There are a few passages that helped me keep my sanity when I left the unhealthy church that taught me that I couldn’t be saved without them, that if I left I was leaving God, that God would punish me for leaving. One of these passages is this:
Mt 12:20 A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.
One verse, but I clung to it. I couldn’t put it into words then and I’m not sure I can now. However, for someone who had been wounded, this verse was a promise. A reed, nothing to begin with and now bruised as well, making it worth even less, but Jesus would not break it. Nor would he put out a “smoking flax” – a wick that might be snuffed because it wasn’t burning brightly. He would let it continue to give out what light it could. He wouldn’t condemn it as useless or look to only preserve what might do better. He wouldn’t stomp it or push it aside.
Always to me, the first part of the verse brings an image of Jesus reaching out to straighten or simply to lovingly touch a slender stalk, bent and broken from lack of care. This is a very different Jesus than I was taught, this Jesus who would acknowledge a reed. A piece of grass of sorts. And one that was bent, at that! To me the verse shows a gentleness and a care that I couldn’t even imagine, a deeper love than anyone had told me even Jesus could give – the kind of love that would see value in the weakest, that might even heal a bruised reed or encourage a flame in a smoking wick.
Does God punish those who leave abusive churches? Part 2
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Author: Through Grace
I was raised in a somewhat unhealthy church group within the Nondenominational Christian Church. After graduating high school, I began attending a United Pentecostal Church (UPC). I've been a member of four UPC churches and visited many others. Of the four of which I was a member, I was "encouraged" not to leave the first and then later sent to the second; attended the second where an usher repeatedly attempted to touch me and the pastor told me I should not care about the standards of the organization and was wrong to do so; ran to a third at that point, which threw me out after a couple years; and walked out of a fourth. For these transfers and because I refused to gossip about my former churches, some called me a "wandering star, a cloud without water" (Jude 1:12).
I love the fact that when the blind man was healed, questioned by the Pharisees and temple rulers, and expelled from the temple, Jesus went and sought him out. He very rarely did this once someone was healed, but for this man, he did. I believe God has a special place in his heart for those who are abused, wrongfully accused, or condemned by religious leadership. I believe He loves those who are wronged by churchianity--yes, churchianity, not Christianity, because those who do these wrongs follow a church, not Christ.
1 John 4:7-8
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
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Indeed, that is the god we serve — a loving god.