A Spiritual Leader — Zac Poonen

You're now listening to A Spiritual Leader by Zak Poonen. About this book, spiritual leadership is the need of the hour in the churches in India. This book contains a series of messages that were given to a group of Christian workers, Bible college lecturers, and pastors of churches.

The messages have been reproduced in their spoken form for easy reading. May the Lord speak to your heart through this book and challenge you to be a role model for today's younger generation as an exemplary servant of God and a truly spiritual leader.

Bangalore, Zak Poonen, October 1999. Chapter 1, Called by God. A spiritual leader will first and foremost have a calling from God. His work will not be his profession but his calling. No one can appoint himself as a spiritual leader.

He has to be called by God for this work. Hebrews chapter 5 verse 4, Living. This is a principle that cannot be changed. The next verse goes on to say that even Jesus did not appoint himself as our high priest.

The Father appointed him. If that be the case, how much more this should be true of us in our calling? The tragedy today is that the vast majority of Christian workers in India are working to earn their living.

It is a profession for them. They have not been called by God. There's a lot of difference between a profession and a calling. Let me explain what I mean. Suppose there's a sick child in a hospital and a nurse looks after it for eight hours on her shift duty.

That nurse then goes home and forgets all about that child. Her concern for that child was only for eight hours. Now she has other things to do, such as going to the movies and watching television. She doesn't have to think about that child again until the next day when she goes back to work.

But the mother of that child doesn't work eight-hour shifts. She can't go to the movies when her child is sick. That's the difference between a profession and a calling. If you apply that illustration to the way you care for the believers in your church, you'll discover whether you're a nurse or a mother.

Paul said in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 7, we proved to be gentle among you as a mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having thus a fond affection for you, we were well pleased to impart you not only the gospel but our own lives because you've been very dear to us.

Paul not only imparted the gospel of God to those Christians but his life as well. Any ministry that is not done in this way is not really a Christian ministry. Paul served God like that because he had a calling to the ministry.

He didn't take it up as a profession. It's wonderful to serve the Lord. It is the greatest thing in the world. Nothing on earth can be compared with it, but only if you're called. It cannot be reduced to a profession.

God called me to serve him full-time on May 6, 1964, when I was an officer in the Indian Navy. I handed in my resignation then to the naval authorities, but it was like Moses asking Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.

The Indian Navy wouldn't release me. It took two years and repeated applications before they finally released me miraculously in God's perfect time. Being called God has made all the difference in my life.

First of all, it doesn't matter to me now what people think about me or my ministry because someone else is my master and I have to answer only to him. Secondly, I can trust God to stand by me and give me grace whenever I face any trial or opposition in my ministry, and that happens often.

Thirdly, it doesn't matter to me whether I receive any money or not and whether I get any food to eat or not. If I receive food and money, well and good. If I don't get any food or money, that's fine with me too.

I cannot stop serving the Lord just because I didn't get money or food because God has called me. I can't get rid of my calling. I'm not a salaried employee who can stop working when I'm not paid or fed.

It's like the case of a mother and her child. A nurse will stop working if her salary is not paid one month, but a mother can never stop. She doesn't get a salary in any case and she'll look after her baby even if she doesn't get any food or money.

That's how the apostles served the Lord. What a glorious thing it is to be called of God. You can never do the Lord's work the way God wants you to do it. If you do it as a profession, it has to be a calling or nothing.

Every other job in the world can be done as a profession, but not a mother's or a father's or that of a servant of the Lord. All these are the result of a calling. Paul told the Corinthian Christians that even if they had 10 ,000 teachers, they still had only one father, 1 Corinthians 4 .15.

Paul was both a spiritual father and a mother to his flock. His was not a profession but a calling. Take this child and nurse him for me and I shall give you your wages is what the Lord has said to me, Exodus 2 .9.

He said that to me first of all concerning my own physical children and then he said that to me concerning my spiritual children too. When we take care of God's children, he's the one who is responsible to give us our wages, not man.

If we serve men, then let us look to men to pay us. But if we serve the Lord, then let us look to him alone to provide us our needs in whatever way he sees fit and let him also decide how much we should receive each month.

There is a dignity about a true servant of the Lord. But it is possible that you as an elder feel no such sense of responsibility for the people in your church. You may content yourself with teaching the Bible every Sunday, but you may get a surprise when Jesus comes again and evaluates your ministry and you discover that your entire earthly ministry was only wood, hay, and straw, fit only for being burnt, 1 Corinthians 3, 12, 13.

