Spiritual Abuse

Spiritual Abuse

Spiritual Abuse can happen within a church when the following criteria is from the leadership of a church.

When leadership does not understand the purpose of a person then abuse is inevitable. God is the most purposable being in the universe.

Leadership is about falling in love with the people and people falling in love with God as they respond to the love shown them.

Leadership should not be using people as a tool to promote an agenda or program, God is more interested in the  person than what that person can do for Him, or what we become rather than what we've done.

Leadership is about serving the people with selflessness, sacrifice, and putting the people ahead of personal interest.

John 13:1-38; Matthew 20:25-28, Philippians 2:3-4; Ephesians 4:11-12; 1 Peter 5:1-11

Harming Americans???

Justice and accountability, does this include the 54 million baby's that have been aborted since January 22, 1973? Our Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branch of our Government and the country's people have had an extended vacation for a very long time. It is time to hold all of us accountable. Not only is the loss of life that our country is experiencing and is devastating our souls, but also the loss of income to the economy and our Government (Local, State, & Federal) including the Social Security Shortfall. The people who were aborted would have provided for the future, not only financially but the leadership, direction, and moral compass that we so desperately need. Our financial, moral, and spiritual problems all started by the seed that was planted in Roe vs. Wade and now has culminated in the full blown tree of destruction that is now tearing down the very fabric that our country was built on. Dr. Martin Luther King has said "Ultimately, you can't reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree."
Galatians 6:7 Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 

Sports and Congress Hall of Shame

At our attention in recent days has been the story of a great pitcher Roger Clemens. Clemens was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he lied about his use of performance-enhancing drugs when he testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in February 2008.

We are also reminded of many others in baseball and other sports who have enhanced their bodies to greater feats by cheating, or should we say enhancing, sports. The mind set is that it is okay to cheat, to take the shortcut to a better life. The Mitchell report named over one hundred players in baseball for ties with performance-enhancing drugs. This report signifies the growing demand that it is proper to cheat your way through life and get paid top dollar for doing so.

But there is a bigger picture to be looking at here. Experience tells us that these ways are learned, and usually it is learned by rolling down hill, or from the top down. Which bring us to our Government or to Congress specifically and it’s Congressional authority.

Each member of Congress was voted in by a majority of the people. Each one ran on a platform promising the American public to reciprocate the vote given to them for the promises their platform was built on. How many of them perjured themselves to their constituents? How many of them said they would promise to do something while in office, and have they worked toward or completed that expectation. If any Congressman has not, maybe the federal grand jury in Washington should indict Congress for perjury to the American people.

Congress has used (sort of) performance-enhancing drugs. These drugs come in the form of selfishness, power, and greed. For if Congress does not follow through with the platform they were elected with, and then they are using that same power that was given them for other means and purposes. It is a misuse of the authority and performance. Have heard the many excuses of why Congress cannot complete the course of action that they were voted in for, but we get a different performance once they are voted into office. Congress enhances their performance to suit themselves and not their constituents.

Most of us forget that we are not a democracy, we are a republic. We vote people into office to run our government. Can we do a better job of voting and giving responsibility and power to others, yes? Maybe we need to put in safeguards to assure the American voters that the ones we vote in do the job they were voted in for.

We learn from our leaders, top down. If we are wondering why sports in recent years are cheating their way through life, maybe it is because sports has seen our leaders for decades doing the same. If things are to change it takes all of us to change, but it starts from the top down. Everything else will roll downhill from there.

The Church and the Great Deception

Rev 2:4
4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.
(NIV)


I Jn 4:19
19 We love because he first loved us.
(NIV)



The great deception is that there is a sign out in front of the church that say’s “We are a Hospital” but inside the doors it changes into “A Courtroom.”

It is not just about the words that we speak, but it is how we speak them and how we demonstrate those words. Talk is cheap, we can say all the words that we want to but if it does not align with our actions (as James would put it) then we are just hearers only.

Jesus’ answer to the great commission is that they (the world) would know us by the love that we have for one another. We the church have lost that love because we lost that Christ first loved us. Grace being given to us is the hospital that we have all needed. Instead we have incorporated a courtroom and are to busy judging and pointing fingers.

Another way to say this is like gold being refined. Impure gold is added to a oven that produces 2000 degree temperatures and is melted. What happens is that gold is a very heavy metal and the impurities (dross) rise to the surface and the gold remains beneath. The gold is taken out of the oven and the dross is skimmed off. The gold then is put back into the oven over and over again till the dross is eliminated.

In relationship to the church when an individual is being put through the refining fire and that person comes out with dross on the surface the church is standing all around pointing fingers and judging. But what does not happen is that this same church can’t go deep enough to see the refined gold that lays below the surface to see that God is changing a life His way and time and not the Churches way and time. It is God’s job to refine, He is the husbandman (gardener – oven tender) who prunes, skims off the dross.

John 15:1-2
1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.
2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
(NIV)

The reason for this is that church has lost its first love, lost that Christ loved them first despite their own sin and frailty. While they were still sinners Christ died for them. We are not commanded by God as a church to judge, we are commanded to love. We lost the ability to love because we lack the foresight on how much Christ loves us. We think that now that we have arrived it is okay to now judge and it’s not.


John 13:34-35
34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
(NIV)

We wonder why the world is not interested in Church; it is because we do not love. Loving means laying down our lives for one another. It means looking out for other people’s interest even foregoing our own. The world would bust the Churches door down if they saw the real thing. Were to busy pointing out the dross to notice the hurting individuals that exist across the street, next to our desk, across the hallway, and even sitting in the pew next to us.

This is the great deception, trading a hospital for a courtroom.

by G Jeremiah Williamson