What to do when your friend no longer walks with God
Evangelism is rarely easy. We need to strike a balance between sharing our faith without undue offense and being one who stands up to be counted ( 2 Timothy 4:1–4). Yet as uncomfortable as encounters with unbelievers may be, they don’t hold a candle to having to evangelize someone who already claims to be a Christian or who was a pastor-teacher who may have fallen morally. For some, this will, no doubt, come across as the worst of Christian offenses. “How can you judge someone else’s faith?” they may ask. And our answer is simple: because the Bible says we should ( Matthew 7:15 –20). Fruitless trees are cut down. What, then, are we to do when our lives regularly intersect with those who claim to be for Christ or who were once followers of Christ and yet whose lives plainly don’t bear the fruit? 1. Examine yourself first. We cannot divorce verses 15–20 of Matthew 7 from verses 1–5, which teach that we should be quick to get the log out of our own eye before turning to note t...