I’m following up on an earlier post and want to talk about what to do when your mentor falls. I will talk about a point on each post, but here are my main thoughts:
When Your Mentor Falls (Part 1): Don’t Discount Their Impact
If you have ever had someone you look up to fall from grace, you know the accompanying pain with their fall. You realized that no man is an island and everyone’s sins affects someone else.
But if you know someone that you looked up to who followed Christ and then some type of moral failure was found in their life, don’t discount their impact. Even if you feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath you, that doesn’t mean that the good that that person did is now invalid. If someone impacted your life for Christ ten years ago, don’t let their mistake today take away from their investment into your life.
Even at your mentor’s best moment, he or she was still a sinful person in need of Jesus. When that mentor was doing more for the Kingdom than ever before, he or she was only worthy due to Christ within him or her. Any good came from Jesus!
Look at how David put it: “Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord; I have not good apart from you.'” -Psalm 16:1-2
The only good we have is what God does in us. So if a person who has walked away from Christ with their lifestyle had impacted your life some time ago, you still praise Jesus for their impact because God was using them. You don’t take away from their ministry. You celebrate what God can do through a willing vessel.
And then you begin the process of making sure you don’t make the same mistakes. More on this tomorrow.
Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.
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