#4 – That We Will Be Encouraging To One Another!!!
Confession (a NASTY ONE) – I used to HATE IT when I saw God blessing another persons church/ministry more than He was blessing mine…and that hatred always manifested itself in me by
- Allowing myself to question the validity of what God was doing elsewhere.
- Introducing the bad things I had heard about the church and the leader to combat the good…and…
- Trying to find as much I could to DISAGREE with what God was doing rather than celebrating what was happening.
I am a VERY competitive person. I only play a game for one reason…TO WIN! It does not matter what game we play…if you are on the other team my goal is for you to be dominated.
BUT…my problem early on was that I brought that attitude into my leadership. I considered other pastors and church leaders to be playing for “the other team” and my obsession was to become bigger and better than “them” rather than becoming who JESUS had called me to be.
My competitiveness and insecurity consumed me…and because of it I literally could not celebrate anything good that was happening in another church. It was SIN…and it was killing my ministry.
Then several years ago I began to read through Scripture and see that God blessed different men and women…he blessed different churches at different times…and that the ONLY way I was going to get over my insecurity and sin is to truly celebrate what God was doing in the “Big C” church.
Jesus hit me right in the face with, “There is a reason you always are quick to believe the bad you hear about other ministries but you doubt and try to discredit the good. It’s because you are obsessed with YOU and YOUR ministry rather than being obsessed with ME AND MY MINISTRY! I have moved for thousands of years without you and you need to celebrate what I do rather than sulk because you don’t think I am giving you enough!”
John the Baptist said it best in John 3:27-30 that we can only receive the ministry that HE gives us. He celebrated the ministry of Jesus…and we MUST do the same.
Please don’t misunderstand me…I am NOT talking about celebrating blatant heresy…but when people are meeting Christ, the excluded are being included, teenagers are flocking to church, marriages are being restored…JESUS is being preached and people are repenting of sin…I will celebrate that EVERY TIME…no matter where it happens!!!
When we become less of a critic of the ministry of others and more of a cheerleader…we can be trusted with greater things!