HIS WORD ABOVE HIS NAME (PS.138:2)

WHO OWNS THE CHURCH...PASTOR OR GOD?*

I seemed to have lost it these past weeks, perhaps because of the clear obviously fast receding times ,that most of us yet deliberately refuse to acknowledge. Or it might just be the repressive effects of my current travails.

TRUTHFULLY, I THINK I SHOULD BE GLAD, GLAD THAT IT MAY FINALLY BE OVER. BUT I'M NOT...WILL I BE REJOICING OR WAILING...AM I TRULY CERTAIN I AM READY? THIS SHOULD BE OUR CONCERN AS GOD'S SHEPHERDS.WE HAVE AN ACCOUNT TO GIVE FOR OURSELVES,THEN THE FLOCK, EVEN AS PARENTS, FOR OUR CHILDREN.

Either way, I am in far more pains over the *GROSS IRREGULARITIES IN MY CONSTITUENCY(THE CHURCH)! And this,not with the LED,but the LEADERS!

Pastors today(all their titles observed), have assumed ownership of CHRIST JESUS' church as theirs...not just theirs,but also their family enterprise. I don't know where to begin or end...

Because of our hidden ulterior motives,we(pastors), have been leading God's children in our care,not only amiss but astray. We prey on their vulnerability to twist them round our fingers. GOD ISN'T SMILING,HE ISN'T FINDING IT FUNNY.

People like to be controlled!
People want to be controlled!

Simply put, because deep down many Christians want a pastor who tells them;

* what is right or wrong

* what God wants or doesn’t want

* what they should or shouldn’t do with their life

In 1 Samuel 8 the people of Israel demanded that Samuel give them a king. Samuel goes on to explain to the people that a king will control them, abuse them, and use their lives to further his own.

And yet, surprisingly they replied, “We still want a king...*THIS IS THE VULNERABILITY THAT PASTORS PREY ON...TAKE UNDUE ADVANTAGE OF,TO ACHIEVE THEIR ULTERIOR MOTIVES.*

There are quite some Senior Pastors and church leaders who model Christ Jesus' example of servant- leadership (Matt. 20: 25-26)… but there are still far too many who “lord over” their congregations.

Let's begin by saying that there are many things THAT GOD IS NOT, THAT PASTORS MAKE MEMBERS BELIEVE HE IS.
Yes,people believe certain things about God because that’s what they’ve always been told...or because they want them to be true.

But eventually, plodding through the mud of life, they discover the truth: life is hard, and not everything is as it seemed.And then their faith crumble,being laid on a faulty foundation.

For instance;

God isn't a Father Christmas..
You don’t get put on a nice list for doing the right things and, in turn, get whatever your heart desires from God.

Whenever we feel entitled to a reward, or to “what we deserve”, we cease to view God as God (our King) and begin to view Him as our Father Christmas. We then harbour mixed emotions,when the Father Xmas part refuse to materialize.

Again, you Won't Always Be healed;

There is so much good in praying for healing--healing for others and healing for ourselves.

And while it's true that God is able to heal, HE IS NOT OBLIGATED TO.

Think about it: if God were obligated to heal and answer every prayer of healing, no one would ever die. The hard truth is that at some point, this life will end.

But that’s not the end of the story. There is hope.

Our great hope is not that we won't experience death, but that death is not the end of life--it's the beginning.

Also, You Won't Always Be "Blessed"

When someone says they’re “blessed,”the usual fleshly connotation is that they that they're doing well financially.
The implicit suggestion is that they're “blessed” because those things have happened. Conversely, if those things weren’t true, they would not be “blessed.” There's more to blessings than finance. For instance,even though on one leg and in constant pain, I'm blessed to be alive, because there are millions of the wealthy in the hospital now,whose wealth couldn't offer comfort,and wish to be where I am now...not in the hospital,legs not hung up, not feeding through tubes,or living on artificial oxygen. PLEASE, DON'T GET ME WRONG, I'M NOT HAPPY FOR THEIR SITUATION. I am only saying that before they got to that position,they saw themselves as highly blessed,but seemed to be curse. Yet,I tell you, they're still blessed, because those of them who are unsaved yet have the opportunity to be saved . THAT'S THE REASON FOR HOSPITAL EVANGELISM!

Though there was a time that “blessing” and “wealth” and “good-living” were tied together, we have a lesson from Christ Jesus,over 2000 years ago;

“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account." (Matt. 5:11,)

Or when His cousin asked for Him to save his life, and He didn’t. But instead sent word in Matthew 11:

“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

Moreover, the Church Isn't about you nor me
It’s so easy for church to become a country club.

It's NOT about what we want...our preferences...our comforts. It's NOT our little world that we control, and we determine who gets in and who stays out.
The hard truth is that church isn’t about us and our holy huddles. It's about seeking and healing the lost.

The church should be a refugee camp for the lost and hurting. A place hurting people are brought in to be made well, and then sent out to bring others who are hurting back in.
We weren’t brought in to simply socialize.
Today,the CHURCH HAS MORE ASSOCIATIONS THAN THE SECULAR WORLD.

It's also true that God isn't obligated to always answer our whims and caprices e.g,

The time when Christ Jesus was in the grave, His disciples were scared out of their minds, and they all thought they had wasted the last three years of their lives backing the wrong messiah.

Sometimes God is going to be silent. It doesn’t mean that you aren’t “Christian enough” or that you are somehow “broken.” It means God is being silent.
And the hard truth is that silence is OK.

But today,we(pastors) encourage people on a wrong note, spinning and weaving SOME 3 OR 7 KEYS TO SUCCESS OR BREAKTHROUGH...all in a bid to LINE OUR POCKETS. WE GIVE THEM FALSE HOPES TO CAGE THEM.

Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter. (Isa 56: 11)

Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock. (Eze 34: 3)

Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. (Mic 3: 3)

We should get one thing clear: there’s no guarantee to happiness, success, a great prayer life, or anything else. The BIBLE DOESN'T OFFER “A GOOD/EFFICIENT/SUCCESSFUL/RICH LIFE”, BUT INSTEAD,“A NEW LIFE.”

And the hard truth is that that "new life" might look different than what we expect.

We might do everything the Scriptures say and have a failed business,or be poor (which is no sin,like most of us pastors make it looks like), struggle with depression, and/or not become the “next big thing.”

What Scripture does say is God will not leave us as orphans (John 14:18). That whatever we have to go through in life, we won’t have to go through it alone.

That’s the kind of guarantee we can count on.

Conclusively,as pastors, no matter what reasons we have for not telling our people the hard truths -- the end is the same: we’re lying to them. They’re going to find out eventually.

The question is this: Do you want to tell them the hard truth? Or do you want them to be blindsided by it,for your selfish interests? Let's think about this...Amen!