Think of the tragedy that will be. If you take this warning seriously now, it could reduce your regret at the judgment seat of Christ. All of us are going to have some degree of regret when Christ comes again concerning the way we lived and served the Lord.

But we can reduce that regret by examining our ways and judging ourselves now. We must evaluate our ministry and see how it will look in the light of that day. Take these children and nurse them for me, says the Lord.

Bring them up for me, and I will give you your wages. Those wages will not be in terms of money, primarily. I believe the Lord takes care of our earthly needs since he taught us to pray for our daily bread, and he has ordained that those who preach the gospel should live of the gospel.

So he will take care of all our earthly needs, but there will be a far greater spiritual reward in addition. Paul wrote to the Christians at Thessalonica that they were going to be his crown and his joy when the Lord returned, 1 Thessalonians 2 .19.

He found his delight in them, just as a father finds his delight in his children. An elder who is a spiritual father will be delighted when he sees that believers who came as raw material to his church once have now become men of God.

This is something akin to the delight a sculptor has when he has fashioned a shapeless rock into a human form. He had to chip away at that block for many months and years before the face and figure of the man came out of it.

That is a work that God has given us to do too. We must never be satisfied with merely having instructed people correctly. If the image of Christ has not come forth in their lives, we have accomplished nothing at all.

An earthly father is also delighted when his children can stand on their own feet. He doesn't want them to be perpetually dependent on him. A true spiritual father will be like that too. He'll make himself dispensable, less and less needed by his spiritual children as they grow and mature.

Consider a home where there are twelve children. You may wonder how any mother can manage twelve children when your wife finds it difficult with even two. But amazingly, in the long run, the mother of twelve has less work to do than the mother of two.

That's because the mother of twelve trains her older children to help her in the home. Ultimately, the children do all the work and the mother is totally free. This is what we must do as shepherds in our churches too.

Delegate. But what do we see in most churches? Overburdened pastors are becoming nervous wrecks because they have to do everything themselves. That mother of twelve would become a nervous wreck too if she had to take care of all her children herself.

Many churches are like orphanages where hundreds of babies lie on the floor, kicking their legs, wailing, and holding on to their feeding bottles. This is the result of a one-man ministry. The believers never grow up because they are never given any responsibility.

In the body of Christ, each member has a task to fulfill. Jesus discipled only twelve people, and I don't think any man can handle more than that number effectively at a time. So, by that reckoning, a church of 120 people should have at least ten pastors taking care of the flock.

By pastors, I do not mean full-time workers, but brothers working in a secular job who have been gifted with a shepherd's heart to care for the sheep and encourage them. The harvest is plenteous today, but the true shepherds are few.

If you serve the Lord, let it be because God has called you to serve him and not because you want to earn a living or for the sake of man's honor. Chapter 2. Knowing God. A spiritual leader will be able to lead others along God's ways because he knows God personally.

Daniel 11 .32 .33 speaks of two types of preachers who will be found on earth in the last days. There will be many who speak smooth words and turn people to ungodliness. On the other hand, there will be a few who know God, who give people insight and do great exploits for God.

Today, both these types of preachers are found in Christendom. There are many who speak smooth words to please their hearers, but those who know God speak the truth, whether their hearers are pleased or offended, and whether men shower them with praises or abuses.

Human beings are like sheep. They tend to follow the crowd and are afraid of being different. But if the crowd is going in the wrong direction, everybody goes astray. This is the situation today. So, God is looking for some who will stand true to him and lead people along his way.

But if we are to be bold enough to be different from the crowd, we must know God and his mind, his thoughts, and his ways. Most Christian leaders whom I've met in India during the last 30 years do not seem to know God personally or his thoughts.

They simply repeat what they've read in some Western Christian magazine or book. Some particular emphasis is popular in every decade among American Christian leaders. In the 1980s, it was one thing and today it is something else.

And like the echoes that one hears in the mountainous regions, these emphases are faithfully echoed by their sycophants in India and other third world countries, especially when they present their papers at congresses on evangelism.

If the American leaders write about church growth, then the Indian Christian leaders faithfully echo church growth. If the Americans speak about the 1040 window, then the Indian preachers faithfully repeat the 1040 window.

