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An old enemy is bombarding the Church.  He is using an old tactic - the same temptation that He used on Christ.

The Temptation

Jesus was destined to rule all nations.  

Revelation 19:11-16 KJV

11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.

13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.

14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean.

15 And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

16 And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

But His destiny came at a cost.

Hebrews 12:2 KJV

Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus suffered and died on the cross, which afforded Him the highest honor.  He would sit on “the right hand of the throne of God.”   “That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:10-11).”

Satan, however, saw an advantage.   Why not offer Jesus the same thing, but at no cost?

Matthew 4:8-10 KJV

8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Satan found it too incredible to believe that power and authority did not motivate Jesus.  These things did not tempt him.   Jesus described His true motivation when He said, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”   Can we say this today?  What I want to demonstrate is that, just like with Jesus, there is a cost to Christian leadership.

The Cost Versus The Benefits

Consider the proof Paul gave as to the legitimacy of his ministry:

2 Corinthians 11:23-28 KJV

3 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.

24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.

25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

28 Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

When it came to the proof of his ministry, Paul didn’t point to the assets of His ministry.  For instance, he did not point to the size of his church or the offering amounts he brought in.  He did not point to the number of churches he started or to the number of conventions, seminars, or revivals he held.  He did not point to the number of students he had or how many books and articles he published.  Instead, it is interesting that he pointed to the cost and price he paid personally, not to benefits he reaped.

I have been to prophetic and apostolic conferences in the past.  For the most part, these have been a disappointment.  I went expecting to find people who desired to pray and seek the Lord together for direction.  Instead I found mostly (not all) people who were eager to impress others with their style and ability to articulate.  These conferences seem to draw out the worst.  Instead of an atmosphere of service, they seemed to quickly degenerate into a competitive environment for, dare I say, a shameless display of ego.  Anyone who has ever been to one of these seminars knows what I am talking about.

Now, to be fair, let me balance this by saying that not everyone was like this.  There were many precious brothers and sisters who were authentic in every sense of the word.  But let’s just be honest: there are tares among the wheat in the house of God.  And it is the phony ones that I am addressing.   These contemporary Christian leaders have cheapened ministry to the point where it has become a joke to the principalities and (spiritual) powers that they claim to battle.  Be not mistaken, “…all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution (2 Timothy 3:12).”  True Christian leadership does not come cheaply.

Here is an example of how ministry has been cheapened.   When Christian leaders continue to promise (generation after generation) that a mighty revival is coming, but it is always just down the road, it can become a form of cheap ministry.  How so?   These same promises that today’s ministry will transform today’s church into a mighty army has been echoed for over fifty years.  They claim that today’s ministry is vital because without it such revival will never come.  But then that ministry fades into obscurity and another comes with the same message, generation after generation, as the church slips deeper and deeper into apathy.  If their ministry was vital, what did they deliver?  Just empty promises.  Incidentally, they never seem to put a date to these promises.  This is a good example of cheap ministry.  By saying revival is always down the road, they let themselves off the hook.  It allows them to claim power, authority, and prestige while delivering nothing.  Nowhere do you see this more than in the modern prophetic movement.

I can respect the work of most pastors.  They have to live with the here and now.   They must face the day-to-day issues that arise within their congregations.  And at the end of the day, you can see what they have done.  They are not making empty promises that never come to pass.  What they promise you can be sure their congregation holds them to.

To be fair, I realize some people who have become caught up in these movements are good people.   They are merely following the lead of others whom they respect.   Consider the following that came in a recent newsletter:

“God does have His Chosen Generals and Leaders!  Keep your eyes on the leaders that God places you with and learn from them. I admire and thank God for our Apostolic/Prophetic Elder Statesmen/women! People that have taken the hits when we were not even old enough to pronounce the word “prophet” are the ones to say, “Thank You for being there to pioneer the calling in which we walk!” Bishop Bill Hamon, a father of the Prophetic Movement, C. Peter Wagner, Bob Jones, etc. are just but a few of examples of those who have taken the torch before us! Thank you all for doing so!”

This is where much of the problem lies.  People are a result of what they have learned.  Like this brother, young impressionable Christians are taught to follow men.  This is all right as long as they can, like Paul, say, “be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ (1 Corinthians 11:1).”

Imagine making a copy of a copy.  Take that copy and make a copy from it, then another copy from it.  Eventually your copy does not look at all like the original.  So when you are making copies – telling young Christians to keep their eyes on and follow “people,” you better be sure that what they are following looks like the original.

Just because you love or respect someone does not make them a good copy to be followed.  If they were following someone they loved and respected but this person was wrong, they will also be wrong - becoming just another false copy.  If the Lord shows you that something you have long believed is wrong, this is not cause for discouragement.  Was Apollos discouraged when Aquila and Priscilla showed him the way of God “more perfectly?”  Did he disdain their teaching because he was higher class and had greater education than they?  No, he went on encouraged in his new knowledge, knowing that truth is truth, no matter who brings it to your attention.

I have many people who write me asking if I have any books that describe what the first generation Church looked like.   I say yes, it’s called the Bible.  “But why, then,” they ask, “does today’s Church look so different?”   Ah! Now you are asking the right question.

Pick any movement, and you will find Christian leaders who consistently patterned their lives and ministries after their mentors, with each generation getting a little further off.  Eventually, you get to today’s Christian leaders who have little semblance of the true leadership described in the Bible.  The word “semblance,” is actually found in the New Testament.  The scripture “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away (2 Timothy 3:5)” uses this word.  The words “form of” comes from the Greek word morphosis and means “semblance, similitude, likeness, structure, and merely the shape of something.”

