Part Six
“The Flesh is Weak”
In my last blog (#5) we talked about a good reputation being a requirement for a leader in the Church. Now we’re going to examine what a good reputation means, and how one can achieve it. Remembering again that the things of the Kingdom are usually just the opposite of how the world works.
Religion represents the appearance of things and the ‘form’. Remember when Jesus called the Sadducees and Pharisees white-washed tombs?… full of every unclean thing. He said they long to appear righteous and they make sure everybody sees them when they pray. Yet Jesus called them out in their folly. In today’s religion, we might know someone who loves to be seen and heard and thought of as super spiritual.
But Paul got real about his own flesh in this passage: “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:14-25).
Religious people will often seek the squeaky clean looking, never sinned (or never got caught) and wouldn’t admit it if they did – crowd to represent them in a ‘church’. What matters most is if they look good and if they have an unsoiled public reputation.
There are precious few truly discerning Christians out there, and even fewer who are mature enough to restore a God-ordained leader if he does sin, yet this is what the Bible says to do (Gal 6:1).
Some religious circles believe that if a leader is caught in a sin, (s)he can be forgiven and perhaps remain in the Body, but can never return to a leadership position. If that were true, David would never have led the armies of Israel to victory, Peter would have never preached at Pentecost, and Paul wouldn’t need to talk about his ‘thorn’.
But a bondservant of Christ will never quit because he belongs to the One who chose him, called him, and ordained him. Proverbs 24:16 says “A righteous person may fall seven times, but he gets up again. However, in a disaster wicked people fall.”
Should we be concerned about what others think of us? Yes. But if we sin and fall short, we have an advocate with God our Father, who is Jesus and He is interceding for us right now. And guess what? Other truly spiritual people will do the same thing. They will pray for us, speak life to us and help to restore us to right standing with God.
Yet, more often, those who fall into sin are talked about, shunned, shamed, and shelved. Some are even given the left foot of fellowship by religion.
We have already established that a leader in the Church in the Last Days must be a bondservant of Christ, giving up all of him or herself and laying down their lives in service to Jesus. Can a leader and bondservant of Christ sin and still be a leader in the Church? Certainly not willfully and using the grace of God as license to sin. But leadership within God’s Church is not based on qualifications and a sinless track record. As I’ve said before, God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.
What God has ordained, let no man put asunder. I love that line in the traditional marriage vows. And here’s how it applies in the Church: if you were conceived in the mind of God, birthed and brought forth in the Last Days for ministry in the Lord’s Church, and yet you have been buffeted by Satan and consequently failed in your flesh, even repeatedly, if you repent and receive God’s Amazing Grace – you are still who you are. Your identity in Christ cannot be taken from you – and your gifts and callings are without repentance. In other words, when God gave them to you, He was not and is not sorry He did so, and will not ‘take it back’, and neither can any man take it from you.
However, there were some things David could not do because of his sin. The Bible says that God would not let David build the temple because he had innocent blood on his hands. There are consequences to your sin that only God can administer. But God loved David and never took back David’s anointing to lead Israel.
In the Last Days, the true bondservants of Christ will be distinguished by one characteristic: THEY WILL NOT QUIT – THEY WILL NOT GIVE UP. If they fail, they will get back up again and again like David did and seek God’s forgiveness. That’s why David was described as a “man after God’s own heart”. He knew how to repent… and he never, never, never gave up.
They lead because that’s who they are – and they are not under bondage to what others may think of them. They play to an audience of One. They go forward because they can do nothing else! They are compelled by the Spirit of God within them to serve in the Kingdom – they are bondservants.
Let the reputation that we honor be the one of which we can say “They never gave up on God – and God never gave up on them.”
I promise we will get to Christ making Himself of no reputation.
(continued)
On Being a Bondservant of Christ – Part 1
On Being a Bondservant of Christ – Part 2
On Being a Bondservant of Christ – Part 3
On Being a Bondservant of Christ – Part 4
On Being a Bondservant of Christ – Part 5
On Being a Bondservant of Christ – Part 7
On Being a Bondservant of Christ – Part 8
On Being a Bondservant of Christ – Part 9
On Being a Bondservant of Christ – Part 10
When I was just entering my teegnae years my church’s youth group used a very similar (yet more sexist) analogy to introduce us to the concept of sex. It’s too long for me to repeat unless someone desperately wants to hear it but the gist of it was: women need to learn to keep their legs closed lest they become used and battered loose women (only in less nice terms than that) who don’t look very presentable to their perfect virgin husbands. You know, if more christians were like this guy I’d prolly consider attending church on occasion hahah. but it’s interesting to me that the most offensive and horrific sin in the days of the jews on through Jesus to the early church and its apostles was idolatry. Now the church’s main obsession is sex. I kinda liked studying the jesus who cared about the poor and the sick and stood up to the super wealthy and super powerful. I think the shift in thought underlies a significant shift in values within the church. I don’t see nearly as many homeless or sick people in modern churches as I see in the new testament stories. just a thought.
I think the shift in the christian chruch stems from the way they look at necessity and experiences. I think the west determines the value of any given action based on it’s end result (moral-utilitarian ends justifying the means type stuff). I think this causes the chruch to take a more hard-liner counter stance (because a lie told in good faith is still a lie and god commands his subjects not to lie) and makes the value of any given action the experience itself of doing that individual thing, even if no one is harmed or even effected and the end result is good. for example: so while one would say it’s ok to lie to your fat spouse when they ask you if they look fat in that dress. the other would encourage you to find an alternative way to compliment your spouses appearance. at times the chruch tacitly supports ends-means-justify’n and all that good stuff, I think primarily their ethos places the good in individual experiences. the obsession with experience I think would heighten scrutiny on what would be the ultimate human experiences like sex, drugs and rock and roll. all the pleasurables become the focus of the chruch’s energy as opposed to one’s devotions to one god over another or others. the focus on the pleasure seaking experiences creates this chruch vs culture dichotomy we all hear about so much in which the chruch sort of sees the experiences of the world as one packaged group of a way to live; then it see’s itself as THE way to live and lumps in everything it sees in that picture of the world’s version of living and runs counter to it. I think this is why there is an alternative christian consumer brand of everything the world has right down to christian toothpaste.maybe I’m just extrapolating too much. but if I’m right then this could explain why they’re sometimes more concerned with the fact that madonna kissed brittany at the VMA’s rather than the fact that there is a homeless dude they see every day on their way to work. I think the emergent movement is changing these habituations and reclaiming at least a part of a generation of youth who is slowly rejecting even the non-denom’s because they simply don’t see how their choice of experiences is relevant to their moral code.
I believe the godliest people are those that admit their shortcomings.
When David Wilkerson was alive he often spoke as tho grieved about
his shortcomings. While he lived a prophet walked among us. Moses
buried the body of an Egyptian in the sand and yet God chose him
to bring Israel out. To let my people go. I love you and Jim so
very much. To me you are real people. I have spoken to people
before who said, Oh, I haven’t done much wrong. But the scripture
tells me that he who is forgiven little, loves little, he who is
forgiven much loves much. What I am saying is some of us know where
he has brought us from and we are forever thankful for the price he paid.
Well said Lori, I wouldn’t want a squeaky clean person teaching me; I want ones who have gone thriugh the battles, such as you and Jim.
Bible tell us that we must suffer with Christ to be glorified with him.
I think both of you for your honestly
Tom Sechrest