Today I want to continue the discussion we began yesterday about a common challenge that faces all believers.
I’m talking about a situation where in order to exercise love and compassion to another, we sometimes have to break God’s rules concerning ritual purity.
To be honest, sometimes I wish God’s commands on ritual purity weren’t so darn stringent.
I wish that doing the right thing would automatically result in only good consequences.
However, the painful reality is that doing the right thing can sometimes be harmful or even downright dangerous to our health, relationships, our jobs, and even our ministries.
Have you ever had to break up a friendship or sever contact with family members because of your faith?
How about all of those who are leaving the churches in droves due to Christianity’s blatant paganism?
How about the compassionate missionary doctor who flies off to a third world country to minister to the poor and ends up catching the very disease he sought to heal the afflicted from?
Yeshua spoke about these types of difficulties.
“For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law,
so that a man’s enemies will be
the members of his own household.
Whoever loves his father or mother
more than he loves me is not worthy of me;
anyone who loves his son or daughter
more than he loves me is not worthy of me.
And anyone who does not take up his execution-stake
and follow me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his own life will lose it,
but the person who loses his life
for my sake will find it.”
-Matthew 10:35-39
The hard question we need to ask ourselves is what kind of trust in YHVH do we really have if it only brings us good consequences?
One positive thing however is that although we may become defiled for ministering to and coming into contact with the unsaved people in the world, the purifying living water of Yeshua cleanses us at all times.
A person may become UNCLEAN for laying a hand of comfort on a prostitute or for ministering to a homosexual.
However, I believe that Yeshua’s Living Water is so powerful that it cleanses us before we can become contaminated by UNCLEANNESS.
The only reason God’s rules about sin and ritual impurity exist is because mankind fell.
The world has become so corrupt and full of sin that it’s practically impossible for any believer not to commit a sin at some point in his life no matter how good his intentions.
I’m not talking about the false doctrine that says that due to man’s corrupt nature it is impossible to obey God’s commands.
What I’m saying is that the world is so filled with deprivation that man will constantly find himself in a variety of catch 22 situations where to obey one of God’s commands is to break another.
For example, one is forbidden from working on the Sabbath, but a doctor may have to in order to save a dying patient.
In this case the command to save life supersedes the command to obey the Sabbath.
Or how about those in Nazi Germany who were hiding Jews and lying to government authorities about it.
No matter how you slice it, a lie is always a sin, EVEN IF IT WAS MEANT FOR GOOD!
That’s a key point we need to understand.
KINDNESS AND COMPASSION DOES NOT NEGATE THE REQUIREMENT TO OBEY GOD’S COMMANDS.
Going back to yesterday’s post, the priest who attended to his wife’s dead body did NOT avoid becoming UNCLEAN simply because he performed a loving and compassionate act.
It doesn’t work that way.
In this case, the priest had to accept the consequences of becoming ritually unclean for the greater good.
Finally, we need to understand that there is a HUGE difference between ministering to the UNCLEAN of this world and joining up with them.
We are NEVER to compromise God’s principles nor participate in unclean behavior to minister to the unsaved
Snorting cocaine together with drug dealers so you can eventually witness to them is a no-no.
We are NOT to deliberately come into union with the UNCLEAN.
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