passion @ uwa

Some of you know that I often go to ReverendFun.com for inspiration (as well as a few laughs) when I do word at cell. So it was quite amazing that today's cartoon was directly related to the reading i'm due to share! Coincidence? I think not. Unlike the cartoon however, I believe that even with the plank removed from our eye or even the eye itself being removed, we should not confront a friend in such a manner. Like we learnt on last Friday, Pastor Rick talked about confronting others with love.

With regards to today's reading, Holladay shares 3 choices to help us get started on choosing integrity. Choose to 1) Speak the truth, 2) be honest about your faults 3) Ask for God's help.

Reflecting on these 3 choices, I realized that while it may be easy to say : "Yes I will be truthful, be honest about my faults and ask God for help!" but in reality even one of these 3 choices are really difficult to do, it's like trying to get into a car with a plank tied around your head! Very few of us have the courage and the willingness to be vulnerable and held accountable for our thoughts and actions.

Like Stan, when I first heard about Michael Guglielmucci admitting his 2 year "con" I remember that I had these thoughts "oh great! what would non christian think of us now? This just confirms their suspicions that all Christians are hypocrites! Why did he do it?! He should have known better!"

It was not till a good friend pointed me back to King David. King David, who wrote the Psalms, comprising of many songs, all in the Bible itself, a man that God called "a man after my own heart" [Acts 13:22] This is the same king who after sleeping with a loyal soldier's wife and made her pregnant, tries in vain to cover it up, before finally deliberately sending the soldier to his death in the front lines and then claiming his wife as his own?! [2 Samuel 11:1-26]

So what separates Guglielmucci and King David apart? Nothing! Just as no one sin is greater than another sin in God's eyes, all men and women are equally sinful. No evangelist, no Pastor, no church worker, no zone supervisor, no cell leader, no cell intern, no cell helper nor core member is above "holier than thou" than any non Christian. It is only because of and with Christ that we are redeemed for our sins. We are called Christians because we bear Christ redemption on our lives. It is only through Him and with Him can we approach our Holy Father. Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [John 14:6]

Looking back, I believe God had a part to play in Guglielmucci coming forward and admitting what he had done. It must have taken him take a great great deal of courage to confess that he had overly "exaggerated" his "illness" i.e his battle against cancer to his addiction to pornography. Confession would have meant taking the chance that all creditability of the church would be lost, the Christian community, the millions touched by the song "Healer" might be stumbled and lose their faith. I maybe exaggerating a bit but my point being that it would have taken a great deal of faith and prayer to step up and confess. I am reminded to keep him in prayer even as he seeks treatment, that his wife and family as well as the church continue to love him and support him during this difficult time.

Again, this incident serves to highlight that we all have fallen short of the glory of God, that all the more we need His healing and His spirit in our lives. Even now when we sing "Healer" at service, or when I listen to it on iTunes, the song still speaks volumes to me, even more than when I first heard it! I continue to hope and pray that it still does to the global Christian community.

In closing, as Holladay shared that "Integrity is recognizing that without God's help we don't have the power to say no, but that with His help we have a new power to say yes to high and mighty things." I want to encourage everyone that although integrity maybe a gritty step for us to take daily, but with Christ and a loving church, we can create an culture that encourages us to speak the truth in love, to be open about our faults and a prayerful environment to seek God for acceptance, guidance, strength, and most of all, love.

In His love and mine,

Isaiah.