Is there a point where we can actually become unusable by God?
I pondered this question as I read this article yesterday that a friend of mine posted on Facebook.
Read the article. It literally made me say “wow” out loud.
This article speaks of Ted Haggard and his very public fall.
Now, back to that question.
Can we become unusable by God?
I say no.
There are things that can cause us to lose position and status within the church for sure. There are things that could come between God and us, by our own choosing, of course. We can fall from a place where God has put us and lose a lot that He’s given us.
There definitely has to be a time of repentance and restoration in any of these situations.
But, here’s where it gets sticky.
And, on a side-note, I hate this about us as Christians.
We don’t forget. Some of us don’t even forgive.
When a fellow believer falls away from God, especially one that is in the public eye or in leadership, we condemn them. We feel relieved that someone who’s supposed to be holier than we are had a moral or ethical failure of some type.
And, then we write them off … UNUSABLE.
We say and expect that God can never use them again.
We say and expect that God can never use them again.
If there were stones lying around, we would be throwing them for sure, just like the Pharisees.
There’s a difference between a person who totally denies what they’ve done wrong and a person who openly confesses and repents of their wrong-doings, desiring to be reconciled and restored.
How can we say we’re Christians, but still turn them away, especially someone who would have been a “brother or sister in the Lord”?
I don’t understand it.
Yes, what Ted Haggard did was wrong. What so many other pastors or leaders have done is also wrong. What our former friend did was wrong.
But, what we’re doing by not granting them the same grace offered to us every day is also wrong and quite disheartening.
Another statement in the article hit me hard, a statement that the author’s non-believing friend said to him about Christians:
“You Christians eat your own. You have. Always will.”
How sad is that.
We’re called to be different. Set apart.
Different is extending forgiveness and grace to those who ask.
Different is not condemning someone because their “sin” may be different from your sin and you don’t understand it.
Different is loving EVERYONE.
We need to remember that Jesus used a murderer as one of his greatest missionaries. His followers were not anyone we would have probably been hanging out with. They would have been the ones our parents told us to stay away from.
Interesting, huh?
I really want to shake off any hint of self-righteousness I may have and look at everyone the way Jesus would look at them. I want to stop judging. I want to stop condemning.
I want to be love, forgiveness, and grace to all because I need those things so much in my life.
And, the answer to my question:
God can use ANYONE.
He’s bigger than any of our problems or our sin.
Thanks, Michael Cheshire, for your article and your honesty.
What a good post, one that we need a reminder about all the time.