Some We Just Avoid

"...avoid such people." - 2 Timothy 3:5b ESV

Yes. The scriptures say this in the new testament. It is a 'seek and save' age. We love and in one sense we are sent in as sheep to the slaughter but it also says that we avoid some folks. We love them and pray for them from afar.

Here is the context.

"But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people." - 2 Timothy 3:1-5 ESV

Why avoid them? They will steal your time and resources. They will add roadblocks and confusion.

The scriptures go further.

"For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth." - 2 Timothy 3:6-7 ESV

I notice that is says, '...among them...' as if these are a subset of the previous group with attributes of that group. Not all abusive people are users but all users are abusers in some way.

God died on a cross for their sins. He loves the whole world with an intensity we can't understand but at the same time, He gives warnings.

Seducers don't show all their cards until they creep into your house but the warning signs are often there.

"Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. Owe no one anything, except to love each other..." - Romans 13:7-8a ESV

Often a sense of duty will seem to be present to help or continue but don't be fooled. Jesus is the Savior not us and we listen to His voice to see what role we have, if any, in someone's life.

Some folks you have to love from far away. Perhaps even through prison bars. Mercy, love and forgiveness... God has given us those things. He also has given us wisdom.

Let's be wise.

The Apostle Paul didn't start out that way. He used to be Saul. Saul was a man to avoid. God had to blind him and knock him down a few pegs before conversion happened in his life. We don't want to meddle in that process. Paul is a man I'm looking forward to meeting... not Saul. That guy can just keep on walking.

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The Underground Work Of Grace

I love how God does His work quietly inside us.

"The house that King Solomon built for the LORD was sixty cubits long, twenty cubits wide, and thirty cubits high... When the house was built, it was with stone prepared at the quarry, so that neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron was heard in the house while it was being built." - 1 Kings 6:2, 7 ESV

"Is not my word like fire, declares the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?" - Jeremiah 23:29 ESV

"if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ." - 1 Peter 2:3-5 ESV

When people pick up the words of God and use them as a hammer everyone in earshot is disturbed by the noise. People feel beat up and get tired of living on a construction site where nothing is ever good enough.

Solomon was a wise king. He had the loud work done in secret.

There are moments when the Holy Spirit uses the word of God to break things up inside me and carve off my ego so that I will be the correct dimensions to slip right into place. But many times those are secret moments and not a spectacle with a crowd of witnesses.

"With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone." - Proverbs 25:15 ESV

The grace of God is a soft answer that does a powerful work inside a person and it does it without pounding them on the outside.

"For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men." - 1 Corinthians 1:25 ESV

Foolish men think they must see sparks fly and a cloud of dust in order for something to happen. Usually it is the opposite. God does his spiritual work quietly on the inside through investment on the outside.

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