Many Christians obsess over the quality of other believers’ faith. This obsession is the root cause of many of our divisions. If all participants can establish that Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life, all these divisions will work themselves out if we all remain true to the Lord and do not let the division have its way.

As our faith journey begins to move forward from its point of inception, we see people who call themselves a follower of Jesus affirming, even supporting the evil of sexual immorality, unrestrained abortion, transgenderism, and a ethic of life not supported by God’s word.

At some point, a mature believer who sees these discrepancies will have to declare a contradictory response to those who follow a course of deception.

When this happens, the Lord will give us a greater understanding of the world around us and offer us a deeper mercy for those with whom we may disagree.

It is in that migratory process where we will see people express their faith with words and actions that may create friction with other believers. I’ve noticed a lot of this friction taking place in the last few years on social media, in conversations with other believers, and within the application of our faith to the broader culture. It is never wrong to uphold God’s truth and His created order if we have the spiritual courage to do so.

Along the path of our migrating faith, Jan and I have had some things we initially believed change about how to live out our faith in practical ways, challenging us when we did not have the full story on an issue. This is not limited to matters of our faith, like the divinity of Jesus, but how our faith is to be presented to the world. Jan and I are different today than we were just five years ago, but our faith in Jesus has remained steady. It has even grown deeper in some cases after we had to navigate the criticism and rejection we received while keeping our hearts tender before the Lord.

We had to make a personal choice to allow people to make different choices than ours so we could stay focused on Jesus and not try to change other people as my primary assignment. It is like the time when Peter asked the Lord a question about the faith of another man. Jesus responded to Peter, “What is that to you? As for you, follow me” (21:22).

We can get so concerned about the faith of others that we become fixed in that place and fail to move forward. For Peter, his way forward was to stop obsessing over the faith of others and simply follow Jesus. That is not an abandonment of our faith. It is the only safe place to live our faith healthily.

We, like Peter, will have to trust the Lord to help other believers see this life differently who have adopted a lie, believing it to be true. This is the place where spiritual balance, not compromise, is expressed. There is a peace available for those who make that choice and allow Jesus to mercifully redeem those who may have adopted a misguided version of faith, and not try to do what only Jesus can do.