If Western Christians teach the pre-tribulation rapture of the church, then Indian Bible teachers will teach only that. They never dare to question Western Christians. But doesn't God ever speak to anybody in India directly?

Does he speak only to the white races? The reason for all this imitation is the slave mentality that is found among all third world Christians. We Indians were ruled by the British for more than 200 years and it is difficult for us to be free from this slave mentality.

Almost all Indian Christians feel that the white man is superior to them and more spiritual than them because he is assertive and domineering and has lots of money. I met a black American brother once who told me that although the black people in USA had been legally delivered from slavery more than a century ago, the spirit of the slave was still found in most of them even now.

When they look at a white man, they feel inferior to him. I find exactly the same attitude in almost every Indian Christian. To tell you quite honestly, I've found most Western preachers who've come to India that I've met to be quite shallow and worldly.

They don't know God. But because they have plenty of money to throw around, they become celebrities wherever they go. Look at the advertisements for Christian conferences in India. In the vast majority of cases, the main speaker is always a Western preacher.

What a sad state our country's Christianity has come to. If this were true only among nominal Christians, one could understand it. But it is just the same among those who claim to be born again and spirit baptized.

We must break free from this slave mentality. But if some white man is paying your salary, then of course it will be difficult for you to break free from him. Then you must decide to stop serving men and start serving the Lord.

Whose servant are you in any case? The Bible tells us not to be slaves of men because we have been bought with a price, 1 Corinthians 7 .23. Let your passion be to know God personally. Then you won't be an echo of some Western leader, or of an Indian leader for that matter.

You won't be anyone's slave. You'll be a man of God. Spiritual authority can come only through a personal knowledge of God. I urge you, my brothers, be men who know God. That will make your personal life glorious and your ministry authoritative.

That is what our country needs today more than anything else. It is much easier to know the Bible than it is to know God because you don't have to pay a price to know the Bible. All you have to do is study.

You can be immoral in your personal life and impure in your thought life and still know the Bible very well. You can be a well-known preacher and yet be a great lover of money at the same time. But you can't know God and be immoral in your life.

You can't know God and be a lover of money. That's impossible. And that's why most preachers take the easier path of knowing the Bible rather than knowing God. I want to ask you, brothers, are you happy with just knowing the Bible?

Or is there a desperate hunger in your hearts to know the Lord? The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3, 8 to 10, that his greatest longing was to know the Lord better. He considered everything else as rubbish compared to knowing the Lord.

Paul gave up all his pearls for this pearl of great price. The secret of Paul's ministry is to be found not in the years that he spent studying the Bible at Gamaliel Seminary, but in his personal knowledge of the Lord.

Eternal life is to know God and Jesus Christ personally. John 17, 3. We have perhaps defined eternal life as living eternally in heaven. But that was not how Jesus defined it. Eternal life has nothing to do with going to heaven or escaping hell.

It has to do with knowing the Lord. To know God intimately and personally has been the passion of my life and the burden of my heart. I know that my ministry can have divine authority only as I know God personally.

And so in all of our churches, I have sought to lead people to a knowledge of God himself. There is more Bible knowledge today than ever before in history. For nearly 1500 years after the day of Pentecost, there were no printed Bibles available anywhere.

Only in the last two centuries have Bibles been so freely available. Today we have so many versions and concordances and study helps. But do you think all this increased Bible knowledge has produced holier Christians?

No. If Bible knowledge could produce holiness, we should be having the godliest people in history living today. But we don't. Satan himself would have been holy if Bible knowledge could produce holiness.

For no one knows the Bible as well as he does. We have so many seminaries today teaching the Bible to thousands of students. But are the godliest people in the world today found in those seminaries? No.

Many seminary graduates today are worse than the heathen. Some years ago, I met a seminary graduate from one of India's top evangelical seminaries who had stood first in his graduating class. He told me that after three years in that seminary, his spiritual condition was worse than when he first joined it.

What then did that seminary teach him? It had taught him facts about the Bible and about Christianity. Satan himself could have graduated as first in the class from such a seminary. What was the use that young man learning hermeneutics and what the Haider critics had said and what the root meanings of Greek words were if he hadn't overcome anger, bitterness, lustful thoughts, and the love of money?

