Galations
6:1-5 Brothers,
if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore
him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone
thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each
one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone
and not in his neighbor. For each will have to bear his own load.
It is problematic for someone to see another
Christian sin. There exists a temptation for us when this happens. We want to
judge them because we had set them higher on the spiritual scale than they
deserved. No man can fully live life without sinning.
Someone who is in our mind a wonderful witness for
Christ is held in high regard. We expect much from them. Sometimes we expect
too much. When they fall we are shocked. They fall far down from the pedestal
we had set them on. The temptation is not to commit their sin but to pass
judgment on them.
Someone else not set up on such a high pedestal will
not fall very far. This Christian is dismissed as a poor witness or we might
even say they were never a Christian to begin with. The temptation to judge is
still present.
Carry their burden when they sin.
The pedestal we have placed them on is irrelevant. The burden of their sorrow
and grief for having sinned become evident in them. We are to carry this in our
own heart, next to the burden of sorrow and grief for the sins we have
committed ourselves. We are no different to other Christians in this regard.
For all of us sin and fall short of God’s standards.
We are deceivers at times because we
are sinners all the time. We deceive others and ourselves by our sinfulness. We
think we are above the sin of others or all sin. Test your heart and see if you
can accept the sinfulness of others as you accept your own sinfulness. Love
others as you love yourself. In this way you carry your own load and the load
of others.