“Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith…Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you” (Hebrews 13:7, 17).

Let me start this devotion with a disclaimer: Pastors Brad, Bill, and James are not going through a pastoral crisis. We all count ourselves incredibly blessed to be leaders at the Little Church and Lakewoodgrace.

The reason for this post is because we all can use prayers, but particularly your pastors. Not because anything bad is happening, but so that your pastors can continue serving God and you faithfully.

You see, the devil does not have to destroy a Christian leader in order to mess up what God is doing in a particular congregation. The devil only has to distract a leader.

In a New York Times article, Paul Vitello reported: The findings have surfaced with ominous regularity over the last few years, and with little notice: Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could.

Dr. R. J. Krejcir of the Francis A. Schaeffer Institute of Church Leadership Development has been actively involved in multiple surveys of thousands of pastors in various settings from 1989 to 2006. Krejcir states, “Over 70% of pastors are so stressed out and burned out that they regularly consider leaving the ministry. Thirty-five to forty percent of pastors do leave the ministry, most after only five years. 100% of pastors we surveyed had a close associate or seminary buddy who had left the ministry because of burnout, conflict in their church, or from a moral failure.”

God is doing good work at the Little Church Lakewoodgrace. And that is all the more reason why I covet your prayers for your pastors. I know many of you already do. Keep up the good work! I thank God for you! Know you are in my prayers.

Blessings!

“But our citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20).

We were created for heaven. The earth is not our home. We were created for so much more than the handful of decades we live on planet earth.

God created us for his glory. God created us with a purpose. We were never meant to merely survive our time here on planet earth. We were created to thrive as we join God in Kingdom ministry.

Soren Kierkegaard tells the following story to illustrate how many have lost their way:

A duck was flying with his flock in the springtime northward across Europe. During the flight he came down in a Danish barnyard where there were tame ducks. He enjoyed some of their corn. He stayed, for an hour, then for a day, then for a week, then for a month, and finally, because he relished the good fare and the safety of the barnyard, he stayed all summer.

But one autumn day when the flock of wild ducks were winging their way southward again, they passed over the barnyard, and their mate heard their cries. He was stirred with a strange thrill of joy and delight, and with a great flapping of wings he rose in the air to join his old comrades in their flight. But he found that his good fare had made him so soft and heavy that he could rise no higher than the eaves of the barn. So he dropped back again to the barnyard, and said to himself, “Oh well, my life is safe here and the food is good.”

Every spring and autumn when he heard the wild ducks calling, his eyes would gleam for a moment and he would begin to flap his wings. But finally the day came when the wild ducks flew over him and uttered their cry, but he paid not the slightest attention to them.

May we never be domesticated. Remember who you are. Christ died and rose again. Our citizenship is in heaven.

“You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3).

As many of you already recognize this is Commandment #1 of the Ten Commandments.

Seems simple enough. Right?

Why would we want any other gods? After all, we know that God is the “LORD our God, who brought us out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” (Exodus 20:2). God is the one who saves us, rescues us, delivers us, and guides us. So, why would we ever want any other gods?

You know, when we think about “other gods” we often think idols or something like that. We know very few people who have idols in their homes. No one we know prays to an idol, let alone worship an idol.

And this is exactly what the devil wants us to believe. Since we don’t have figurines or idols in our homes, the devil wants us to believe that we are not idolaters. The devil wants us to believe that we have no other gods.

Here’s the thing. What God is talking about in the first commandment has little to do with figurines and has much to do with what/who calls the shots when it comes to how we live our lives, how we spend our time, how we invest our finances, and how we make decisions. While most of us may not have figurines or idols in our homes, we certainly have value systems that want to shape how we make decisions about time, money, values, sex, etc.

That’s what God calls “other gods.” Anyone or anything other that God himself who impacts our decision making regarding time, money, sex, values, etc. is “other gods.”

And when it comes to “other gods,” the devil really doesn’t care what we replace the centrality and the sufficiency of God with – as long as we replace God with something else.

So, let’s think about this again – “You shall have no other gods before me.”

God and God alone gets to dictate what is right, what is good, and how we should live.

May that be so with us.