Ezekiel 3:17-19 (God said) "Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for Israel. Whenever you receive a message from me, warn people immediately. If I warn the wicked, saying, 'You are under the penalty of death,' but you fail to deliver the waring, they will die in their sins. And I will hold you responsible for their deaths. If you warn them and they refuse to repent and keep on sinning, they will die in their sins. But you will have saved yourself because you obeyed me.
My Thoughts
We went to a church one time that hired a new preacher. They hired him because he spoke God's word clearly and powerfully, but with love. Then not long after he arrived, just a few months he preached a few weeks on those everyday sins...those sins the people in our church were doing. People started with-holding their tithes and ran this man of God off. They didn't like what he had to say so they ran him off. It was a very sad time to me... it really hurt my heart.
We should never get angry when we don't like what our pastors are preaching...if we do we need to stop and look honestly at ourselves and ask, "Is that something I need to be working on?" When we silence our pastors because we don't like what they say.. we put our own lives in danger.
Have we really learned anything if when we go to church we hear about not murdering, committing adultery, stealing? You know those big sins that most all of us see as sins. Our pastors are doing us a favor when they preach on gossip, over spending, tithing, selfishness. It is the job of our pastors to tell his congregation what they are doing wrong, the sins they are committing. When he does that he does it out of love for us... he is condemning our sins not our persons. He is loving us not judging us!!
God did not send angles down to be our pastors, he put people in that roll. People who mess up... who sin... who find themselves doing the very things they are called to preach about. People who understand what it is to mess up. We should not get angry at these men/women. We should love them for loving us enough to risk the wrath of our anger. Anger that comes from knowing somebody is right about us when we don't want them to be.
Next time your pastor says something that make you squirm in your seat..don't get angry and refuse to come to church for a few weeks...we only hurt ourselves when we do that. Instead we need to shake his hand or hug his neck and thank him for loving us so much!!
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