who messes up? Falls short? Does the unthinkable? What is our response to that person? We should restore them, that is place in demonstration what God has done for us.

Katartizō (to restore) literally means to mend or repair and was sometimes used metaphorically of restoring harmony among quarreling factions in a dispute. It was also used of setting a broken bone or putting a dislocated limb back in place. That is the figure used by the writer of Hebrews in calling on believers to "strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed" (Heb. 12:12-13).

Spiritual believers restore a fallen believer first of all by helping him recognize his trespass as a trespass. Until a person admits his sin, he cannot be helped out of it. Once he has done that, he must be encouraged to confess his sin before God and turn away from it in repentance, sincerely seeking God's forgiveness.

Restoration of fallen brothers and sisters is always to be done in a spirit of gentleness, which is characteristic of those who walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:23). A Christian who is critical and judgmental as he attempts to help a fallen brother does not show the grace of Christ or help his brother, but instead stumbles himself.

After a church has exercised proper discipline, the members should "forgive and comfort" the one who has been disciplined, "lest somehow such a one be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow" (2 Cor. 2:7). He should not be regarded "as an enemy, but [admonished] as a brother" (2 Thess. 3:15).
From the caution each one looking to yourself, lest you too be tempted, it is clear that even spiritual believers can stumble. They are made of the same stuff as those who have fallen. Because the exhortation looking to yourself is so vital, Paul uses a strong word (skopeō, to observe or consider) in the present tense, which emphasized a continual, diligent attentiveness to their own purity. They, too, could be tempted and even fall into the same sin for which they disciplined a brother.

The attitude of every Christian should always be the attitude of Jesus. And when a believer needs to help discipline a fallen brother, he should ask for a special portion of Christ's love and gentleness. If the Father does not want even one of His own to be devastated (Matt. 18:14), and if "the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them" (Luke 9:56), how much less do His followers have the right to be destructive rather than helpful?

What does your love look like? What type of love does our church display?

Owens