Let's Fix Our Eyes On JESUS!

We've all seen it...pastors who get up and leave the church and their families one day because they are having an affair with the secretary.  Or the pastor who is in prison for embezzlement.  What about the pastor who commits suicide?  And the list goes on.  It's happened before and it's going to continue happening as long as we are on this earth.  Godly people who love Jesus and serve Jesus can get led astray and fall victim to the lies of the world.

We may look at them and say, "Oh, I knew it!, I knew that guy was a fraud!" or "Can you believe He had the guts to tell  me how to live when all along he was sleeping with his secretary?!"

And it's real easy to say that Christianity is a joke and I want nothing to do with it.  Or you may ask yourself, like I have before, "how did that person, who I KNOW loves Jesus, get wrapped up in such a big mess?"  "Am I being deceived?  Am I getting in all wrong?"

When I was a teenager, I had a authority type figure in my life who ministered to me in many ways.  He told me about Jesus by teaching me scripture and by being involved with my friends and I.  It wasn't until years later that I started believing the things he had taught me and that I appreciated the love he had shown myself and all the hungry people I hung out with.

Fast forward to my first year as a baby christian, and this same man, got caught up in some things that caused him to lose his job as a minister, and that stirred up a bunch of emotions in my fragile heart.  Could I lose my salvation?  Did he lose his salvation??  Was he ever even a christian?  Did he mean the things he said all of those years?

I had no idea how to cope with such a thing that seemed so huge and overwhelming to me.

What I have learned over the years is that I do believe without a shadow of a doubt the man who invested in me was in fact a sincere christian.  I believe a lot of "them" are Christians and that Satan was on the prowl to thwart their efforts in telling people about Jesus, and that somehow Satan got a foothold in their lives.  I believe that our salvation cannot be taken from us, but we can be led astray.
(Some are false teachers and this is why it is always important for each of us to know God personally and not depend on anyone else to be our primary source of getting to know God.)

Say the man who gets caught having an affair.   I believe that Satan found a vulnerability in that man and he whispered lies to the man that having this affair would make things better.  Satan dresses up sin.  He does a good job at it and he is very smart.  He knows our weak spots.

Things can happen in our life, maybe it's a death, or an illness, or an old wound that we have never let heal, and we start looking for escapes.  If we feel like God isn't coming through for us, it's tempting to believe that Satan has a better way.  And this my friends, is how I believe that godly people get led astray.

None of us are immune from it.  It can happen to the best of us.  If any of us ever think that we are above Satan's tactics, then we better be really careful.  It's when we start thinking in such a way that we stop depending on God desperately and we start living out of our own means.  Then disaster is bound to happen.

So, I don't know about you, but from now on, when I hear about a pastor who is cheating on his wife, or a Sunday school teacher who abuses children, I am going to ask God to help me to remember to pray for those people.

And most importantly, I am going to try and remember that just because MAN messes up ALL OF THE TIME, that doesn't mean my God does.  God is not MAN.  Jesus was man and He lived a SINLESS life.  He didn't fall for the traps of Satan.  He rebuked Satan by knowing his daddy well enough that he didn't fall for his tricks.

We aren't God and we can get tricked by Satan way too easily if we forget to cling to Jesus.  And/or if we stop believing that God is on our side and that He has our back.  If you say that you yourself would NEVER question God, well then my guess would be that you've never lost a child to cancer, or you have never suffered anything so horrific that you can't imagine God allowing such a thing to happen.

Put yourself in their shoes.  You never know what someone else is going through. 

As Christians, let commit to looking to Jesus for the hope in our lives.  Let's fix or eyes on Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit.  Let us not put man on a pedestal.  For man will always disappoint.

With Love,