RESTORING FALLEN LEADERS 5/02/12

QUICKENED:  Today when I was listening to scripture via iTouch, the following highlighted phrase was quickened to me:

Luke 5:12-14 AMP

While He was in one of the towns, there came a man full of (covered with) leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, Lord, if You are willing, You are able to cure me and make me clean. 13 And [Jesus] reached out His hand and touched him, saying, I am willing; be cleansed! And immediately the leprosy left him. 14 And [Jesus] charged him to tell no one [that he might chance to meet], until [He said] you go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your purification, as Moses commanded, for a testimony and proof to the people, that they may have evidence [of your healing]. [Lev 13:49; 14:2-32.]

When the lepers went to the priest, they were examined and the priest said they were healed.  This is a spiritual parable of when people have sin in their lives and they are rejected from fellowship.  Then once they repent, they come to the leader and the leader validates they are clean, and thus the person is able to enter into fellowship again.  This really places an importance on a leader’s position of restoration.

Cor 5:13 NKJV

I wrote to you in my epistle not to keep company with sexually immoral people. Yet I certainly did not mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner not even to eat with such a person. For what have I to do with judging those also who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside? But those who are outside God judges. Therefore "put away from yourselves the evil person."   

[Put away in the the Gk means to remove]

Gal 6:1-3 NKJV

Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore {2675} such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. 2 Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. 3 For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

RESTORE

NT:2675 

katartizo (kat-ar-tid'-zo); from NT:2596 and a derivative of NT:739; to complete thoroughly, i.e. repair (literally or figuratively) or adjust:

KJV - fit, frame, mend, (make) perfect (-ly join together), prepare, restore.

COMMENTS:  There are some ministries that have publically stated they have a calling to restore those who have sinned.  I have watched them take a lot of hits for their stand, including dividing the body of Christ for such.  The problem hasn’t been in restoring Christian people who have sinned, but rather Christian leaders who have sinned, because leaders have a greater judgment. 

James 3:1-2 NKJV

My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.

My personal feeling is that when a leader sins, after they have repented, forsaken their sin and been cleansed of such, they should be forgiven and accepted back into fellowship.  However to restore a leader back into ministry before they have been disciplined and sifted (as Peter was for denying Christ), it is to bring the restoring ministry into the same sifting as the fallen ministry. 

1 Tim 1:19-20  NKJV

… having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.

It is God alone that places a person into ministry and with His favor.  For a restoring ministry to take that position and prematurely try to restore a fallen leader it becomes a danger to God’s flock, to all ministries involved and to the body of Christ at large.  It causes the whole body to become sifted with the one who has fallen.

Many times when people were healed by Jesus, they wanted to follow Him.  Jesus replied that they should instead return to their families and show them the great things God has done for them.  Leaders need wisdom and protocol in understanding the ministry of restoration and where to place the one who is healed of their sin. 

When ministries make public mistakes, they are placed in a fish bowl where the whole body can learn and growth from.  For the generation of new leaders coming now on the scene, it is good to learn from the mistakes in our past so that they do not repeat history once again. 

1 Cor 10:11 NKJV
Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
 

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