Do Your Best to Keep the Faith
Staying Faithful in the Midst of Corruption and the weekly recap
Does anyone else feel overwhelmed by the amount of hypocrisy and brokenness in the church?
It feels like every other week there is another leader falling, another scandal being exposed, another failure brought into the light. Sin. Error. Abuse. Pride. It can wear you down.
It can make following Jesus feel harder than it should.
Sometimes the thought creeps in: If the people who are supposed to lead us are falling, what hope is there for the rest of us?
If pastors and teachers struggle this much, how can everyday believers measure up?
That tension is real. I don’t deny it.
And when leaders fall, the pressure shifts to the church.
Call them out. Condemn them. Shame them. Cut them off.
At the same time, there are real victims. Real people who have been hurt and broken by what happened. Their pain matters, and it should never be ignored.
Then there are others who claim the name of Christ, especially in leadership, yet constantly stir division, confusion, and harm.
All of this adds up.
The church feels divided on almost everything. Every day there is a new issue to argue about, a new person to judge, another battle to fight. It can feel unending.
Last week, I wrote about keeping our eyes on Jesus if we want to have peace in the middle of chaos. That still stands. But I believe there is another layer we need to talk about.
We need to look inward.
When We Become Sheep Without a Shepherd
In times like these, it’s easy to focus on everyone else’s failures while quietly avoiding our own hearts.
We hide things.
We hold parts of our lives back from God.
We hope no one notices how broken we really are.
And before we know it, we’re not walking confidently with the Lord anymore. We’re limping. Drifting. Living like sheep without a shepherd instead of stepping into all that God has for us.
Scripture gives us a sobering example.
Ananias and Sapphira
In Acts 5, Ananias and Sapphira sold property and claimed they were giving all the money to the church. But they secretly kept part of it back and lied about it.
Peter said to Ananias:
“Why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?”
(Acts 5:3, KJV)
Their sin led to death. And Scripture tells us:
“And great fear came upon all the church.”
(Acts 5:11, KJV)
That moment produced a healthy fear of the Lord. It reminded the church that God does not treat sin lightly.
But here’s what matters.
The church didn’t stop following Jesus.
Miracles didn’t stop.
The gospel didn’t stop going forward.
They kept preaching.
They kept gathering.
They kept seeking God.
God dealt with sin — and still moved powerfully among His people.
A Word From Ezekiel
This week, another passage hit me deeply. I often listen to Scripture while driving, and Ezekiel 3 came at exactly the right time.
God tells Ezekiel that if he refuses to warn the people when God tells him to speak, their blood will be on his hands.
“When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning… his blood will I require at thine hand.”
(Ezekiel 3:18, KJV)
That chapter is terrifying.
But it is also full of mercy.
God was still calling people to repent.
Still offering a chance to turn back.
Still reaching out.
So What Do We Do?
If you’re discouraged by what you see in the church, here is what I believe the Lord is calling us to focus on:
1. Keep your eyes on Jesus.
He is steady even when people are not. He is the only one who offers true peace.
2. Make sure your loyalty is to Christ — not to a man.
It is surprisingly easy to drift into following personalities, leaders, or movements instead of Jesus Himself.
Paul warned the church about this very thing:
“Every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.”
(1 Corinthians 1:12, KJV)
And then he asks the question that cuts straight to the heart:
“Is Christ divided?”
(1 Corinthians 1:13, KJV)
If you’ve found yourself more attached to a teacher, pastor, or voice than to Christ Himself, allow this season to refocus you.
This isn’t about rejecting leaders — it’s about remembering that leaders are not the foundation.
Jesus is.
Let this be a time to realign your loyalty fully and clearly back to Him.
3. Deal honestly with sin in your own life.
Ask yourself hard questions:
Are you holding things back from God?
Are there parts of your heart you’ve kept separate from Him?
Are you seeking approval from people more than obedience to God?
Are you speaking when the Lord hasn’t given you a word?
Or staying silent when He has told you to speak?
Jesus showed us the way:
“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.”
(John 5:19, KJV)
Are you trying to get settled in this season?
Trying to find solid ground again?
Then get into the Word.
Fix your eyes on Jesus and the Father.
Let the Holy Spirit lead you into truth and guide your steps.
Is it easy? No.
Is it worth it? Absolutely.
You will stumble at times. When you do, get back up. Confess. Repent. Receive forgiveness.
And keep clinging to Jesus.
“Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.”
(Hebrews 12:2, KJV)
He has not failed — even when people have.
Some Scripture verses I thought would be helpful this week:
Psalm 119:89 (KJV)
“For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.”
Psalm 12:6–7 (KJV)
“The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times.
Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever.”
Isaiah 28:10 (KJV)
“For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:”
1 Corinthians 2:13 (KJV)
“Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.”
Ecclesiastes 5:1 (KJV)
“Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.”
Psalm 93:5 (KJV)
“Thy testimonies are very sure: holiness becometh thine house, O LORD, for ever.”
Psalm 1:2–3 (KJV)
“But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
Colossians 3:16 (KJV)
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”
2 Timothy 3:16–17 (KJV)
“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”
Proverbs 30:5–6 (KJV)
“Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”
Ephesians 4:14 (KJV)
“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;”
The Weekly Recap:
Creative Arts Group
Last Saturday some friends of mine started a creative arts group. They started the meeting with a prompt which actually tied into the story I had an outline for. Unfortunately, I had hit a road block in the story, but this prompt helped get me refocused, and I spent the past week finishing the rough draft of the story. Below is the text I wrote from the prompt. It isn’t the text I used for the story, but it did help me to breakthrough. What do you think? Would you like to hear the rest of the story?
On Monday, they walked us into an auditorium in a single file line. They made us all sit down together at the same time. You could hear each chair squeak in unison.
Eeek.
A younger man clothed in a white lab coat walked up to the podium. he leaned over with a grin and tapped, tapped, tapped the microphone.
“Hello.”
“Can anyone hear me?”
Everyone responded in unison.
“We hear you.”
A giant image of the universe glitched onto the wall behind him.
“Now my fellow citizens, let us begin.”
Videos I watched:
The Fuel Project: Save the West. A video about the trench theory. The Fuel Project has been putting out some valuable videos recently. Some of these will be hard to watch depending on your background, but they could also be helpful in explaining things that have been hard to wrap your mind around on how we got to this point.
Genesis and the Gospel Preserved in Chinese - This is pretty cool!