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Today, I’m writing a paper with a heavy heart for our churches, having just learned of another pastor’s fall from the pulpit because of sexual immorality. Both locally and nationally, our fellowships are awash in the secret sins of sexual immorality. Extra-marital affairs, sexual relationships involving pastors abusing their positions of authority, pornography addictions, unchecked lust (mental adultery), and a myriad of other varieties. It’s in the pews, it’s in the pulpits, it’s everywhere. And I think many of us think we’re getting away with it. We think we can mock God in secret places while putting on a good show in public.

We each relate to Jesus according to the individual ways God created us to uniquely worship Him in the great diversity of the Church. This tapestry of worship is part of the beauty of the Bride who was hand-picked by God and who Jesus is gathering to Himself.

We don’t have to be haunted, minimized, backed into a lonely corner, and emotionally controlled by our shame for past evils in our lives. Too much time has been lost to shame.

Thank you, Father, for rescuing me by your Son, Jesus Christ, when I totally did not deserve it at all. Some days, this simple thank you to God washes over me like a wave of the ocean, and all I can do is express it.

Many people today describe their “faith” as “I’m spiritual and I have no problems with Jesus. Isn’t that enough?” This is a faith that believes there is a god, acknowledges Jesus as a real person who walked the earth, but does not call Jesus “Lord” and does not believe He is the only Way, Truth, and Life.