How a shepherd’s illness affects the flock
A few years back, I started asking certain questions based on the things I started noticing (How a shepherd’s illness affects the flock) in my ministry. I was wondering why our prayers for growth, exponential growth and the divine hand of God manifesting in the lives of our members and ministry, most of our members were leaving and leaders who we thought were committed to this vision were also abandoning sheep. It seems our ministries impact and influence is being gradually cut short. My question was Why?
Your question could be why is my church not working?
Why is there no money for our ministry?
Why is it that after earnest evangelism, follow-up, fasting and prayers, listening to messages and reading books, why isn’t anything working?
“THE MORE PRIESTS THAT THERE ARE AMONG YOU, THE MORE SINS THEY DO AGAINST ME. THEY SHOULD HAVE RECEIVED HONOUR AS PRIESTS, BUT I WILL MAKE THEM ASHAMED.
They get food to eat when the people bring their sin offerings to them. So the priests are happy when the people do bad things, because they get more food to eat. THE PEOPLE DO WHATEVER THE PRIESTS DO. I will punish
them all for the bad things that they do. I will give them what their sins deserve.”
Hosea 4:7-9 (Easy English).
It was at this point, I started understanding how the things of the spirit works. I started seeing How a shepherd’s illness affects the flock, how my weaknesses as the lead pastor over a congregation and a ministry affects, even the most effective application that should have produced good results are either not producing at all or producing in very small quantity. I started understanding that ministry success is not you doing just one thing right but everything about the minister and his ministry must be done right.
I saw how my own private sin, habitual sin could have an invincible effect on the labour of the most committed, spiritually hard-working member of the church or ministry. I am therefore sharing this insightful piece (from my book Sins Of Pastors) to point the attention to YOU, not to your members. To YOU not to the one that is struggling with some weakness or the other.
I am here to establish the fact that the sins of the pastors become the sins of the sheep. The judgment of the pastors becomes the judgment of the sheep. In Hosea, the Lord was sharing his frustration concerning his ministers with his prophets, and explaining to the prophet that the reason why the sheep, the members of the church are someway, have fallen into all forms of sexual vices, diabolical practices, rebellious lifestyle and all can be traced back to the secret sins, weakness and private life of their pastor. This is a dangerous thing.
The secret sin of a pastor leading a congregation, a ministry, a house fellowship or a department is like cancer that finds its way to spread in darkness, in oblivion until it circulates into the bloodstream and bloodline of the church members, everyone becomes affected either by the sin itself or the effect and repercussion of the sin. Once this happens, it attracts:
1. God’s judgment and withdrawal of his presence from the life of the church cooperatively.
2. Satan comes and feasts on it to multiply both the sin and its effect thereby killing the life, the strength, the beauty reducing the grace,
neutralizing the impact and echoing the voice of such church and ministry.
At this point, nobody can easily tell the cause of the problem, most will blame it on the devil and others will blame it on individuals. You can see the potential of the ministry or church, however, most of the things that cut it down from potential to nothing but gloom are quite invincible to many undiscerning and untrained eyes.
My advice to God’s servant, set man, resident pastors, church founders, and departmental leaders: NEVER DO ANYTHING THAT BECOMES A THREAT TO GOD’S WORK AND TO GOD’S FLOCK, else he will root for you, sack you and gun you down for life.
I PRAY THAT LORD GIVE YOU UNDERSTANDING, ENABLE YOU TO EVALUATE YOUR SELF INORDER TO IMPROVE AND NOT REACK HIS WORK IN YOUR HANDS.
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