What are we asking God for today?

Do we deserve the same chance as everyone else?

What if you’ve messed up somehow, and you’ve repented and gone to those you likely hurt, tried to make amends and are doing your best to pay back whatever you took that wasn’t yours?

Oh, we know about placing people on probation until they’ve proven they can be trusted again.  How well does that work?

Do we dare ask certain questions?  What about, “How is it that the Church, as many of us know it, has perhaps failed also?”

Did the body we individually belonged to, grow like it should have done?

Have we reached the potential we were assured we should?

Just how deep in the Spirit did our group become, and did we allow “all” of the ministries to function as they were designed to do?

There was supposed to be checks and balances in the house of The LORD also, put there by God!

I said something to a friend recently about a special person who has developed a drinking problem.  The response was certainly not very compassionate.

You know, sometimes things just come out of our own spirit.  My reply was sincere,  “You know, people did not start out to become an alcoholic or addict.  Or to make the mistakes they’ve done.  They didn’t just wake up one day and say, ‘You know what, I think I’ll just destroy my life.  I’ll ruin myself and everybody around me!'”

We have to answer honestly.  For what reason, again in the Church we’ve known, have not more people been restored?

It’s likely that most people who have been gossiping and living in envy, have not been told to take a seat.

Some works of the flesh are deadly; they destroy some precious things.  Jealousy is cruel.  But it’s not likely someone is going to lose their position as music director or assistant whatever over it.  Most folk won’t even know that, because it’s well hidden.

There is a certain truth that exists.  Those who have failed and fought their way back, are likely to have more compassion for others who have made mistakes also.

You do not have to fail yourself, to help restore many of those who’ve missed the mark.  But you do have to be spiritual, and you have to be meek….

This pointing a finger in people’s face and shunning them or forsaking them, never restored anybody!  It’s not the fruit of the Spirit; it never was.  It’s the work of the flesh.

I don’t know why this message is being addressed just now.  It’s not at all what I thought I’d be talking about.

But one thing has become clear as this has progressed.  I feel in my heart at this moment, that there are yet, so many, that need to be restored.

Does anyone know that many of these dear people are still struggling with some of their issues?  Thank God, that many of us found other places to get the love and help we so desperately needed.  But many of the “failed” group, have not.

We are living at a very rough time; just as it was written.  And until God does something, and we the people of the Church start praying as we once did, we could be overtaken.

Those hungry for power and control, only want more — never full.  It’s possible, we’ve used some verses a little bit too much…. “You reap what you sow.”

Not searching for those driven out and those overtaken in faults can result in nobody helping you and yours when you fail also.

People need help now, and many others will need help soon.  God help us, to be merciful.

~ Robert Blackburn

Robert Blackburn

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