“I have not sent these prophets, yet they run around claiming to speak for me. I have given them no message, yet they go on prophesying. If they had stood before me and listened to me, they would have spoken my words, and they would have turned my people from their evil ways and deeds.
Jeremiah 23:21-22

Dear God, am I a false prophet? Sometimes I get my scripture for the day from Bible Gateway’s verse of the day. Today’s verse was actually verse 24, but when I went back to get the context for it the words in verses 21 and 22 really hit me. Do the things that I do turn people from their evil ways?

It seems like Paul wrestler with how this works with the New Covenant too (Galatians 4 and 5, for example). He would talk about freedom from the law, but then how that didn’t mean we just had a free pass to sin. When it comes to finding that line, I think I heard Andy Stanley put it well recently (I think it was him). He said something to the effect that you aren’t sitting up there giving us these rules to satisfy you, per se. They are for us. They are for our good. The evil we do hurts you because it hurts us and it hurts others. It hurts your creation and that evil/damage is something you can’t abide. Yes, the New Covenant includes an aspect of grace, but there is still damage being done.

Father, I’m a believer in the idea that the more I encourage someone into relationship with you and the more they dive into you the more the Holy Spirit will teach and convict them. I suppose my role is to be willing to call out the damage someone is doing to themselves through sin that I see in their life, but do it through love and concern. “Hey, I see you hurting yourself through this,” and that sort of thing. So give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

In Jesus’s name I pray,

Amen