You are not condemned!

What do we do when someone falls into sin in our Churches? Do we relegate him to seat at the back pew as a punishment? Is the front pew holier than back pew? What do we do when our leaders are caught in immorality? DO we condemn them or help as a church restore? The president of a very big evangelical ministry fell into sin and the church executives allowed his exposure on television, impeached him, and forced him to resign. Not stopping there, they slammed the doors of the church in his face and left him on the streets just because they wanted to protect their reputation. Also another incident of such but different happened to three zealous college students in three different local ministries. Of a fact their girlfriends were impregnated as a result of fornication. The fruit of their hypocritical lifestyle expose them before the church and leaders. They were summoned by the Church board and were presented before the church, relieved of their duties and were kicked to seat at the back of the pew without a shot at restoration. One of the guys out of guilt and condemnation murdered his family and committed suicide. The other two guys are still struggling with their morality in the church. Also one of the girls left her parents house to live with her boyfriend, left her church to join her boyfriends’ denomination. This is the standard of how our churches deal with such situations but I wonder, how would our Lord Jesus Christ deal with this situation? Does he deal with it or does he deal with it at all? Should we use the standard that we use now in our churches against Paul who was once a persecutor of the church and very injurious to the saints, he would have never been an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. Also considering Peter; he denied the Lord not just once but thrice, Abraham who committed adultery with his wife’s maid and David took another man’s wife and murdered him to hide his sin. All these people would have been found guilty and thus warrant their expulsion from their assignment according to the standard of our church in our time.The pharisaic spirit has invaded the church with its traits of intolerance and condemnation. We will put out people by reason of defending denominational doctrine and integrity but will not go the extra mile to restore and reconcile the fallen back to the faith as they repent. The same leadership that passes judgment of condemnation is the same leadership that in close doors “anoints” the young ladies in the church with “oil from Jerusalem.” Due to carnality and hypocritical traits in our leadership, drunkenness, fornication, adultery, homosexuality, profanity, etc have been legalized and being practice among the leaders in the church. Not considering what they do, impudently they thump others when they are caught. To simplify further, I remember in a board executive meeting in my previous ministry, some of the leaders would come to the meeting under the influence of alcoholic beverage which caused them to act impatiently and use profanity most of the times. They were punctual to church every God given Sunday usually smelling like alcohol mixed with mint. But one interesting fact about them was their ability to quickly judge people, and with a “holier than thou” attitude, preach against sin in the church. How appalling! It is said to say that our leadership has descended down from the Mount of God and are certainly growing worse than the Pharisees who like to wash the outside of the barrel and leave the inside unclean. In the biblical narrative according John chapter eight, the woman was indeed caught in the very act of adultery, condemned by the Pharisees (religious leaders) ,was brought before Jesus for the final verdict and he releases her by saying “neither do I condemn you.” He did not allow them to condemn her. Why? Does he not hate sin? Is He not the one who preached about repentance? The Lord Jesus did not condemn the woman because in Him there is always another chance, “there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). Since the word condemnation literally means to impose justice so that there is no opportunity for another chance, bringing judgment to a particular situation whereby the person or people involved would not have the chance to redeem his or herself to have another chance in life. It did not reflect His nature as the “Redeemer” and “Savior” of humanity. Just as the potter made the marred pot into another vessel that seemed good to him (.Jeremiah 18:4 ), so does our God (The Greatest Potter) with those people who are marred. He is still in the business of restoration. Thus Let us rise to the divine standard and let the love of God which is shared abroad in our hearts lead us in all we do.