What Are You Seeking?

Dear all, like to share something that the Lord has taught me and that's about praying for your leaders.

Question. Why pray for them?

Reading from 1 Samuel to now 2 Kings, God has cemented in His words of how the various kings of Israel fallen and do what is evil in the sight of the Lord.

Instead, let's look from our modern context. Starting from home - sunny Singapore.

Recently, I've been "jumping" from churches to churches, all welly recognized as mega-churches; all within the comfort of my work desk - internet. One particular church came to my attention. (For some reasons, I will not disclose the name of it.)

Reading from opinions from various bloggers to even that "senior pastor's" own personal blog. It leaves me with nothing, but anger and hatred.

From his own blog, he writes about himself building his church in 1989 with only a handful of 20 young teenagers, and his story goes on. What eventually no longer surprises me was that in his summarizing write, was titled "How he build his church."

Yes, it does awe many with the way his church reaches the youth, but honestly, what is the real meaning of church? A band of Christians solely recognized under a human leader? Or a band of believers coming together in recognition that Christ is the leader? Is church built upon bricks and mortar and can only survive based on the numbers? Or it is what we know from the Bible of Christians coming together in His name alone?!

Is the pastor the KEY factor or Christ the KEY factor and the pastor is only God's instrument? By the way, who builds the church? And who owns the church? A human pastor, or God?

A video came to my attention just this 4 hours ago, the unnamed pastor of this unnamed church was sharing his "vision" preaching from stadiums, to stadiums; from London's Wembly to the Sapporo Dome in Hokkaido, Japan. At the end of it, I don't even get the message of reaching the thousands of souls, but perhaps "stadium atmosphere".

Well, look! I'm not against the idea of wishing for Heaven on Earth. I'm also not against the idea of cooking up new creative ways to reach our community. But what sickens me is that, he no longer knows what he's doing and what he's preaching; he just wants numbers!

If believing in Christ means getting the good gifts all day long, then sins are completely overlooked by the receiver of the Gospel. Yes, I'm referring to the prosperity movement (not charismatic).

And there's where the danger starts. It's already in our nation, not just America.

To be able to "re-package" the Gospel of Jesus this way, I'd tell you, you will be "reaching" your unsaved loved ones not to the Lord, but to the church and yourself.

Now, it's enough talkin' of this church and that church; let's go back to the 4 books writing of all the Kings in OT.

When Solomon was king, he walked not in the sight of the Lord, and did what was evil in His sight - for a couple of examples; increasing horses for himself and worshiped other gods while breaking the world record of the most women by his side - and the Lord tore Israel apart after Solomon's death and eventually there's two thrones over the many many years ahead; the king of Israel and the king of Judah.

Now back to the question - why should we pray for our ministry leaders?

So that we do not stray from doing His work while under the impression of doing it! That we do not seek the things of the world while under the illusion of seeking God's kingdom!

That we do not build our own church, but building God's kingdom!

We may have VIBEs to use to reach our unsaved friends, but there's a danger. We may have Sportlight to reach friends from the other track, there's a danger too.

Again, don't get me mistaken that I'm against both outreach activities. I'm not, and I'm rather supportive of these ministries.

But why danger I say? We often times wants to meet the needs of the unbelievers that we thought of this and that, all sounding impressive (or win-win). We thought of things and programs to fill VIBE up so that people will keep coming back. That's our danger! A danger from the motivation of reaching souls that eventually shifts to just increasing numbers and having regular customers.

That's shifting away from God's direction and that we lied to ourselves that we are in His directions, doing God's work all at the same time.

It is not wrong to dream of huge attendees coming in so that bridges will be built and souls will be saved, but IT IS WRONG to just dream of huge attendees alone. It's the motivation that matters!

It is not wrong to have play Christian contemporary music to reach our unsaved friends who are from that part of the ("underground" if i can add to it) music society, but it is WRONG to play Heavy Metal sound-alike for the sake of the numbers and not the souls!

It is not wrong if GLCC one day plans to build a bigger venue to meet the needs of a bigger vicinity for the ever growing BODY but it is WRONG if GLCC wants to do it for the sake of showing-off and challenging other commercial buildings!

Honestly, Jia Hao is a young and faithful leader, but he's not a F&B professional. So if he aims to do VIBE like how the F&B pros did it for the sake of our Christian testimony and meeting the needs of others, it's not wrong. But if he does it for the sake of doing it, for the sake of self-glory, for the sake of just increasing NUMBERS and for the sake of being called a great leader, I'll put him in front of the "Canadian Bull" when I'm doing my markmanship in NS!

Look! It's where your heart is! It's about where your foundations are. Even if you preach the true gospel, but if your heart is simply seeking the praises from Ian and pastors. You've lost focus!

Why am I writing this to you who are still youths? When you're not pastors or deacons...yet? That we remind of ourselves that the we do not shift our motivation from souls to golds; from God to dogs.

That the leaders God has implanted, will not serve in their own strength, will not seek after puny things, but in His strength to remain truthful to the Great Commission and to seek the Kingdom of God first and the blessings.

What's the danger? Simply, seeking not the kingdom of God; or simpler, your heart ain't on the right track!

Pray for our leaders, my friend. What's more, pray for our nation.