Doctors embrace an oath to “first do no harm.” When they can’t figure out what’s wrong or find the correct treatment, doctors fall back on this foundational principle. As Christians, we have a parallel guiding principle—“corrupt no one.”
Don’t be a stumbling block. Don’t cause someone else to trip and fall. Don’t violate someone else’s conscience. Don’t be an offense. Basically, don’t cause others to run from Christ.
When we committed our lives to Christ, we were called to glorify God. And in those early days, the zeal of grandiose plans to change the world caught us tripping on ourselves as we attempted to live out our newfound faith. Our older, more mature faith may be tempered by the wisdom of lessons learned through the years and failures that have yielded a more humble approach.
Hopefully, our faith still soars to that level of wanting to seek His will, obey His word, and tell others about Him. Some days, though, our feeble hearts may only manage a weak effort to “corrupt no one”—to fight our impulses to do our own thing our selfish way. Resist the flesh, our wishes and wants. To strain to not discredit Jesus. To struggle.
The struggle of life isn’t always to do great things. Sometimes it’s simply to not get in God’s way, to not be a distraction from the cross. To get out of the way and let God shine, to let God make a difference in others’ lives. And to not mess up by losing heart and living in the flesh—to battle in the heart and the mind, where the struggle begins.
The struggle involves the don’ts of life—and more.
To struggle well, we learn to lean on His grace moment by moment—to cry out for His help when we fall, to receive His grace in our impossible circumstances, to recognize He is the one who holds our hands. And only He can enable and empower us to live for Him.
Struggling well means we’ve learned to trust that God can somehow take this dust, this messed up broken life, and be glorified. Only God could do that impossible feat—to take the struggle of our flesh and create something He calls good.
We can learn from doctors—first do no harm. To others or the gospel. We may not know the right answers or be able to recall the perfect verse in a difficult situation. Our wants may get in the way of meeting someone’s needs. The pain we face may be too overwhelming to walk through it triumphantly. We may feel lucky to have merely survived. Or the situation we encounter may be too complicated for anyone to sort out. But we can fall back on this foundational principle—do no harm. Corrupt no one. Struggle well.
“…giving no cause for offense in anything, in order that the ministry be not discredited… we wronged no one, we corrupted no one, we took advantage of no one…” (2 Corinthians 6:3; 7:2).
