Message or Messenger?

We may be able to bring an excellent message but bring a reproach on Christ and the church with our conduct and methods.

It got me thinking...

The messenger is important. Our lives are important because it gives weight to the message we are communicating.

Plato once said "An unexamined life is not worth living" Applying it to ourselves especially leaders, must continually examine our lives before God and His Word.

December is a crazy month for most people in ministry or leadership. It marks the time of lots of outreach, events. It also marks the end of a very hectic year of running and giving and serving and doing. So all the more during such times we need to be on our guard!

For leaders and people in ministry, Frank Damazio wrote that to promote the highest end of the ministry, the servant of God must begin with himself.

I think even for myself, I need to be continually be on guard against spiritual dry rot.

Dry rot??

OK...Let me explain...

Dry rot is a disease which destroys fibres in wood, eventually reducing boards and entire trees to a mass of dry dust.

In other words - spiritual burn out! spiritual decay!

I have had alot of time on my hands so have been reading and meditating alot :P

Good to rest in the Lord eh?

"He who is required by the necessity of his position to speak the highest things is compelled by the same necessity to exemplify the highest things"
We are called to a high calling. We stand yet in a dangerous place!

Think about that...the more we are given , the more is required of us!

I have learnt that the longer one is in the ministry, the more receptive one becomes to certain hidden temptations of leadership.

Listed below are just some I feel most of us will encounter :

1. The temptation to become administrator of things more than serving people out of love and calling.
2. The temptation to become mechanical with the things of God - becoming a professional minister - becoming more interested in the letter of correct structure than with ministering to people
3. The temptation to coast with one's own spiritual maturity, thinking that leadership is equal to maturity. We may become blinded by our own success and ministry accomplishments
4. The temptation to seek material security as the basis of our joy and happiness and blessing.
5. The temptation to become hardened and distrusting toward people because of disappointments and disillusionment. ( The life of Paul tells us that all Asia turned against him but yet he ended that last epistle of his with a statement of love and trust for people)
6. The temptation to find satisfaction in the failure of another leader. This usually is motivated by an ungodly jealousy. Jealousy amplifies our human nature and lets loose our worse part within ourselves.
7. The temptation to measure ministry success by numbers instead of the spiritual quality and maturity of the people.
8. The temptation to react against new things.
9. The temptation to excuse little sins, habits and shortcomings because of our stress and sacrificial lifestyle (or so we think)
10. The temptation to use people for personal gain
11. The temptation to function in ministry out of learned habits and principles instead of living out the life of Christ that comes only by abiding in Him. In our hurried daily lives, we are in danger of losing our souls. You cannot learn by just talking the talk and do the spiritual things. Your life must show it!
12. There is an altar in men, a deep and majestic place where the soul transcends with its God and life is cleansed and kindled with an unearthly flame. It is the altar than makes the man.
13. The temptation to allow the things of God to become TOO familiar so as to become the presumptuous about sacred things.
14. The temptation to replace the precious (the important) with the lesser or second best. Go for the best substance not just for what is OK.

Those have been things I've identified with and I've finally got my thoughts together in writing them down. I know that my person as the messenger is important. The ministry depends on the messenger. (and of course GOD!)

I learnt the hard way that ministry was never intended to provide us with a safe place or comfortable living. It is the fellowship of his sufferings on the cross we are called to.

Never lose heart...We can overcome successfully in abiding in the living Christ and feeding on the living Word.

Let us base ourselves on eternal values and principles NOT on our emotions!