People of the Second Chance
If you get the free Smart Ministry newsletter you saw the first part of my interview with Jud Wilhite yesterday. He and Mike Foster are building a movement around the concepts of radical integrity and radical grace. You and I have needed second chances, and so does everyone else.
Then today in Chuck Swindoll’s free Insights for Today devotional he talks about the power of the tongue and rumors. (I promise I didn’t put these together as a sneaky way of telling you my interview with Chuck will appear in an upcoming Smart Ministry.)
It occurred to me that these two things go together in a very powerful way. If we claim to be giving people a second chance but continue to talk about their issue behind their backs we’re lying.
Giving people a second chance is about loving them enough to want to see them restored—and the quickest way to derail that is by talking about them in a way that ensures people around them focus on the issue rather than the potential. When someone says, “It was great to see John at church with his family this morning,” don’t respond (or allow anyone else to respond) with, “Yes, especially after what he did to them.” Don’t use prayer meetings as an opportunity to put a false spirituality on gossip like, “Please pray for Mary because I heard her son is on meth.”
I have made mistakes, and so have you. Was it helpful for others to talk about those mistakes behind your back? Did it make you feel like they loved you and wanted the best for you? Let me end with these words from Galatians 6:
Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. 2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 3 If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. 4 Each one should test his own actions.
