Church is about people in the purpose of God and of course God is the one gathering people together. One key thing that a Pastor does is to gather people together for God in the physical, the bible talks of Angels as reapers – gatherers. As we gather people to keep them in Church, people come in different shades and manner and that is why Church cannot be run like an organization or like a business estate. Church is a supernatural entity where the major thing you are dealing with is the spirits of men, the eternal souls of men.
In the New Testament Church, you do not keep everyone in Church. Pastor Yonghi Cho once said “If you can’t cast the devil out of somebody then cast that person out of Church”, because that will be a major opening where the devil will come through right into the centre of your affairs. The devil knows the power of fellowship, oneness and togetherness.
In Psalm 133:1 “Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity”.
If you look at the story of Achan, just one person that became covetous, Israel lost many soldiers on the battlefield. Incidentally he was not part of those that died in Ai. They were operating as one but one was against them and that opened Israel to defeat. When we say we are together and one is not with us, he/she becomes an open door for the devil to attack us and that is one thing the Pastor must be conscious of.
A Pastor that does not have strong discernment in his life is going to be at the mercy of demonic operations in his Church because “People are problems and problems are demons” – Rev. Olusola Areogun.
People Problems DemonsPractical example:
People come from different backgrounds. Three people come forward to respond to an altar call:
I. A normal sinner – does normal things unbelievers do.
II. Someone initiated into witchcraft right from age two, regularly drinks blood, kills people – anybody she’s angry with dies the following day etc.
III. Someone who once had severe headache and was taken to an herbalist who washed his head and the headache disappeared. The devil does not heal anybody, all he does is replacement. He removes a lesser demon and puts a bigger demon there. Such a person receives a strange spirit in place of the initial headache.
When you lead them to Christ, they are 3 different people. It is only a normal sinner that the prayer you have just prayed (the sinners’ prayer) will work for normally, while the second person needs to do certain renunciations and also needs thorough deliverance ministration, because he/she had been in active participation with demonic forces. As for the third person that went to seek help from the camp of the devil, the devil has record of everybody that is in partnership with him and he has a stronghold in their lives and even if they are confessing the lordship of Jesus in their mouth, he knows he holds certain things in their lives and so when they want to do certain critical things, you see demonic holds rising up against them, so such people must also renounce.
Remember Acts 19:19.
‘Many also of them which used curious arts brought their books together and burned them before all men and they counted the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver’
Such people need to declare war against the devil, renounce and reject everything they have with Satan and confess Jesus as their Lord. There must be something that dips into the root of the connection they have gone to seek with their own hands, until they are thoroughly discharged from it and then we now help them to start their new journey in Christ that is how people grow well.
In these days where Pastors just want crowd and even those that want crowd don’t have time, they keep on having unending cycles of demonic manifestations in their lives and after 20 years of salvation masquerade still chases them in their dreams, rather, if one is growing the normal way a Christian should grow after 20 years of being born again the only reason why you should not be a Pastor doing a major work for God will be because God didn’t call you to be one, but you must be a key leader doing something major for God somewhere.
If the Pastor’s focus is just on pastoral embrace, he will gather sticks will snakes just as Paul did in the island of Melita, Acts 28:1 – 3,
“And when they were escaped, then they knew that the Island was called Melita and the barbarous shewed us no little kindnesss: for they kindled a fire, and received us every one, because of the present rain and because of the cold. And when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, there came a viper out of the heat and fastened on his hand”.
God is always merciful during services. Most times during services, the power of God will just break loose. When the Holy Ghost is moving, demons must be moving. The power of God will be moving, the forces of darkness will be moving and they begin to get ejected from peoples’ lives. While you do not carry deliverance ministrations to ridiculous extents of seeing demons in everything, you see, demons are real and demons are there to oppose your Church. Once a Church exists under God, the gates of hell arise immediately to oppose; oppose the Pastor, oppose the leaders; oppose the members – oppose the advancement of that Church. But when you walk in discernment, you rise up and oppose the opposition and bring the devil down.
You need to balance pastoral embrace with prophetic discerning in the local Church and this happens on 2 levels;
· For individuals and
· On the corporate level
There must be a scanning that the Pastor does to know who is who. The scanning is not a physical scanning. It is a spiritual scanning and that is why a Pastor must not joke with his personal prayer time no matter how busy you are as a Pastor, you must give prior attention to personal prayer, personal meditation on the word of God – not the message you are going to preach, but the personal activation of the kingdom life through the word, through prayer, through worship in your own personal life, it is through that avenue that the Holy Spirit begins to reveal things to you – sometimes before they happen, sometimes while it is going on. One thing you can trust the Holy Spirit for is that the Holy Spirit will be faithful to unveil the plans of the enemy. He owes that to every Pastor that God has commissioned – to show you the spiritual side of the people that come to Church, but will you be available? Will you seek his face? Won’t you be wrapped up with emotions? That is why as a Pastor you don’t start dealing with people based on your emotions. One of the things that must happen to a Pastor first of all, is to bring your emotions to the altar and slaughter it. Not that you don’t have feelings for people, but you don’t use your likes or dislike to relate with people first of all, you will get into trouble if you do that.
If you will receive the leadership of the Holy Spirit, the leading of the Holy Spirit, you must bring your emotions under the administration of the Holy Spirit – for Him to administer your emotions when it comes to people. Don’t relate with Church members based on your emotions. Pastors that have been hurt by Church members have been hurt the most by the people they like. Being a Pastor is not your job, God put you there, so you are supposed to deal with the people on behalf of Jesus – you simply just love them on behalf of God. It is not everyone that comes to Church that is there for the good of the Church. The earlier you know that the better. Enter into a covenant with God that anyone that comes to your Church with ulterior motives will not go back the same; every problem that you have prayed for people over, such people must carry them home.
There is a place for pastoral embrace where everybody is welcome – yes everybody is welcome. But as your physical eyes are open, so your spiritual eyes must be able to see who the wolf is and who the sheep is; who the goat is and who the snake is. You don’t give everybody equal treatment in the spirit because it is not everyone that comes to Church that has come for the good of the Church.
May God Depend On You In His Vineyard.
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