Staff Infection

Psalm 101:7
No one who practices deceit will dwell in my house, no one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence.

Staphylococcus is a group of bacteria that can cause a number of diseases as a result of infection of various tissues in the body. Staphylococcus is more familiarly known as staph (pronounced Staff). Staph related illness can range from mild and requiring no treatment to severe and potentially fatal.

Surprisingly, Staph infections are most common in hospitals and other institutional health care settings and strike people with weakened immune systems. It’s important to protect yourself and others from Staph infections when your immune system is vulnerable. It’s amazing that we oftentimes use the analogy of the church being a Hospital. People come to the hospital to get better not sicker, but if we don’t protect the environment from infected staff it can spread to people who just came to get better.

Another place Staff infections occur is at work, originations, and your home. It happens when spiritual bacteria of deceit and falsehood get into the body of Christ and cause toxins to infect the fellowship and productivity of its members. It’s important as caregivers, leaders, and parents that we maintain the health of our members. Oftentimes in hospitals, staph infections are spread by the people who care for the patients. Because they had contact with someone infected they can carry it back to somebody who was not infected but was vulnerable. When you know that there is infection in your family, church, or business it is up to you to address it immediately before it spreads to everybody else and proves fatal to those involved.

David was very much aware of staff infections and told God that he would remove people from his house that could cause staff infections through deceit and falsehood. It’s interesting that David starts with his own house before he even starts with his kingdom. King David said he would remove anybody from his house, from his presence that practiced deceit or falsehood.

John Maxwell said that the Law of the bad apple was that, “one bad apple could mess up the whole barrel.” If you let toxic behavior go unchecked it could mess up your whole staff, family or organization. Someone once told me that, “a church mess is a spill that didn’t get cleaned up immediately.” It’s important that when we see the potential for a staff infection that we deal with it before it becomes an epidemic.

How to avoid a Staff infection:

1. When you see toxic behavior address it immediately. The Law of the bad apple also says that people in your organization know who the bad apple is but they are waiting on you as the leader to do something about it. When you let it persist not only does it spread to the organization but it kills your credibility as a leader because you didn’t do anything about it.

2. Treat the disease not the symptom. When there is a Staph infection it can appear as a boil. The boil is a symptom but underneath is the bacterial infection of Staph. You can’t just treat the surface without administering medicine for the disease. Sometimes, people appear to be symptomatic through emotional outbursts but you have to go deeper as to what’s causing the behavior through intervention, counseling, prayer, and treatment.

3. Quarantine the infected for treatment. In 2 Thessalonians 3:6 Paul warned the church there of staff infections involving idleness. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. 14 if anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

4. If they refuse treatment they must be removed from your presence. Paul talked about a man who was sleeping with his father’s wife. Everybody in church knew about it but was not doing anything. Paul told them they needed to throw him out. I Cor. 5:5- Hold this man’s conduct up to public scrutiny. Let him defend it if he can! But if he can’t, then out with him! It will be totally devastating to him, of course, and embarrassing to you. But better devastation and embarrassment than damnation. You want him on his feet and forgiven before the Master on the Day of Judgment.
6–8 Your flip and callous arrogance in these things bothers me. You pass it off as a small thing, but it’s anything but that. Yeast, too, is a “small thing,” but it works its way through a whole batch of bread dough pretty fast. So get rid of this “yeast.”(the message version)

Dear God,

Search me and my house, and if you find any wickedness in me please remove it. Keep my house clean so that I may be pleasing and acceptable to you. Help me to be a contagious Christian but not a toxic Christian. I pray that the best of who you are would rub off on the people I come into contact with. Open the eyes of my heart and let me see what you see. If you find anything that’s not like you take it out right now and use me to speak truth in love to those who are not walking in the ways of Christ. Use me today to make sure my house is free from Staff Infections.

In Jesus Name,
Amen