Having grown up in church, I've seen a LOT. I've seen cliques form and dissipate. I've seen men and women of God rise and fall. But one thing that has always concerned me is how quickly and easily we (as Christians) are able to do away with people when they fall.
Let's talk about Prophetess Juanita Bynum for a minute...
A lot of people that got delivered from her "No More Sheets" sermon and book. Don't act like she didn't have you laying prostrate on your living room floor after seeing her walk around with that sheet tied around her waist. Here's a little sample to refresh your memory.
Back then, we couldn't get enough of Juanita Bynum. Everybody and their mama's mama was talking about how awesome this woman of God was. But what happened? She had some trouble in her marriage and all of a sudden she has lost her credibility. NOW she's a fake, a phony, a false prophet. And why? Because she's human? We got it backwards y'all. Does the fact that she had problems in her marriage make her any less authentic? Let's say all the other rumors about her are true too...just for the sake of argument. Does that change the fact that God has used this woman to bring thousands to Christ? I mean, I know that with ministry comes a higher level of accountability but she is, after all, accountable to Christ right? So why have we already sent her to hell?
Why do we act as though we have a heaven or a hell to put people in? None of us are perfect. We all struggle with something on a daily basis. Mine might be promiscuity, yours might be a cursing tongue, someone else's might be a jealous spirit. The Bible says in the second chapter of James, "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.”If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker."
So, it's all equally sinful.
If that is true, then the unwed pregnant mother sitting in the congregation is no more sinful than the gossiping choir director, the adulterous deacon that calls the church to worship every Sunday, or the usher that struggles with an alcohol addiction. The Bible says that we should forgive so that we may also be forgiven. But what do we do? We talk about them, we shun them, we want nothing to do with them. We would rather talk at them than talk to them. We would rather beat them up with the word than show them how that word helped you out of the same mess they are in. Don't you think it's time we destraddled the high horse?
Our youth need us! I don't know about y'all, but I'm afraid for our youth. The boys are dropping like flies (dead or jail) and the girls are popping out babies like nobodies business. Why? Because we've been talking AT them and not TO them. We have become so savedsantifiedandfilledwiththeholyghost that we are unapproachable. We don't want to tell them that we've been a drug dealer or user. We don't want to tell them that we've had more sexual partners than we can recall. We don't want to tell them about the baby mama/daddy drama that we've been dealing with. We don't want to tell them what the consequences for our mistakes have been. NO! We want to show them what appears to be a finished product....and then treat them like failures when they can't figure out how to get there. We shoot them....instead of nursing them back to health.
We gotta stop killing off our wounded, because those are the people who are going to bring others to Christ. Maybe when we learn to stop killing off our wounded, people who are bearing their wounds silently won't be afraid to speak up. Someones salvation could be depending on it.