With his newly acquired certificate, he would soon become a pastor of a church. But what would he teach the people in his church whose biggest problems would be moral and not theological? He wouldn't be able to help them at all in any of those areas.

This is how God's work in India is being destroyed. Only if you know God yourself will you be able to lead your flock to know him. If you have victory over sin in your own life, you'll be able to lead your flock also to victory over sin.

Then they too will be equipped to go out and serve the Lord with authority and power. Do you think the devil is impressed by anyone's Bible knowledge or degree certificates? Not at all. Satan fears only holy, humble men and women who know God.

May God help us to lead our younger brothers and sisters to know God. Chapter 3. Fearing God. A spiritual leader will fear God greatly. The more we get to know God, the more we will fear him. We won't be afraid of God, but we will reverence him.

In Psalm 34 .11, David says, Come, you children, listen to me, and I'll teach you the fear of the Lord. It's not an easy task to teach people the fear of God. It's far easier to teach them how to analyze Romans and Ephesians.

If we are to teach others to fear God, we must fear him ourselves first. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A man who fears God can teach his flock far more than a man who merely knows the Bible.

Those who do not fear God can only communicate knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge makes a man proud, as we read in 1 Corinthians 8 .1. But wisdom makes a man mature and teaches him how to apply his knowledge to the problems of daily life.

Only men with wisdom can build the church of Jesus Christ. The fear of the Lord is the ABC of the Christian life. If you haven't taught your flock the fear of the Lord first, then however much you may have taught them other subjects, you've failed in your primary task.

You would then be like a teacher who tries to teach his students geography and history before they can even read. No teacher in the world makes that mistake. To learn the fear of the Lord is like learning how to read.

But most elders in churches don't teach their flock the fear of the Lord first. Here is the proof that the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light. Let me ask a question of those who have graduated from a seminary.

Did you learn the fear of the Lord there, or did you merely get a degree certificate? Let me ask you a second question. Why did you join that seminary? Was it to get a job, or was it to learn the fear of God?

Why did you choose one seminary in preference to another? Was it because it was a more prestigious one? And did you join it even though you knew it was not evangelical in doctrine, but liberal? Can you imagine Jesus sending his disciples to such seminaries to prepare them for his service?

How many of you can honestly say that you chose a seminary to learn the fear of God? Probably none. Isn't that tragic? I know that many people join a Bible school here in India only as a first step to go to the United States to make money.

Some apply to Bible schools in America in order to settle down there. How can such people ever serve the Lord? Can you acknowledge today that you've joined a Bible school with wrong motives? If you're willing to be honest, then there's great hope for you, for God loves honest people.

Now, make sure you warn others not to repeat your mistake. Teach them the fear of the Lord first. Our children don't have to repeat the mistakes we've made. In Proverbs 24, 3, 4, we're told that a house is built by wisdom, and that by knowledge, its rooms are filled with many precious things.

Notice the contrast here between wisdom and knowledge. I'm not devaluating Bible knowledge, not at all. I've spent more than 40 years studying the Bible, and I think I know it as well as anyone else. But what I seek for most of all is wisdom.

Divine love is the greatest thing in the world, but divine love is always guided by divine wisdom. Love without wisdom is dangerous. Love can be likened to the petrol in the tank of a bus, and wisdom to the driver of the bus.

You certainly need love to lead your flock forward, but you need wisdom to decide which way you're going to lead them. Wisdom is fundamental. It is possible for you to get 100 in Bible knowledge and zero for wisdom.

That would be like a student getting 100 in physical training and zero in mathematics. It would be better if he got 100 in math and zero in physical training, because in the long run, math is more important than PT, and in the long run, wisdom is more important than knowledge.

We saw that knowledge fills the rooms. Knowledge is like the furniture, chairs, tables, and beds that we put into our rooms. So, if you have knowledge without wisdom, you'd be like a man who puts out all his expensive furniture on an empty plot of ground.

Many expensive tables and sofas are there. The only thing missing is the house. You can well imagine that such a man will be the laughing stock of everyone around him, but that's exactly what we see among most leaders and preachers in Christendom today.

They have knowledge, but no wisdom, because they do not fear God. We hardly hear any preacher preaching these days about the fear of the Lord, and that's why most believers are not wise and have so many other fears.

Chapter 4. Listening to God. A spiritual leader will take time to listen to God every day. A phrase that occurs frequently in the very first chapter of the Bible is this, then God said. God said something on every one of those first six days when he remade the chaotic earth, and each time God spoke, the earth became a better place.

