Confirming Mark of True Discipleship

Scotty Smith:  A Prayer for Freedom from Christian Cannibalism

     For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another. Gal. 5:13-15

     Let no unwholesome word (gangrenous words) proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Eph. 4:29

     Dear Lord Jesus, we’re thankful the gospel is more like a binding subpoena than a mere invitation. Our need is so great that we could not respond to the gospel apart from such a strong life-generating summons. Indeed, the gospel is a life-giving subpoena—the means by which you call us from death to life, from slavery to freedom. We were just as dead and bound in grave-clothes as Lazarus was when you spoke the words “Come out” (John 11:43), and raised us from spiritual death.

     We praise you for the sovereign, death-defeating, liberty-giving power of the gospel. Those you set free are free indeed; and the freedom to which you’ve called us is to define the rest of our days and permeate every area of our lives. This is nowhere more necessary than in the world of our relationships.

     You’ve called us to love one another as you love us—the confirming mark of true discipleship (John 13:34-35). The world will know that we are yours by the way we treat one another. Therefore, as in Galatia, so in our churches, marriages, and friendships, it’s an unacceptable contradiction of the gospel when we fall into various degrees of “Christian cannibalism”—biting and devouring one another.

     Worse, it’s a sabotaging of your glory and a veiling of your beauty. It’s lying about who you are and what it means to be in relationship with you. Forgive us, Lord, when being right means more than loving well; when conflicting redemptively slides into fighting selfishly; when listening to one another gets crowded out by criticizing one another; when words are used to tear down rather than build up; when we nurse on grudges more than we drink from the living water of the gospel.

     Forgive us, Lord, when we nibble on others’ brokenness and inconsistencies more than we feast on the delicacies of your love; when we rehearse the sins of others more than we remember the remember the riches of grace; when what we don’t like about one another is more compelling than what we adore about you; when we get used to being irritable and edgy, cold-hearted and spite filled. Lord have mercy, have mercy on all of us.

     Lord Jesus, we’re free only because of you. Help us to steward this costly freedom today in a world of broken people and broken relationships. It’s because of the great hope of the gospel that we refuse to give up. May we never forget, one Day we will be as lovely and loving as you. Hasten that Day! So very Amen we pray, in your glorious and graceful name.