For those of you who don't know who Mike Guglielmucci is, he was a former Pastor at the church Planetshakers who about 2 years ago announced he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. This sparked a great amount of prayer for this man, and some stories of miraculous healings. I have heard stories of him being wheelchair bound due to having many broken bones because his treatment has made him so weak. Most recently his story of coming home from hospital and writing the song 'Healer' which appear on Hillsong's latest album was making big news in Australia and around the world.

But it's all been a lie! This is attested to in many places. See here, here and here.

I have to honestly say that this sadens me. I watched his testimony in the promotional material for the new Hillsong CD and thought that his courage and faith were an awesome testimony. In fact I even went and bought the CD mainly for his song. Ironically, it was the song playing in my car when I got in it yesterday after finding out about the fact that it was a lie. I tried to listen to the song for a bit... but it's tarnished now. In fact, the whole album feels a little bit dirty to me now. Which is sad because I really liked it. It had been spinning around in my car for about a month now.

But my disapointment really doesn't go any further than the fact that I feel like I wasted 25 bucks on Hillsong's latest CD. But for some, the shock will be far far worse than that! For many young Christians, this news that he has lived a lie, will be faith shaking. Which is sad, and something that Guglielmucci will have to answer for on judgement day.

I think I've learnt a few things from this, as I've been thinking about it the past two days...

1. It's super important that we make sure people are putting their faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, crucified for our sins and raised to new life in victory! I think that for some people, their faith was more in Mike Guglielmucci's story than in Jesus' story. No human will ever not let you down. I must admit that even some of my hereos of the faith, men like John Piper aren't Jesus. My faith must be in Christ alone.

2. You can judge a good teacher by whether or not he is constantly calling people to faith in Christ and constantly reminding people that he is sinful and in need of a saviour. I'm convinced that we need to be sceptical of preachers who talk almost solely of God's annointing working through them, or of having a special word from God about his power, or plans. The message is the Gospel of Jesus. It never changes, and it never lets us down. Preach to yourself that you are nothing and that Christ is everything. Then preach that to everyone you meet!

3. I'm driven to pray that God would not allow me to ever do anything like what Mike Guglielmucci has done. I pray that he would keep me safe from my own sinful nature, from the devils attacks. Oh how easy it would be to seek recognition and fame and to exploit that for my own benefit. To take satisfiaction in getting more hits on my blog, or compliments about my sermons. And to make that the goal. The goal is to see people come to faith in Jesus. He is the hero. And I am nothing but his vessel, which he could chose to smash to pieces in his soverignty at any moment.

So I feel sorry that this has happened. I hope that God equips his people to clean up the mess that this will make in the lives of young Christians. I pray that Mike Guglielmucci will be changed by the Holy Spirit to become more like Jesus. I look forward to seeing him standing up in church giving a testimony of his weakness, stupidity and sinfulness and glorying in the holy, perfect majesty of his saviour Jesus Christ. And I hope that I am more discerning about false prophets in the future.