Salvation is interesting; there are no followed scripts, most of the time, and definitely no copycatting.
If you base your relationship with God on other people’s relationship with Him, you are doomed. I call it ‘so-and-so-did-it-ism’. Because so and so did it, it is okay for me to try it too.
Because so and so did that and lightning did not strike them, I guess I too can compromise now. You are joking; like I said, there are no scripts. God’s only readily available manual is the Bible, and the only instructor is the Holy Spirit.
If you think you too are covered by the kind of grace Saul (later Paul) was under and you start persecuting the church and fellow brethren, you may be shocked by the immediate rebuke from God, unlike Saul who was tolerated by God for years, until that day on the road to Damascus.
Today, we still study about Paul as one of the greatest apostles of all time. Yet his beginning as Saul was disgusting. But you are not Saul. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, the Bible tells us.
Seeing a pastor compromise with sin and yet still be greatly used by God, is not a license for you to also let your guard and principles down. On the contrary, your chastisement from God may be swift and brutal.
There are people who rarely step in church on Sunday or for any other fellowship, but strangely still seem to prosper in all aspects of life, and there is you, the church girl/boy whose struggles seem to increase every week.
Don’t be tempted to also test how that works with you…the devil will spring a nasty surprise on you. Everyone has their own special measure of the grace, depending on what they are up against.
That is why, situations that have caused others actual death, have been a learning curve for you and you have risen from them. And things that seemed so easy and trivial to others, have proven to be your downfall, the moment you attempted them.
So, my friend, avoid ‘so-and-so- did-it-ism’; walk according to your measure of grace, and what the Lord is convicting or instructing you to do. Don’t ordain yourself a pastor because, after all, “the other guy, who was not even that bright in school, is now a successful pastor”. You will learn the hard way.