When young men are taught to follow other men, it carries with it the idea of “imitating.”   And that is what we find: poor imitations.   At some point, people begin to question things. Why is Christian leadership different today from how it is described in the Bible?  And why is the Church lacking virtue?  When this happens, watch the dancing begin.  Occasionally I receive a note from some distraught minister asking, “Why ask these questions or say these things?  Do you want people to quit trusting us?”  This type of thinking exposes a deeper issue: many ministers believe that they are so important that God will overlook and hide their sin from exposure.   I receive notes from a few offended ministers but they won’t point to a single scripture.  Their replies are always full of excuses and rationalization.  Water down Christian leadership enough, and you have what we find today: almost everyone can be one even if there is no substance to their claim.

This issue with imitations has watered down true and effective leadership.  Why not teach young people that intellectual knowledge of the scripture does not make them prophets?  Or that merely acting out what they see in a truly anointed individual is not God’s approval?   Why not have them wait?  After all, Paul wrote: concerning our “…ministry, let us wait on our ministering: or he that teacheth, on teaching (Romans 12:7).”  Being forced into ministry at an early age is never a good thing (I know because I was).   Remember, Jesus waited until he was thirty.  So let’s not rush things.  Don’t be afraid to tell people that they aren’t ready, that they lack an anointing, that they need more time, that their imitation is wrong.  Let’s end this cycle now, and stop turning out more ministers who are just cheap imitations.

Let’s come back to the Greek word morphosis.  In its simplest form, we find the idea of “structure.”  In fact “structure” is how this word is used in science.  Now put it back in the scripture: “having a [structure] of godliness.”

Consider the hermit crab.   An unlearned person might think that the shell actually belongs to the crab, that it grows with along with the crab.  It doesn’t.  As the crab grows, it moves from one shell to another.   The shell doesn’t cost the crab anything.  It simply finds a suitable empty shell and moves into it.   It may look like it belongs to the crab, but it only looks that way.  This is applicable to today’s Christian leadership circles.  There are masses of people everywhere who are taking for themselves a “form (or structure)” of godly leadership that does not belong to them.   Rather than earn their own, they assume someone else’s!   Let’s end the cycle of allowing young people in the Lord to “assume” leadership.   Let’s require them to earn it.

Chosen, Not Choosing

Luke 6:12-13 KJV

12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.

13 And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles

Becoming an apostle comes at Christ’s choosing, not any man’s.  Here we find that there were many disciples and “of them” Christ “chose twelve, whom also he named apostles.”  What if the others decided that they wanted to be apostles?  In today’s rationalization of what it means to be an apostle, they could become apostles as well, regardless of what God decides.

Christian leaders point to the fact that Paul was a “church planter,” and they go on to give a loose definition of the word “apostle” to legitimize this weak definition of what it means to be one.  To use “church planting” as the sole requirement to define an apostle is like saying that “flat tire changing” qualifies someone as a mechanic.  Changing tires is only one characteristic of a mechanic.  Yes, apostles are church planters, and they are messengers, too, but these are only their most basic characteristics.   Starting a church does not make someone an apostle any more than changing oil can make him a mechanic.  Once again, there is a cost.  There is a cost associated with becoming a mechanic as well as an apostle, and you don’t become one simply because you choose to become one.  We find in the above scripture that they came about by the choosing of the Lord.  Any true apostle today knows that all around us are cheap imitations.

Jesus chose the original twelve apostles, and He named them apostles.  It was not a title they took for themselves.  One Christian leader recently wrote me that he is currently just a pastor but “soon to be an apostle.”  All he has to do is to start a few churches (of any size).  Let’s see, where have I heard this before?  Oh, yes, the game of monopoly!  After you get four houses, you simply trade up for a hotel!

I have labored with many Christian leaders who have claimed elaborate titles.  I have never seen a more shameless display of self-aggrandizement than when several are gathered under the same roof.  They chew and tug at their bits like racehorses anxiously waiting their turn to show the others “their stuff.”  It is shameful.

Conclusion

Once again we find Satan at work tempting men.  He offers them elaborate church ministries at little or no cost.  They all know intuitively that there is something wrong with it.  Inwardly they question their lack of God’s power in their lives.  They question why there is a lack of spiritual gifts in their assemblies, why their prayers go unanswered, but they go on because it is how they were taught, how it has “always been done.”  So they simply rationalize the scripture away and make no effort to change.

Some Christian leaders have succumbed to the temptation of power and prestige.  There is a hidden motivation to rule and reign at the center of their hearts.  I am shocked by how rapidly the numbers of people who claim to be apostles are growing on my list.  In August, I counted 25.  Last month, there were 50.  A week ago, it approached 75, and now it is over a hundred.   More and more people who a year ago counted themselves brothers, sisters, or pastors are now writing that they are apostles.  If there are genuine apostles around, then I plead with you to take steps to expose the counterfeits, the imitators.   Impostors are springing up everywhere. 

I beseech you, Christian leaders, to allow Christ to do the choosing.   Assume nothing.  By this I mean don’t assume you have a certain office just because others who are like you are claiming it.  If you are really an apostle, prophet, evangelist, etc., then people will know it.  You won’t need to advertise it like a marquis in front of your church building.  Allow God to demonstrate His approval in you.  If you are really the genuine article, He will.  And instead of being imitators of men, be an imitator of Christ.  Remember, Jesus died never having received the honor that was due Him.  Both He and John the Baptist died never having claimed a title for themselves.

Philippians 2:5-8 KJV

5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Why, as ambassadors and followers of one who labored so hard to have “no reputation,” is reputation so important?   We must not be like the Pharisees who “love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets (Luke 11:43).”   Consider the example Jesus set.  Remember, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up (James 4:10).”

Finally, remember that the true cost of Christian leadership cannot be measured in your assets but in its cost to you in the Lord.  If you are chosen for His purpose, then it will cost you… dearly.

Amen.