Condemned

Dayo:

"My phone had a fault so I took it to a phone repairer. He mentioned a few technical terms I did not understand and said I would pay three thousand naira. I gave him two thousand naira and left his shop with the promise that I'll pay the rest when he is through fixing the phone. A fee days later, I went back and he said I should come the next day. When I went back the next day, he postponed it again. He kept postponing until I threatened to call the police. Seeing that I was desperate, he gave me a specific day. When I went back, he gave me my phone and I gave him his balance.

'However, on getting home, I realized he had done nothing on the phone. It still had the old faults and I had been duped. Furious, I decided to go back and fight. But the Holy Spirit told me to calm down and not go back yet. I took the phone to another engineer who collected just a thousand naira and did everything he needed to do, even more. 

"After I collected the phone, the Holy Spirit said I could go back to the former engineer. I went to Him and confronted Him. He claimed he had repaired my phone and so I should not disturb him. But I told him to check again and even made him understand that his conscience is not right seeing that he had duped me.

"Guilty, he offered to return my money, but I declined saying that I didn't need the money, I only needed him to realize what he did was wrong. Then I left. He cried for the rest of that day."

Now read the account of another believer who had a similar occurrence.

Tope:

"When I collected my phone and went back to the former engineer, he was indifferent at first but he later began to feel remorseful for his misdeed. He offered me the money back but I told him I did not need the money, I only needed him to realize that irrespective of what he did wrong, I love him and I forgive him.

"He asked me how I can love him even with what he did to me. I told Him I find it easy to love because I have an expression of love before me always, Christ who while I was yet a sinner and alienated from God, undeserving, died for me and gave me God's own Spirit who sheds abroad God's love in my heart and teaches me how to love all men. Curious, he asked me how that is possible. I took my time to explain the Gospel to him, focusing on God's love for man and not on condemnation. Then I asked him if he was a believer. He told me he had accepted Christ as Lord of His life but He keeps talking and backsliding because he cannot stop cheating people. I told him he is dead to sin as a child of God and can decide not to be put under its subjection. Christ has nailed the power sin holds on him on the cross and given him a new nature, God's own nature of righteousness. I showed him that on the basis of what Jesus has done, irrespective of what He does, God is eternally pleased with him. I then taught him the place of renewing his mind by consistently looking in the perfect law that shows him his freedom, the Word of God and staying in the place of prayer. Only then will he be transformed, proving and doing the acceptable will of God. Only then will he stop committing sin.

"After that, I prayed with him and he got baptized with the Holy Ghost. His growth was so rapid from that time. He now gives interpretations of tongues and prophesies and out of ten customers that enter his shop, seven leave saved and filled with the Holy Ghost."

We are called as ministers of the New Covenant and the New Covenant is on the basis that Christ died, was buried and rose again for our justification. We are ministers of reconciliation and not ministers of condemnation. When we condemn people, they feel guilty and guilt does not last. It takes only a moment and they go back to their vomit. We have a responsibility to minister God's love to people. That is what matters. That is what lasts!

In our walk with God, we have a responsibility to consistently prove what is the good and acceptable will of God and stay in it. We must stay yielded to God's Spirit and always let Him lead. It is not enough to hear an instruction. Stay through enough to hear guidelines on how to carry out the instruction. We cannot do God's will our own way. It has to be His way or no other way. And as we do so, we will realize that many of the people we have condemned to destruction in our minds only need to see God's love expressed through us. They only need to see our love walk and they will come to the knowledge of Christ. We do not condemn. We love. We show love. We express love. We are love.

#Fiction.

-Korede Omotolola (title by Leye Abiola).

30/09/2017.