You may think I have a problem with the office of the pastor. That would be wrong of you to think this of me. Yes, I belong to a local church body, that even has a pastor and I actually like him and am growing to respect him more each day, even though he is wrong about things from time to time. He is not perfect and has flaws, like all of us do. He, however, does not exalt himself, puts others first, seems to love God more than himself, loves and exalts those that would normally be considered "weak and without a lot to give back" and even has passion.
I want to state here that Jesus Christ is the Head or Shepherd of the Church, but He has appointed people to watch over our souls, those people are sub-heads or sub-shepherds. Often, they lose sight of their appointment and decide its their career and start looking out for their own selves, similar to what our Washington DC politicians end up doing, once they get into office. Others build their own local kingdoms. While yet others do their job properly with integrity. I believe that a lot of the problems of leadership is because there is a void that the congregation, or body, has allowed to happen by being weak and immature and are in essence a 98lb weakling. We have this mature big head and an under sized weak body. It is time for us to do some maturing and put on some spiritual muscle.
We often exercise, well some of us do anyway, to keep our bodies strong and/or flexible, but do we do it spiritually? Here are a couple verses that hold keys and instruct us in body building.
Daniel 11:32 And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong (stout), and do exploits. (note the key is to "know their God".
Have you ever thought how Jesus growing up on this planet got to know Him? "Well He just had the knowledge from before." No, He was a human just like us, except without sin, but, He did spend time seeking (and finding)out the Father. The gospels say that "He grew in knowledge".
Jude 1:20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
Here is also an exercise we tend to neglect and because of it we are weak. What you don't use you lose. The adage you see on church ad boards that says "7 days without prayer makes one weak" is true.
"Be strong and of good courage".
(I wanted to put a picture of Jesus in the "Uncle Sam needs you" poster pose, with the words "be strong and of good courage" under it, but I have other things to do today)
I want to state here that Jesus Christ is the Head or Shepherd of the Church, but He has appointed people to watch over our souls, those people are sub-heads or sub-shepherds. Often, they lose sight of their appointment and decide its their career and start looking out for their own selves, similar to what our Washington DC politicians end up doing, once they get into office. Others build their own local kingdoms. While yet others do their job properly with integrity. I believe that a lot of the problems of leadership is because there is a void that the congregation, or body, has allowed to happen by being weak and immature and are in essence a 98lb weakling. We have this mature big head and an under sized weak body. It is time for us to do some maturing and put on some spiritual muscle.
We often exercise, well some of us do anyway, to keep our bodies strong and/or flexible, but do we do it spiritually? Here are a couple verses that hold keys and instruct us in body building.
Daniel 11:32 And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries: but the people that do know their God shall be strong (stout), and do exploits. (note the key is to "know their God".
Have you ever thought how Jesus growing up on this planet got to know Him? "Well He just had the knowledge from before." No, He was a human just like us, except without sin, but, He did spend time seeking (and finding)out the Father. The gospels say that "He grew in knowledge".
Jude 1:20 But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,
Here is also an exercise we tend to neglect and because of it we are weak. What you don't use you lose. The adage you see on church ad boards that says "7 days without prayer makes one weak" is true.
"Be strong and of good courage".
(I wanted to put a picture of Jesus in the "Uncle Sam needs you" poster pose, with the words "be strong and of good courage" under it, but I have other things to do today)
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