Leadership

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Imagine working with a group of lumberjacks in the northwest part of the United States. You watch as the lumberjacks carry around large chain saws; but there’s no sound of the engines running, or the chains whining as they rip through the tree trunk’s hardwood. As you watch you realize that the lumberjacks are dragging them across the tree trunks by hand, using the chainsaws like handsaws. Some are trying to handle the saws alone. They pull and push, trying to balance the huge saws as best as they can. Some of the loggers have teamed up and are working the power saw like a two man handsaw. Scattered about this band of lumberjacks are loggers working the power saws like handsaws but they have other loggers standing around cheering them on as they work. Some of the loggers have placed their saws across stumps using them as a platform from which they can sing and entertain. These entertainment stations seemed to have drawn the largest groups of bystanders and supporters.

One has to admit this would not be a very productive way to run a logging crew. You would be tempted to say to them, “Put some gas in those things, crank’m up and let’er rip.” This illustrates the dynamics of churches today. The objective of loggers is to cut trees. The objective of the church is to reach the world with the gospel. There can be a whole lot of shaking going on but not much that moves the church towards the prime objective, impacting the world for God.

Many churches are straining and struggling to try and do something for GOD. Some ministries have developed staff to help defray the inefficiency. Some churches have loyal members to encourage and exhort them as they labor but very little eternal profit is produced. Some have found that presenting the gospel isn’t even important any more so they just use the facilities as a platform to provide a show and draw a crowd.

Some ministries may achieve significant temporal gains. They may assemble large congregations. They may build mega ministries through, television, radio and the Internet. They may amass a position of great recognition. They may compile social accolades, fame and fortune because of personal gifts and natural talents. They may capitalize on personal charm and charisma. Sometime individuals rise in ministry because of sheer drive. They just work harder and longer and create the appearances of a successful spiritual endeavor. The problem is that the church has failed to realize that it has lost its power.

Matthew 7:22, 23 Gives us three interesting statements that will be made by some religious mega leaders on the day of eternal evaluation. Jesus said, “Many will say unto Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy Name? And in Thy Name have cast out devils? And in Thy Name done many wonderful works? And I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.”

Jesus tells us here that some who have never entered into the wondrous work of God’s grace will produce phenomenal ministries. A. T. Robertson states in his commentary, New Testament Word Pictures, “Success, as the world counts it, is not a criterion of one's knowledge of Christ and relation to him.” Jesus said that these ministers will prophecy in His Name. They will preach or proclaim a message of Christ. John Wesley’s Notes on the Bible makes an interesting observation about this defensive statement. He structure their statement this way, “We have declared the mysteries of thy kingdom, wrote books; preached excellent sermons:” It is no doubt a popular message they proclaimed. A message that made people think: My! What a wonderful person, My! What a messenger from God. The world was amazed and spell bound by the oratory and homily skills of these ministers.

Jesus said that these ministers even cast out demons in His Name. This is no small accomplishment. In the book of Acts seven ministers, the son’s of a Jewish priest attempted this spiritual work and the demon-possessed individual beat them badly. They had to run in order to save themselves from being killed. So, when the world saw the high profile ministers, of which Jesus spoke, casting out demons they must have assumed these ministers possessed some grand degree of divine authority.

Jesus also said, they will do many, not just a few, but many wonderful works in His Name. Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible shares an interesting thought on this phrase. He states, “being assisted by supernatural agency to invert even the course of nature, and thus prove the truth of the doctrine we preached?” They were assisted by supernatural powers. Satan can transform himself into an angel of light, and he can perform some pretty amazing acts, but they are not of God. Pharaoh’s sorcerers and magicians did some amazing things when Moses stood before the King of Egypt. They were able to match Moses’ and Aaron’s miracles almost miracle for miracle. But those supernatural powers were, without a doubt, not divine.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary introduces this interesting thought about these three statements made in the Day of Judgment. They indicate that these are “three examples of the highest services rendered to the Christian cause” If there were valid mortal works that could garner Divine favor these would be the first three on the top of the list. Human reasoning would no doubt lead religious people to believe these works were amazing works of God. These ministries no doubt attracted a large number of devoted followers. But the scriptures tell us that these leaders were never part of God’s family.

If the unredeemed can, through personal endeavors, create an amazing religious program, and produces large followings. Then believers engaged in religious endeavor, can no doubt produce the appearance of Godly production when in actuality, it is nothing more than religious activities engaged in for personal promotion. This is not to say that Christ is not in all ministries that are growing, and that all small struggling ministries are Spirit filled. But just because a ministry or a religious leader demonstrates the earmarks of success, doesn’t mean they are Spirit filled. The critical issue is; are the ministries making an impact on their communities and the world for righteousness?

Being Spirit filled is more than getting a religious fix a couple times a week. People can go to a religious performance seven days a week, and Satan will never be concerned as long as there is no conviction of sin that leads to repentance, or a change in their attitude and life style. The work God desires to do, can only be done as The Spirit of God takes the Word of God, and does the work of God in the servant of God. Without this spiritual activity all man’s religious endeavors are nothing, because it is done in the strength and wisdom of the flesh, not the power of God.

How many people go through religious experiences and never come to repentance? They may go through a prayer and have a temporary emotional release from guilt. They may find attending certain high charged religious environments make them feel better, but there has never been a working of God’s Spirit in their heart. They have never experienced the soul-searching agony of conviction. They are never been led through the rigors of repentance. There was never a defining moment when their life was changed and they began the process of becoming conformed to the image of God. Religion today applies a sedative to the soul of those experiencing conviction. Churches all across America today are comforting lost souls on their excursion to hell. Religion anesthetizes the agony of the soul alleviating the pain, which was designed to bring them to know the elation of redemption.

Philippians 4:13 gives us the other side of the equation. It says, “I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me.” Through Christ the believer can achieve everything God has purposed for them to achieve. God’s purpose far exceeds the achievements, goals, and dreams a mortal might attain on their own. I Corinthians 2:9, 10 says, “But it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” Paul writes this truth to the believers in Ephesus, in Ephesians 3: 16, 19, 20 “That HE (God) would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”

There is a power greater than that which most Christians know or understand. I Corinthians 2:14 says, “… the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned.” Believers have an amazing resource from which they can draw power to do a work that the world has not experienced since the time of Christ. Yet the church is running around like loggers with amazing tools but employing them as antiques. Churches today need to discover the power of God. The church has become dependent on the latest and greatest religious techniques instead of seeking out the supernatural power that comes from finding the Spirit of God.

It has become easier for churches to demonstrate spirituality through bigness than to demonstrate Godliness by the working and moving of The Holy Spirit. The church has found it is easier to employ “hip” religious novelties that promote bigness than to be filled with the Spirit of God. When bigness becomes the baseline and the determining factor for spirituality, then ministries are free to devise all types of social and recreational short cuts to advance personal recognition and declare themselves Spirit filled. Satan is decimating this once Godly nation by detaching the righteous roots from divine soil.

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