Today’s Devotion
Topic: Win Your Brother Back!
Text: Matthew 18: 15- 17
15 “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. 16 But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ 17 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. Amen.
Offenses are all around us everyday. Sometimes we get offended and disappointed both in strangers, acquaintances and loved ones when they do things contrary to our expectations and morals. It is not long and our own actions or inactions also affect some others directly or indirectly. Honestly these offenses are inevitable at times. What is important however, is how we handle them.
From the passage above, our Lord Jesus shows us clearly what we are to do each time we feel offended. The first thing we must do, is not to hate, gossip or backbite, but to go to the offending brother or sister and discuss the situation with them alone.
Hopefully, we should be able to solve the matter amicably at this level. If not, one or two other persons may accompany us to help the offending brother or sister see their fault. Should this second intervention still fail, we inform the church to employ God’s word to helping the said brother or sister see their wrong.
Now all of these must be done in love with the simple mission of winning our brother or sister back. Till they are adamant of all three reconciliatory attempts that we let them be.
To this point, you’ve realized you hardly have the patience to even take the first step, right? Are you not quick to take offense and too quick to cut the offender off so they can “rot in hell?” Yet are you not the same who finds it difficult to accept your faults even when the offended brother or sister approaches you quietly about it?
Are you not the one who always sees an offended brother or sister with another to talk to you, as a deliberate attempt to spread your issue and destroy reputation?
We are all so guilty of not working hard enough to win our brothers and sisters who offend us back, aren’t we? Begin to pray therefore and ask for a heart that can both easily forgive and accept your own faults when pointed out to you. Also pray for the strength not to give up on others just because they are in the wrong. But to minister the word of God till they are convicted, repented and won back for Christ.
Even though Jesus says those who refuse to listen to us should be treated as tax collectors, we know from His life and work that He loved tax collectors and ministered salvation to them at the least chance. This simply means we should actually never give up on these brethren until all have come to the saving knowledge of Christ. Let us all go and do as the Master teaches! By all means, win your brother back!
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