Who Are We Following?

Who Are We Following?


Most of us, as Christians, would answer, "Jesus". However, there are generally other people in the ministry that we start looking up to and following the advice of because they seem to "have it together" spiritually. This has been the case a couple of times over the years and sadly, it's ended up with disappointment when "moral failures" or "wonky doctrine" end their ministries. This seems to be the case more and more these days. There are many who have already analyzed these situations and come to different conclusions. Sadly I think that many of us take the attitude that it will never happen to us, but it really makes me stop and think "why not me?" What stands between us and "going astray". These people outwardly seem to love the Lord and desire to serve Him with everything that they have. Is it becoming rather famous or a prominent Christian? Is it being looked up to by so many people? We look at most men in the Bible and see how they messed up in one way or the other. I know that none of us will be free of temptation until we get to Heaven, but wonder if much of it is because we feel the need to have a certain image that we present to other people(lost and saved alike), but let our guards down when we're in private? Do we treat our spouse and children the same at home as we do at church? Do we listen to or watch things that we would be ashamed to have others know about in the privacy of our homes? I've heard this is one of the number one reasons many Christian families lose their children when they're teenagers. Little ones don't seem to pick up on these things so much as older ones looking for a reason to rebel. Are we giving them the excuse that they need?

Most recently the very public fall of a certain man caused Scott and I to question his whole ministry. There are times that God uses a certain person to be an encouragement in our lives, but when they start to take God's place of leadership in our eyes, that's idolatry and He's going to need to remove that from our lives. It's enough to cause me to pray that no one ever starts to idolize Scott as a leader! I know one important and powerful tool that we have to protect us is prayer and we don't utilize it near as often as we should. Begging the Lord on behalf of ourselves, our spouse, our children and those we love that He would protect us from temptation and help us to be REAL CHRISTIANS at home and in the world.

One thing I'm extremely thankful for is that my parents and others in my life had me memorize a lot of Scripture growing up. It has helped to raise the warning flags with spiritual teaching that I might have followed otherwise. Scott reminds me often that there can be truth hidden among a lot of false teaching and we're drawn to it because we hear the truth in it, but after searching the Scriptures the Lord can show us quite quickly where they've tried to deceive. In the case of the one who brought about this line of thinking, we were thankful not to have followed him doctrinally. He, and many of the "men" associated with him are being accused of misconduct in leadership(and other areas) over the past 10 years and only time will tell which is truth and which is created to bring shame to the very things they were trying to promote in families. We've been trying to teach the kids about doing all to the glory of God in all areas of their lives. This is still our goal, whether at home, town or church. We shouldn't let others failure keep us from teaching our kids what the Lord wants them to do or from striving to do it ourselves, with the Lord's help. The temptation is to throw out everything we've heard or bought from this group, but through everything the Lord seems to keep reminding us to be thankful for the areas that we were encouraged in and not let the rest get us side tracked from what He's called us to do. To pray more for pastors and missionaries around us. That they would be protected from giving in to the same temptations. To keep our eyes and our adoration for the only one that truly deserves it-The Lord Jesus Christ.

I don't mind comments or discussion on this, but purposely left out the name of who I was talking about because I don't want this post to turn up on the public feed. There are TONS of articles about this ministry right now and a lot of people just using the comments section to bash those involved. I'm not trying to start trouble with this article. Just trying to write it out and make sense of it in my own mind. I find that writing things out helps me to process it and be able to move on better. I also hope it's an encouragement to be "on guard", lest we also fall into temptation and be sidelined in the Christian race that we're called to run.