When a Spiritual Leader Lets You Down
Has a pastor or spiritual hero ever let you down so deeply that it shook your faith? In this episode, discover how to keep your trust anchored in the only leader who has never once failed the people who followed Him.
Has a pastor or spiritual hero ever let you down so deeply that it shook your faith? In this episode, discover how to keep your trust anchored in the only leader who has never once failed the people who followed Him.
Maybe it was a pastor whose secret life came to light. Maybe it was a mentor who betrayed your trust, or a Christian leader whose public reputation turned out to be a carefully built illusion.
If you've been there, you know the particular weight of that kind of wound. It doesn't just hurt your feelings. It can make you question your own judgment, your church, and sometimes your faith itself. For a lot of people, it's the moment they quietly stopped going back.
In this episode, we look at the story of Christine Sneeringer, a woman who crossed the Atlantic to train under one of the most respected Christian apologists in the world, Ravi Zacharias. She gave a year of her life to sit under his teaching and sharpen her defense of the faith. Then a report surfaced in February 2021, and the man she had trusted turned out to be living a deeply deceptive double life.
What she did next is worth paying attention to.
Through Christine's story and the steady anchor of Hebrews 12:1-2, this episode makes the case that the failure of a human leader is painful, but it doesn't have to be fatal to your faith. Because your faith was never supposed to rest on them in the first place.
BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:
- Why placing your trust in a spiritual leader, even a gifted one, builds on a foundation that can't hold that weight
- How Hebrews 12:1-2 gives you a fixed point to return to when a leader's failure leaves you spiritually disoriented
- The practical difference between grieving a betrayal and letting it pull you away from Christ
The people God sends to point us toward Jesus are gifts. But they are not the destination. Jesus is. And He has never failed anyone.
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She packed her crossed the Atlantic, and moved to
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Oxford, England, all to spend a year being trained by one of the
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most respected Christian apologists in the world. His
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name was Ravi Zacharias. For Christine Sneeringer, this
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wasn't just a career decision. It was a calling. She sat in his
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lectures. She absorbed his arguments for the faith, and she
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watched him defend Jesus Christ before skeptics and scholars. In
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her mind, if there was a man who embodied intellectual and
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spiritual integrity, it was Ravi. Then, one February morning in
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2021, a report came to light, and everything she thought she
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knew came apart. We'll come back to Christine's story in just a
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moment, but first, welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.
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I'm Bart Leger. Today's episode is for anyone who has ever been
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hurt by a spiritual leader. Maybe it was a pastor who fell
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into sin, a mentor who betrayed your trust, or a Christian hero
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whose private life looked nothing like the public one. If
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that's happened to you, here's what I want you to hear first.
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You're not alone, and what you felt is real. That kind of wound
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doesn't just hurt your feelings. It can shake your faith to its
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foundations. For a lot of people, that's exactly what drives them
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away from church, and sometimes away from God entirely. So let's
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talk about how to keep your faith intact when a spiritual
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leader lets you down. Here's today's scripture. It's Hebrews
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chapter 12, verses 1 and 2 in the New Living Translation.
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We We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who
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initiates and perfects our faith. disregarding its shame. Now, He
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is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne. I want you
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to notice what the writer says. He says, keep your eyes on Jesus.
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Not your pastor, not your favorite author or podcast host.
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That's right, not even me. Keep your eyes on Jesus. He is the
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one who initiates and perfects your faith. That phrase conveys
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everything. Jesus, start your faith, and Jesus finishes No
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human being gets credit for either. But here's where so many
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of us get it wrong. We drift into placing our faith in people
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without realizing we've done it. We have listened to the same
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preacher for years. We quote them, recommend their books if
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they have one. Build our understanding of God around how
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they explain things. If the teachers are a real gift to the
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church, but when a teacher becomes more than a guide
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pointing us to Jesus, we've unintentionally built on a
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foundation that can't hold the weight. And human foundations
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always crack in some way, in some form. Every single one of
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them. Not because people are secretly terrible, but because
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people are human. We're flawed, capable of hiding sin that the
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rest of the world never sees. The person who preaches
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brilliantly on Sunday can be unraveling in private. When that
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comes to light, everyone who built something on that person's
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reputation buried in the rubble. The writer of Hebrews knew this.
