Except for the grace of God . . .

These are the words that come to my heart and mind when I hear the story of a minister failing morally. The world seems to rejoice when this happens, while it is certain that the Christian world should grieve. The story is too often repeated; a gifted minister gets wrapped up in an immoral relationship, deals unethically with money, or gets caught in spoken lies and other types of dishonesty. I really believe very few actually begin their ministries with these types of moral flaws, but over the course of time they grow stale in their love for the Savior and begin to make small compromises that lead to life-altering mistakes. I plan to present a series of posts covering some of the more common pitfalls that ministers face. Some are obvious, like today’s post, and others are much less obvious…