Some time ago, someone told me that they went to a church because it was so 'cool'. And in teaching the lesson on the local church this week, I had the opportunity to reflect again on the fact that people often join a local church because they like the worship, the atmosphere, or because their friends are there. Now, when you join a church, you put yourself under the authority of the leadership and thus grant them the right to teach you, encourage you, accompany you, and correct you if necessary. They also have a responsibility before God to do so. This is the reason we have the epistle of First Corinthians.
But it's not always to everyone's liking. For a pastor, it's often painful to see people persist on a path that leads them straight into a ditch while they turn a deaf ear to your injunctions. Besides, every leader will find themselves in this situation at some point because the folly of ignorance is being convinced that they know when the opposite is obvious. Many will learn through experience what they could have learned from their leaders if they had taken the trouble to honor and listen to them. Experience, it has been said, is the teacher of those who do not listen to their mentors.
The thinking of our age is 'I'm independent, I do as I please, I'm accountable to no one.' What would be unthinkable in the family, at school, or in business is the norm in the church. Pastors are expected to cajole instead of rebuke, to smile and agree instead of speaking clearly and openly. The result is emotional and spiritual deficiency, people who 'love' sin as much as Jesus, who have very bad tempers, and a generation of spiritually disabled people who want to win the world for Jesus. But it doesn't have to be that way. God heals, restores, and transforms, body, soul, and spirit, using the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, His Word, prayer...
And He uses leaders, pastors who fear God and not you, who are not afraid to tell you the truth according to God's word and who love God's approval rather than that of men. And it is in everyone's interest to find such leaders, to choose humility instead of pride, to accept counsel and correction rather than stubbornly sticking to their own wisdom at the risk of finding themselves worse off than before or at best staggering on crutches when they could be soaring like eagles. After all, it is better to be trained by leaders who have your best interest at heart than to be tamed and subdued by life's experience.
Selah!