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The early church had already watched respected leaders
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stumble and walk away under pressure. So he plants a clear
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flag. Fix your eyes on Jesus, not the messengers, but on the
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one the message is about.
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betrayed the people who trusted him. His track record is perfect
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and it always will be. So when a human leader falls, it's painful.
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But it doesn't have to be fatal to your faith. Your faith was
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never supposed to rest on them in the first place. Now, I want
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to be careful here. I'm not trying to minimize real pain.
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Church hurt is genuinely traumatic. It can make you
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question your own judgment, feel foolish for trusting someone,
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and leave you with a kind of spiritual vertigo where you're
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not sure what's true anymore. I want you to give yourself
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permission to feel that. Because grief, in this case, is
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appropriate. Anger at betrayal is also appropriate. And you
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don't need to rush past it. But here's the honest challenge.
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Grief is healthy, but bitterness is not. walking away from Jesus
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because someone who claimed to represent him failed you? That
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lets the wrong person win. The leader who hurt you doesn't get
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to take your faith with them. That belongs to you, and it
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belongs to Christ. Now, let's get back to Christ.
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investigation report in full. Every sordid detail of the
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double life Ravi Zacharias had been living for decades. And she
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sat with the wreckage. But here's what she didn't do.
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forced her to face an uncomfortable truth about
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herself. That she had slowly, subtly placed her faith in a man
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rather than in Christ. And she named the exact danger. When we
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get our eyes off of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,
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we open ourselves and others to grave risks. Instead of
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destroying Christine's faith, Ravi's fall clarified it.
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Because Ravi was never the one holding her. Jesus was. And
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Jesus has never failed anyone. Here's the takeaway. The failure
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of a human leader is not evidence that God is
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untrustworthy. It's evidence that humans are human. It's a
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painful reminder to only place your full faith in Christ.
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Resting your faith in anyone else is sure to disappoint.
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Hebrews says we run this race by keeping our eyes on Jesus.
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That's not a passive suggestion. What it is, is an active daily
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choice. It means when you open your Bible, you're meeting Jesus.
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You're not just collecting content. It means when you sit
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in a service, when you worship, you're there to worship Christ.
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Not to be inspired by a personality. It means when a
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trusted leader disappoints you, your first move is toward Jesus.
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Here's today's challenge. Take a few quiet minutes to ask
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yourself honestly, Is my faith anchored in Christ, or has it
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drifted toward a person or a church or a personality? If the
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honest answer makes you uncomfortable, treat that as an
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invitation. Shift your weight back onto the only foundation
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that will never give way. And if you're already carrying the pain
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of a leader who let you down, bring that hurt to Jesus today.
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Tell him exactly how it feels. He's not surprised, and he's not
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put off by it. He sees every betrayal, and he will carry you
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through. Lord, I know there are some listening right now who are
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hurting because someone they looked up to shook their faith.
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Please restore that which is broken in us. Help us separate
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the failure of imperfect people from the perfect faithfulness of
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your Son. Teach us to anchor ourselves in Christ alone, the
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one who starts our faith and sees it to the end. Give us the
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grace to keep running, even when we're hurt, with our eyes fixed
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on Jesus. In Jesus' name, amen. If this episode spoke to
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something you've been carrying, share it with someone who might
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need to hear it. Just copy the link from the show notes and
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send it their way. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions
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for Busy Lives. Remember, the people God sends to point us
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toward Jesus are gifts, but they're not the destination.
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Jesus is, and He will never let you down. Come back next time
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for more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth.
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Until then, God bless, and have a great day.
