The twelfth chapter of Hebrews tells us to beware… lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled. Verse 15. If you have just a little bitterness in your heart, before you know it, many people become defiled.
People get an attitude toward someone whom they have prejudged or some situation they know nothing about and proceed to make a little remark here and there and immediately that bitterness goes through the Body.
Getting your eyes on man can be very deadly to you. This is true regarding a minister more often than anyone else. People get their eyes on him, and, refusing to see him as the man of God entirely, want to see him also on a plane of human perfection—a plane which they themselves have not reached.
He has to be sweet and lovable; though they are caustic. He has to be perfect; he has to be exactly what they want him to be, yet their actions don’t always help toward his perfection. They mingle their own attitudes and criticisms with their prayers. When people, who exalt the man in a way that is human and see that he is human, they go the other way and become critical.
We have to recognize that God raises up ministries and He sets them in. I face this, and by the grace of God you will face it also.
Though the churches have problems, we cannot criticize the elders or the deacons. We have to stand back of them with a loyalty and a faith that believes for them. We can solve their problems, through our intercession for them.
I see people do things for which I would be perfectly justified in being critical and condemning them, but I don’t. I see what God is doing in their lives.
If I see something for the moment that is irrelevant and even detrimental in your life, I still do not get upset about it—I bless you and help you; I carry that burden for them, and that is what you have to do in return.
I am an individual like everyone else and refuse to be something special because I was called to be a teacher. But when it comes to the things of the Spirit I am able to assume exactly the authority I am to take in the ministry, I live in, it consistently, twenty-four hours of the day.
Now these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes; that in us you might learn not to go beyond the things which are written; that no one of you be puffed up for the one against the other. I Corinthians 4:6.
The best attitude you can take is a Scriptural attitude. You were not brought in the church to worship the leader, but you weren’t brought in to give him a bad time, either. You are not to follow either extreme. You are not to be a man worshiper, but neither are you to be a preacher hater. You are to come in and say, “This is a man of God; he is set here to lead me.”
What happens if he fails, if he stumbles miserably? You will get down on your knees and in love start praying for him because you recognize him as a divine channel that has blessed you many times.
If I stumble and fail, then you are to go before God on my behalf to see me helped. I don’t see why you should take any other attitude than that: I don’t take any other attitude for you. We should help each other all the way through. In our spirits and hearts we should have a right attitude toward each other.
Sometimes you see ministers do some very stupid things; but just the same, honor them because God put them in the place that they are in. Don’t cut them down. If you leave a church because God leads you out of it, don’t leave in bitterness or rebellion, for then you won’t fit in any other church; you will have destroyed yourself by that root of bitterness you allowed to come into your heart.
Some people are going to love us and some people are going to hate us.
God doesn’t bring perfect people into this church. They are usually O.K until the Lord starts dealing with them. That’s the way they get in: people who had money, talent and ability the Lord humbles, brings down, brings them in and begins to remold them the way He wants. Many people will come in with problems, and when they do, help them.
It takes a little while to relax and realize that this is the family of God, the Body of Christ. We don’t hurt each other; we help each other. Sometimes some of the children have growing pains and it takes a little while to get the over them.
In families where one draws back and the other wants to go on with the Lord, don’t start taking sides and throwing bricks. Try to help them. They are trying to have faith and overcome feelings and emotions. Don’t be the one to tell them what to do and what to think. You are not God; but you are the extensions of God in the earth, so be constructive, don’t be vindictive and don’t try to judge it in yourself.
There is plenty of revelation so things can be judged in the Body; but don’t let anything happening in the Body become an occasion of a schism or a division. When there is a touch and go situation in a home, pray for those involved but don’t condemn anyone in it. We encourage them to go to the elders and get counsel in what to do, step by step. These very difficult situations need the elders’ help. Pray, but don’t judge the situation. As you watch some of the things the elders are going through, don’t judge them; pray for them.
Some situations you just shelve, don’t try to judge; you can’t. If God gives a word then that one will stick to that word and start praying. For every problem that hasn’t been solved there are two or three dozen examples of miracles that God is working in other families. This church is a church full of miracles. If churches would just listen to things like this and would follow what is said they wouldn’t have the undercurrents of gossip going around in the church. They would learn to trust God.
We watch people go through the pressures and are concerned for them. I watch the young couples in the church and don’t always know what to do for some of them. I keep my eye on everything, not to criticize, but because we are helpers of one another’s faith. We believe, we lift one another up.
There is such a thing as having perception and understanding of a situation and then falling into judging it, and becoming critical and bitter.
But if every time you see a need, you love and help and are constructive, your eyes will never be upon man to a point that it will stumble you.
In the past, practically every one of us has had the problem of getting our eyes on man, seeing the faults and problems and found it was actually a spiritual problem. This is the favorite trick of the enemy to try to get our eyes off the Lord and upon some situation or problem that people have and become critical. It is so easy to do.
When people are going through things, sometimes a little bit difficult, you must steer them along.
People in this Body with problems must not find anyone coming to beat them down. Love covers a multitude of sins. We are here to cover up for each other under the blood of Christ, not to sit around and pick—and we don’t, we have too much work to do. Stop to think of the load that will be set before us. We are breaking into fields that will reach the whole world with the living word. We are not trying to advertise or sell anything; we are proclaiming and bringing forth God’s word for this hour. It requires, above everything else, that our eyes be upon the Lord completely. Set a watch on your tongue, set a watch on your heart. Be sure that you don’t ever fall victim of the same things that happen in other churches, that drain off all of their vitality and life and leave them nothing.
We are one family. You are not to show partiality; you are to be open to love each other. The level that we have attained is absolutely essential, where the young folks are an integral part of the church and no groups are isolated within the church.
Some of our older young men have adopted some of the younger boys as little brothers. There is no such thing as age distinction and it is beautiful.
If we only knew what we are doing in developing this love: no gossip, no criticism, no beating one another down; everyone helping his brother and sister.
Everyone is doing everything for everyone in the church—no little select groups that would create schisms within the Body. We are going to minister in the spirit to accomplish one thing: that we be one Body, flowing in all God called us to do, as best we know how.