Satan’s Top 10 Desires For Every Pastor That No One Should Ignore!
1. To love and have more passion for ministry than for the Lord
Revelation 2:1-5 teaches us that we as
leaders can work hard and grow weary for the Lord and yet fall away from
our first love. According to Jesus this is a sin and needs to be
repented of.
According to Matthew 22:37-40 the first
and great commandment is to love God. Thus, falling away from our first
love in this passage of Revelation is referring to the possibility that
Christian leaders can love the work of the Lord more than the Lord
himself!
The Ephesian church was a backslidden church, even though they were a church involved in many noble works!
Satan tempts leaders to push themselves
so much in the work of the Lord that they have no energy to truly
meditate on the Word and seek God’s face.
2. To read the Bible only for sermon preparation
God calls for His people to be hungry
for Him (Matthew 5:6; Psalm 63). Often, pastors can get caught up in
only reading the Bible when they have to prepare a sermon. This takes
away from the personal depth and knowledge they have with their Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ and relegates studying His Word merely to a
profession!
The greatest preachers are those who
minister to their congregations out of the overflow of what the Lord has
been revealing to them in the secret place!
Satan attempts to wear out the saints
with dry preaching and wear out pastors by tempting them to approach God
only for ministry and not for personal enjoyment and fellowship.
3. To grow weary “of” the work of the Lord instead of getting weary “in” the work of the Lord
Often, because of the many hardships and
relational challenges of overseeing a local church, Satan tempts many
pastors with bitterness and discouragement of soul so they become weary
and tired of the work of the Lord.
This is never God’s plan for a leader.
While it is normal for a pastor to have a difficult schedule and work
hard, getting sick and tired of both the people and church is one of the
biggest open doors for Satan to come and rob a pastor and his or her
family of the joy of the Lord, and with it their passion for the
kingdom.
Many pastors even preach out of an empty
soul replete with internal anger, frustration, and presumption
resulting in their imparting a spirit of condemnation rather than a
spirit of faith during congregational messages.
Moses was not able to enter the Promised
Land because he continually ministered out of anger and frustration
(Numbers 16:15; 27:12-14; 11:10-15).
4. To mortgage the future with presumption in the present
One of the temptations Satan brought to
Jesus was to presumptuously jump off a cliff to show that the Word of
God is true regarding protection and deliverance (Matthew 4:5-7).
Likewise, pastors are continually tested
to move ahead of God because they believe Scripture teaches them that
God is somehow obligated to protect and provide for all of their needs.
The problem with this is that God is
under no obligation to provide unless He is the one who is guiding! God
will only give provision to that which is of His vision!
I have known countless pastors who went
out on a limb and got their churches into great debt so they could
purchase bigger and better buildings. Many of them have lost their
buildings, their ministries, and their health because of taking this
satanic bait of presumption–primarily to satisfy their own ambitions,
egos, or to gain acceptance and acclaim from their peers and
congregations.
In the same way Satan successfully
tempted Eve by promising her better things, he is still tempting us to
be like God by going after things God never gave permission to
apprehend.
5. To build one-generational ministry built around the senior leader
One of the biggest stumbling blocks for
the future health of any church is when a pastor doesn’t make room for
the gifts of faithful, proven, emerging leaders. Some pastors are a
one-man show, not wanting to delegate preaching and important ministry
tasks to anyone else. This is partly because there may be a fear that
someone will get too much power or popularity and will replace them.
Truly, there is no success without a
successor. Also, the greatest proof of a successful leader is that they
nurture people to become better leaders than they are! The greatest goal
of a leader is to prepare the next generation to enter the Promised
Land and accomplish even greater works than the previous generation
(John 14:12).
6. To build a ministry reflecting only the personality of the pastor and not the image of Christ
Satan tempts pastors to be
one-generational leaders by enticing them to build their local churches
primarily on the personality and gifts of senior leaders instead of
leading with a multiplicity of leadership. Satan does this because
churches and ministries built merely upon one great personality usually
fail when the great personality passes from the scene, thus ensuring
only temporary success and impact.
Satan also encourages this kind of
leadership style because leaders like this usually only gather a crowd
of sheep who follow without thinking and leading others. This results in
a congregation filled with people merely being entertained by the
pastor instead of being released into their calling according to 1
Corinthians 12.
7. To sacrifice their children on the altar of ministry
One of the things Satan attempts to do
is shown through Pharaoh, when he told Moses the children of Israel
could be free if they would just leave him their children and only let
the adults go and worship the Lord (Exodus 10:8-11).
Lest anyone think Satan doesn’t tempt in
this manner today, they need only look at the small percentage of
preachers’ kids who follow their parents into the ministry and the
faith.
One reason for this is pastors sometimes
fall into the bait of putting ministry before their families in such a
way they hardly have any quality time with their kids. What good is it
if through our hard work and successful ministry we win the whole world
and lose our children to the devil? Church members come and go but our
children are our responsibility as our heritage from the Lord (Psalm
127:3-5) and will be with us until we pass into the next life.
8. To be non-confrontational in key relationships
Due to the nature of local churches
there will always be numerous relational challenges. Pastors must hold
people accountable and uphold a standard of integrity and transparency
in order to bring people to the next level of their purpose in the
Kingdom of God.
Often, the issues of the people they are
attempting to disciple will flair up. It is very tempting for a pastor
to continually overlook the low standards of some of their leaders and
key members, especially in regards to the paying of tithes and
offerings, church attendance, personal devotions, raising a family, and
in ministering to the needs of the people in the church. As hard as it
is for a pastor to continually deal with holding secondary leaders and
key church members accountable, the worst thing they could do is ignore
issues and just hope they go away!
I have found that pastors who are
non-confrontational and hold in feelings of hurt, anger, frustration,
and betrayal–and who refuse to confront people when they are missing the
mark in a key area–wind up having incredible stress, depression, and
pent-up frustration that can destroy their personal walks with the Lord,
their passion for the church, and their marriages.
First John 1:7 teaches us that we need
to walk in the light with one another in order for us to have true
fellowship. Pastors who don’t walk in the light allow a spirit of
darkness and deception to come into their local churches which could
eventually result in church splits and the collapse of the leadership.
9. To get other pastors to believe that their church is the only church that will bring revival to their region
Thank God, in my city most pastors
believe it will take the whole body of Christ working together to fully
transform a city the size of New York.
Satan tempts pastors to think that their
local church is “the church” in the region, or “the only church” God is
going use to bring revival. This puts enormous stress and pressure upon
the pastor to perform every week, including hyping up services, and
fall into exaggerating the influence and number of church attendees they
have on Sundays when speaking to other leaders. Eventually, even the
congregation will become sick and tired of hearing these declarations
because they won’t see the fruit! The result is the pastor being humbled
by God until they come to the conclusion they must work for the glory
of God and the promotion of His kingdom, not just the expansion of their
local church.
10. To view ministry merely as a profession rather than a calling
Satan tries to get pastors to serve in
the ministry merely for money, which makes them hirelings instead of
true shepherds (John 10:10-15).
God wants us to love Him and His church
so much that, if it were possible, we would preach and serve Him in the
local church for nothing! Of course, that is not practical and not even
biblical (1 Corinthians 9:14) but it should be the attitude of our
hearts.
Satan loves hirelings because they don’t
really love the sheep but serve for monetary compensation. Thus, they
love the things of this world more than the Kingdom of God.
Any person who views the pastorate
primarily as a profession instead of having received it from the Lord as
a calling is not a true shepherd and will not have the grace and power
of God to have a long, successful ministry.
No comments:
Post a Comment