Behold! The great unmet need of our independent culture: brothers to come alongside us and stand shoulder to shoulder with us in the difficult places of this life. The sad history of the church is littered with evidence that we regularly shoot our own wounded. Brethren, it should not be!! The command of Christ is plain, love one another. Even in times of failure and sin, love one another. Our response to the sin of another is mandated by Christ, and the focus of that response is repentance and RESTORATION! It is not our goal to crush someone who has been defeated by the enemy, it is not our goal to cut them off so completely that we have no contact! Even when church discipline must culminate in excommunication, the instruction is to treat them as an unbeliever... to WITNESS to them. Our objective must be the restoration of the fallen! Here Paul tells us, if you are spiritual at all, your task is to restore with a gentle spirit. This precludes the arrogance of our superior attitudes. Consider that you yourself might just as well be the one suffering this trial. And further remember this, Christ is ALWAYS at work shaping His own into conformity with Himself. So the trial they are under is being used for that purpose. It is only the grace of God that prevents this trial from being yours. Beloved of God, we are called to care for one another always! Let us consider this. Let us repent of our hard and arrogant tone, restore the fallen, and let us LOVE THE BRETHREN!!!