No One Is Always Right

Bible knowledge and spiritual gifts are from God and they are good, but knowledge and gifts come with dangers. A gifted leader with excellent knowledge can become overconfident, self righteous, convinced that he is always right.

I knew a preacher with amazing bible knowledge, healing gifts and a wonderful evangelistic ministry. He was zealously devoted to sound doctrine, but this became an obsession which alienated him from other preachers who had different beliefs, even small differences of opinion.

He tried to pastor a local church, which was a mistake, because his primary gifting and calling was evangelism. His local church failed dismally, with membership declining until there was only a tiny home group left. Still he persisted, burning himself out to earn a living and missing his calling to be a full time travelling evangelist.

If you are in a church where the pastor has wonderful bible knowledge and spiritual gifts, that can be good or it can be bad.

• If the pastor believes he is always right, that is dangerous.

• If the pastor believes he knows better than everyone else, everyone in his church or even better than other ministers, that is dangerous.

• If the pastor believes he is entitled to make every decision for every ministry in the church, that is dangerous.

If you are in a church like this, there are several dangers.

• You can become overly submissive, so that you let the pastor dictate all your personal decisions.

• You can zealously adopt all the ideas of your pastor, so your pastor takes the place of God in your life.

• You can become like your pastor, believing you are always right.

• You can rebel against control, which is good, but then you construct your own understanding of truth in such a way that you disagree with your pastor, but you are infected by his wrong attitude, so that you believe you are always right.

• You can attach yourself to another prominent church member with a legitimate grievance but also with a personal agenda. This can lead to church splits.

• You can search the internet or christian bookshops for alternative points of view, which is good, but it can lead to being led astray in wrong directions.

So what should you do?
Seek out good teaching from different sources but be careful to be personally connected to Jesus.
Read you bible for yourself, not just to find confirmation for this or that teaching, but with an open mind and a questioning heart.
Ask God to show you what He wants to say to you.

Find a better church, where the pastor is not convinced he always knows better, because this is a delusion. No one is always right about everything. No one.

And if you faithfully apply all these things, you will still not always be right. You will make mistakes. No one is perfect. You are not perfect and I am not perfect.

Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know. 
But whoever loves God is known by God. 1 Cor 8:2–3 NIV

 

LIBERTY IN THE LOVE OF GOD

There are two kinds of ministry. 

• The kind that God likes is encouraging and comforts the heart.

Isaiah 40:1-2 (NKJV)   "Comfort, yes, comfort My people!" Says your God.

• "Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, That her warfare is ended, That her iniquity is pardoned; For she has received from the LORD'S hand Double for all her sins."

The Good News of salvation must always be GOOD news. 

• Jesus preached against sin but He always attracted sinners with his genuine love and encouragement. 

• Jesus was a nice person to be with. 

• The religious leaders despised him because he associated with sinners. He was known as the friend of sinners.

John 3:16-17 (NKJV)   For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

• For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

• The other kind of ministry is judgmental and controlling.

Matthew 23:4 (NKJV)   For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, we see both kinds of ministry contrasted.

Paul shows us the best kind of ministry in Chapter 1.

• Firstly Paul directs his readers to focus on God and particularly His love, grace, mercy and peace.

2 Corinthians 1:2-3 (NKJV)   Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

• Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort..

Certainly God wants us to be virtuous and moral but He is not interested in virtue that is not motivated by a heart of love and mercy.

In 1999 there was a day of public prayer organised by Christians in Argentina. Homosexuals responded by organising a protest march. 

• The hostility was defused by the believers who went to the homosexuals and asked their forgiveness for the cruel judgment they had suffered from Christians. 

• They blessed the homosexuals. Some of them left the protest to talk to the Christians and nine accepted salvation.

A young homosexual man was dying of Aids in a Chilean hospital. 

Cold hearted people went the hospital like visitors at the zoo but one Christian grandmother visited to show love and mercy. 

• She prophesied over the young man that his next blood transfusion was to be his last and God would heal and save him. 

• The young man believed and was transformed by the love of God. 

• The change in the young man’s life impacted the hospital. Doctors and nurses were converted. A new church was established based on the miracle power and love of Jesus.

The second kind of ministry is controlling, based on authority, titles and positions. Paul deals with this very directly but sadly we often don’t take any notice.

2 Corinthians 11:19-20 (NLT)   After all, you think you are so wise, but you enjoy putting up with fools!

• You put up with it when someone enslaves you, takes everything you have, takes advantage of you, takes control of everything, and slaps you in the face.

There are Christians who base their Christian lives on the ministry of preachers who control them. 

They are deceived by pride, by the pride of the preacher who takes the place of Jesus in the life of the believers. 

• The followers of these preachers also can become infected with pride. They imagine they are superior because they follower the superior doctrine of their chosen leader.

If you pastor discourages you from visiting other churches or listening to other preachers, don’t be intimidated. 

• Exercise your God given freedom.

We are ONE BODY in Christ.

Galatians 5:1 (NKJV)   Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.