“Too often we think that if we can impress others, we will gain influence with them. We want to become others’ heroes – to be larger than life. That creates a problem because we’re real live human beings. People can see us for who we really are. If we make it our goal to impress them, we puff up our pride and end up being pretentious – and that turns people off. “ John Maxwell said that and I think he was right on!
I don’t know about you but I really dislike it when preachers go on and on about what “they” did. How they healed that kid, how they laid hands and someone’s foot grew out of a stump or whatever. I dislike it because if what they said is true (let’s be honest a lot of so-called faith healers or evangelists, revivalists, and all the other “ists” have been known to exaggerate uh just a bit) but again, if what they said happened, it wasn’t THEM it was a GOD thing. GOD does all the healing. When I hear a litany of “I did this” and “I did that” it reminds me of Satan before he was cast out of heaven due to his pride and his desire to be on the same level with God. So needless to say, I totally turn off when I hear a preacher like this. I don’t know is this just me?
As I get older I realize more and more who I am, what I truly believe, who I want to be surrounded by, what type of church I want to be a part of and with that clarity comes choices and decisions that are hard to make because as you try to be true to the you God made you, decisions you make still affect other people. I have to wonder about the leaders who think these type of preachers are ok for the body of Christ. TBN has some great people on but it also has some people I have to change the channel on.
I feel like most of the Christian community is so easily impressed! Geesh its actually appalling to me that the people they are who-ha-ing about have learned the art of pulling on people’s emotional strings. You know what I am talking about…enter a church, it’s boring as heck, the preacher obviously didn’t prepare a good sermon and is winging it and then he/she tries to draw up some emotion and starts proclaiming the “Holy Spirit is Here…stop being so hard,” “you know you are going to hell, get up here right away and get right”, or some other extreme call. People start falling, crying, etc. Could that be the Holy Spirit moving? Yeah, sure. But what gets me is that some people think that is the ONLY way God moves or that that is THE way to know if someone is anointed. Uh, not really. I could go on about this but I don’t want to get into a theological discourse on the subject, besides other people could do a much better job than me on this. If you are reading this and can add some perspective feel free to do so.
Now with all that said, I do believe that the Holy Spirit works in spite of us (even me) but I guess I find it sickening all the people who “depend” on ministry jobs who are phony baloney. For example, it seems that some of the 21st century pastors and teachers don’t believe Jesus got up, some don’t believe Jesus can make a-way out of no-way nor do they believe He’s a healer either…In other words they don’t believe what they preach in the pulpits… That’s according to a recent study out of Tufts University….This study paints a less-than-attractive picture of the church. Sad but true. So all this to say…don’t be so impressed with a preacher just because they said ”they did this or that” and if you are that preacher…don’t be so impressed with yourself, who would you be without the POWER of Holy Spirit who is the one who actually DID DO “this and that”. Get over yourself. I’m just sayin’
