RE:FORM

Today I begin what I hope will be a weekly pastor’s blog - much like a personal journal entry.  I plan to review each week that past and honestly share what I am going through.  This will serve a few purposes; 1. Give you an inside look into a pastor’s life and get to see that we are actually real people and not some super-heroes; 2. That through my ups and downs, victories and defeats, mistakes and progress you can relate and be encouraged to see Jesus in all aspects of your life, and 3. This is more personal - a medium that will allow me to off-load and give me a way to review my life and see what areas I need to change, better manage, confess, repent and grow from.  Having said that, what you might read in these weekly RE:VIEW entries might challenge your own pre-conceived ideas of what pastors go through and serve to give you a deeper look into who Jesus is making me to be.  I encourage you to also start your own “journal” or weekly review and see how healthy it can actually be.  Ok, so let’s start…

Entry 1 - FULLY SICK MATE!

Yep, this week has been fully sick.  Now, if you’re a young, hip Aussie you will read that and think, Cool, sounds like you’ve had an awesome week…a fully sick week! But for the rest of us who still understand “sick” to mean un-well, feeling under the weather and battling ill-health, would then give you a better understanding of my week.

For the past month it seems like I’ve just overcome one illness and then I soon catch the next and my body is feeling the effects.  Tonight I write this entry feeling like I’ve been hit by a bus, then flung in the air to then be smashed by a jet and then driven over by a Hummer…so you could say I feel like ……..?  Isn’t it funny that when we feel sick - fully sick and not the half-hearted sick - that we think that the world is going to end and everything is falling apart.  Or is that just a man thing?  I know you women can soldier on and go about your business unhindered, but us men, well, ok…we are sooks and need some lovin’.  But enough of me feeling sorry for myself.

Something that really devastated me this week which unfortunately has reoccurred on a couple of occasions over the past few weeks is the news that famous “Christian” singer Ray Boltz has come out and announced that he is gay.  Combine this with the news of Mike Guglielmucci’s cancer deception and Todd Bentley’s hypocritical charade and I am sickened by the way satan is licking his lips in sweet victory.  Public ministries that demand living that is above reproach have been revealed as fakes and no doubt will cause many unstable Christians to stumble and even lose heart.  Ray Boltz went into detail about how he has hidden his homosexual life and his divorce from wife Carol, after decades of marriage, now releases him to be real.  You can read more about this in this Christianity Today’s blog.

So what is happening?  Throughout the Bible God refines, purifies and cleanses the sins of man and reveals them for what they truly are.  I can see the refining of God occurring in our churches around the world.  The hidden things being revealed, repentance demanded and we are all forced to see that God is holy and all sin cannot go undercover for too long.  Of course some at this point would say, “How can you judge them?  They are simply real men, weak like the rest of us.  You don’t have a right to judge them!”  While ultimate judgement and justice belongs to Jesus, the people of God are still called to make moral judgements on others to expose sin and call the affected to repentance and restoration.  In the New Testament the Apostle Paul advices the churches he oversees to act this way so that the purity of God’s people will remain and all will see that sin is not to be tolerated.

Yes, I agree that men like Mike, Todd and Ray are weak, flawed and sin-stained men who desperately need the touch of their forgiving and grace-filled Saviour Jesus, but unless they go to Him with a sorrowful heart and are sickened by their sin, they will continue to live deceived and trapped.  Jesus desires that all the captives are set free, that sin loses it’s hold on His people and that we live in the power and might of His grace, but it must be taken personally and applied personally or else it simply becomes powerless in the sinner’s life.  What they did is wrong, sinful and deceptive and the only way they can be free is if they come to Jesus, agree with Him and seek His forgiveness.  This process of love is for them, for me and for you too.

But I can’t hide the fact that I am hurting because such public figures have brought so much shame and ridicule to the Christian community, giving the world more ammunition to use against God’s people.  It will of course not stop the progress of God’s mission and purposes, but it definitely doesn’t help.

I am by no means perfected and I still struggle with the temptations and sting of sin.  Even after years of following Jesus the pressure does not ease and even at times seems to increase.  The only difference is that I have learnt that the saints are just the sinners who fall down and then get up.  Sin cannot hold the Christian down, it cannot keep us bound, it cannot control us anymore.  Jesus broke that curse and we are now called by Him to claim that victory and rise above it.  It does not guarantee a sinless life, but it does give hope and assurance in that fact that Jesus keeps us close and pure and restoration is just a prayer away.

Jesus walks with me, holding me up when I am weak and “fully sick”.  He comforts me when I feel alone and overwhelmed by life.  He forgives me when sin has tripped me.  He restores me when my heart is aligned to His.  He assures me when I doubt I can go on.  He accepts me even when I am not doing ministry.  He has mercy on me when I have messed up.  His grace saturates me when I feel so unworthy.  But the greatest part in all of this is that He knows me, loves me and lives with me so that I live to see another day.

My call to you, the reader, is this…please do not settle for sin and its effects.  Don’t adapt to it as being normal and something for you to manage.  Hate it.  Despise it.  Reject it.  Why?  Because it separates, destroys and divides and life is too short to live under its curse.  Jesus is ENOUGH!

My prayer:  “Jesus my Lord, my Saviour, my God and my King, I adore you and live for you.  Thank you so much for setting me free from sins and its effects and giving me victory even before I step out into the battle.  Thank you for the grace and mercy that you give in abundance and for not counting my sins against me.  I need you right now to close this day embraced and secure in your arms.  Bring healing to my weary body and release from the weakness I feel.  Give me good rest tonight and renewed energy tomorrow.  I pray for the reader to feel the power of your presence and to revolutionize their world as you have mine.  In your name I pray, Amen.”