When we look at incidents such as those with Juanita Bynum, Paula White, the Catholic priests and others, the question comes to mind "Do we place more faith in the messenger rather than the message?
The Bible is full of prophets and other other individuals who were used by God even though by societies standards they were not "worthy". Our messengers do not preach themselves nor can they because they cannot provide you with salvation. Instead, they prech Jesus Christ the only one who can save you.
No ministry should become the object of your faith. Foolishly we place our messengers (or they place themselves) on pedastals rather the One who has already atoned for our sins. Rather, it should be God in whom your faith is place.
Our messengers are human; made of flesh and blood. They will in some way or another let you down. Their role is not to model for others what a real "man or woman of God" should act like. Their primary role is to proclaim the finished work of Jesus Christ for salvation…in spite of their inability to always behave in a "godly manner!"
No individual described in the word of God, never mind any who have come along since then, ever attained righteousness through their behavior. There is only one man that can give us salvation and that man is Jesus Christ. So the question remains today where does our faith lie? What do you think?
6 comments:
I absolutely believe we do! In my upcoming book, Let the Necessary Occur, this very subject is probably one of the main themes of the book. I have observed that the very people who preach the Word don't always live by the Word. As you mentioned, we are often shocked when things happen with so-called Christians who seem to go astray. They are human. They are not God. They sin. A lot. And sometimes, they don't get up. We get caught up in the hype and the fame of the person and after awhile, we listen to them not because of what they are trying to say, but because of who they are. In the end, we are bound to be disappointed.
I agree with you. Read my book Forsaking All. www.forsakingall.com
I believe that people who put their faith in 'the messengers' have a co-dependency on seeing what they have correlated to be as close to Christianic behavior as possible. Now, understand, this behavior is more often than not, a perception of a conception of Christianic behavior. Many people have been hurt (emotionally and spiritually) by the fact that when MAN (aka: the messenger) let them down or dissapointed them, better yet, when their faith was placed in MAN, they begin to do either two things: a: begin to doubt the Christianic beliefs or b: move in a way that is considered 'traditional christianity'. More often than not, we live in a society where people are more comfortable with being told about Christianity(beliefs and behaviors), than to study the word of GOD on an individual basis and with other serious believers. So, to answer the question, in some ways, we do place more emphasis on the messenger because we believe that he/she has been ordained to be a messenger from GOD. What we (and I use the term loosely) don't understand is that GOD uses the unworthy, (yes, that's right, including you and me), to be HIS messengers and HE has blessed us with the intellectual abilities to Read and Comprehend HIS word.
I think it can be dangerous and disappointing when you place your faith in the messenger. People will let you down because of their humanness. And you can get disillusioned and fall away from the church if you're not careful, not wise enough to keep your eyes off the pastor and pastor's wife.
it's obvious that some people do place their faith in the messenger. Just look at how the ministry falls apart when the leaders go astray. People love to quote their favorite preachers, imitate and put them on a pedestal, but they aren't worthy of that. Honoring a teacher in the faith is different, and Scriptural. We need to get back to what the Bible says and make sure that our foundation is Christ, because when the storm comes everyone will be able to see of what you are made.
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