Matthew 5. Jesus says a startling thing. Have you ever read it ?
First he says, if you looked at a woman with lust YOU ALREADY Committed Adultery. Then he starts talking about plucking your eye out of your head, to avoid hell! Wow.
But nobody wants to preach this stuff, so they like to get on people’s cases for what they consider to be “real adultery,” instead. Shutting people out of ministry because they’ve been divorced. Hiring ministers, who have lust problems they don’t even know about (see no evil, hear no evil?). Can we really go by what we see? I don’t think so.
This is the kind of stuff, people don’t want to talk about, or even consider. It stands to reason then, If you idolized something in your heart, (desired it more than God) You also committed idolatry. Do we jump now to the passage where they go to the lake of fire for Idolatry? Or Adultery?
Apparently sin was so bad in one church, Paul said, “and you have your Father’s wife” so some relatives were sleeping with each other, out of wedlock, and they didn’t even have the sense to be sorry about it. So Paul was on their case, and saying the church had better do something. However, I know this from reading my bible, Jesus did not send his word for all of us to go on a witch hunt. In the early years of our nation, people in Salem used to do just that, and justified burning some innocent people.
I don’t care if a million preachers preach something else, because I know what Jesus said. He said, if you lusted after a woman (ever) you committed adultery. For this reason, I cannot see, nor understand shutting people out of ministry because they got divorced. You don’t know what happened to them. I met a pastor (a man) who is one of the finest ministers I have ever met. Turns out, he was divorced. His wife cheated on him, he divorced her, but he had a really hard time getting a pastor job! Why?
Because, People love to apply the word of God to everyone but themselves, that’s why. Did we forget the bible calls God’s word a mirror? It was designed for you to look into it and find your own blemishes, in the light, that you cannot seem to see in the darkness.
Don’t talk me down when I’m preaching good. I know this is the truth.
I’m growing in grace (still) How about you? And, if you’ve messed up (like Paul) and God calls you to preach, DO IT! Don’t let the fear of man stop you!
With love, –Laura Grace
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