True friends call you out on your stuff

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I don't want a "yes man" for a friend.  

I need friends who are going to call me out on my stuff.  Those are the friends that I trust because they are honest with me.

A true friend speaks truth to us because they love us and want the best for us.  They want to see us grow in Christ, grow spiritually, grow in sanctification.

So when we speak up for Christ, speaking truth, it can seem like we’re calling others out on their stuff. But it is done in love!

Our current culture is a bully!  They use intimidation in trying to get us to silence God's truth.  They twist it all around and call us haters for speaking God's law.  

God is not a hater.  He is a Lover.  He is love.

But!  God hates sin!  He cannot tolerate it because He is holy and perfect and simply cannot look at it.  Sin is not allowed in God's Presence.

So who can stand before Him?

No one!

But there is tremendous hope!  The hope is the Light of the Gospel. We have all sinned and fallen short of God's glory.  That is precisely why God sent His only begotten Son to save us.  We all need a Savior!  

We need to be saved from our sins.

We need to be saved from sin so that we can be saved back to a relationship with Christ.

He didn't have to do this!  He could have sent us all to our rightful place - hell!

But oh, the mercy and love and wonder of God! He puts us right with God so that we can stand before God “holy and blameless in His sight.”

God is the greatest Friend of all because He calls us out on our stuff!  But He doesn't leave us there nor does He do it to condemn us.

"For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him."  John 3:17

The beauty of letting ourselves be convicted of sin - admitting and acknowledging that we are sinners - is that we can then receive grace and mercy from Christ that we so desperately need.  Then, we are freed from guilt and hopelessness.

Do not be deceived, friends.  If you go along with popular opinion regarding the truth about sin, or the total disconnect of acknowleding its truth, you will never win.  

There is a God.  He not only writes the law, He is the law.  And we have all transgressed it.

Nowadays, that which would have been called sin as recent as decades ago, is now not only acceptable, but it is promoted. And if you dare hold out God's Gospel against it, you are labeled "intolerant" or worse.  This is bullying in the worst way!

DON'T. BACK. DOWN.

Keep holding out the Truth of Christ, for it is still the only hope for a desperate world in need of salvation.  The enemy has blinded those who are living outside of God's will.  They are living proof of the Word!

Call people out on their stuff because that's what love does.  And we all want to be loved.

Oh Lord.  The world has gone nuts!  It has lost its mind!  For that is all the world and devil and sin have to offer - insanity.  But You, Oh Lord, have provided a way back to sanity!  Alleluia!  For what the sin that the world calls "good," You have truly called transgression.  Help us, Lord.  Shine Your light brighter and brighter through us, Your children, so that those who hear can know the Truth.  And as the world gets darker in its defense of sin, may we hold our heads up high knowing that You have revealed Your Truth to us to share with the lost. May we not kowtow to or be intimidated by wrong!  Thank You, Lord, for bringing us out from the kingdom of darkness into Your glorious Kingdom of light!  For we can claim nothing in and of ourselves, for You have saved us, You have revealed Truth to us.  We love You, Lord.  Thank, praise, and bless Your Holy Name.  In Jesus' All-powerful Name.  Amen.

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