So, right there, on the very first page of the Bible, we learn one very important truth, that we must hear what God has to say every day, and if we submit to what God tells us every day, we will be transformed into better and more useful Christians.

There's a lot of difference between hearing what God has to say to us and just reading the Bible. Remember, it was people who studied their Bibles daily who crucified the Lord. They studied their Bibles, but they never heard God speaking to their hearts.

See Acts 13 27. That's the danger we face too, and then we can be as blind as they were. Genesis 1 also teaches us that God wants to speak to us every day, but most Christian leaders don't listen to God every day.

They only read the writings of men. It's a great tragedy if you preach only what you've heard other men speak, because the word of man can never produce anything eternal. It's only the word that God speaks that can produce eternal fruit, as we read in Isaiah 55 11.

In Genesis 1, we read that whenever God spoke, supernatural things happened. That's how it can be in our ministry too, if we preach what God has first spoken to our own hearts. Paul told Timothy to take heed to his own life first before his teaching if he wanted to save himself and others.

1 Timothy 4 16. The only way to escape self-deception is by hearing what God has to say to us. If you don't listen to what God has to say, then you'll preach in one of the three ways. 1. You'll find out what the so-called great Christian preachers in the world are saying at this time, especially in America where most of the money for Christian work in India comes from.

I say so-called great preachers because these preachers are not great in God's eyes. You'll read their books and repeat what they say. Once you discover that a particular subject is popular in Christendom currently, you'll decide to speak much about that.

Your undiscerning flock will be impressed and will consider you well-read and spiritually minded. 2. You'll study biblical themes academically and teach them like a college lecturer studies and teaches chemistry.

And one can get a doctorate in biblical studies far more easily than a doctorate in chemistry. Many honorary doctorates are being given away today by third-rate bible colleges to title-hungry preachers and pastors for a few hundred rupees each.

You can get as many as you like. But even if you get an earned doctorate in theology, that will still prove only that you're a clever man. You may still not know either God or his word. Or, 3. You'll try and sense what is most acceptable to your flock because you want to be popular with them.

You'll then be like businessmen who conduct market surveys to find out what most people want. This is how most pastors preached today. And that was how all the false prophets in the Old Testament preached too.

And they flourished. Every false prophet would try to sense what the nation of Israel wanted to hear and they would preach just that. So, they were popular with the people and made a lot of money. There are many such false prophets in Christendom today.

But every true prophet in Israel was unpopular because they told the Jews what they needed to hear and not what they wanted to hear. Jesus once rebuked Martha for being busy with so much work instead of being like Mary who sat and listened to him speak.

Our Lord went on to say that what Mary did was the only necessary thing in life. Luke 10 42. We must all have that attitude that Samuel had who said, speak Lord, your servant is listening. What did we see in the very first page of the Bible?

Whenever God spoke, something was immediately accomplished. Light was produced. The earth came up out of the waters. Trees, fish, and animals were created, etc. Isaiah 55 10 11 tells us that the word which goes forth from God's mouth will never return empty without accomplishing what God desires and without succeeding in the matter for which it was spoken.

Notice two words in these verses that are highly valued by all people in the world, accomplishment and success. We all want to accomplish something in our lives and we all want to succeed. But life is short and we don't have the time to experiment with various methods for success and accomplishment, certainly not in spiritual matters.

We shouldn't try out some method of doing the Lord's work and discover 20 years later that that was not God's way of doing things and that we were on the wrong track. We can be saved from all such wastage of time if we listen to the word that God speaks.

That will always bring success and accomplishment. I want to listen to a man who listens to God because such a man can teach me more in five minutes than the Theologians with long tales of degrees can teach me in hours.

John the Baptist could teach people more about God than Professor Gamiliel or any member of the Jewish Sanhedrin. When you listen to God, you won't preach what you've read in Christian books and magazines or heard from Christian tapes.

The man who hears God speaks from revelation, not from academic knowledge or study. Such a man first experiences what he reads and then speaks forth from his life. What you teach from your head will go only into other people's heads, but what you preach from your heart and from your life's experience will go straight into their hearts and change their lives.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't prepare your messages or that you shouldn't have written notes when speaking. Whether you use notes or not depends on how good a memory you have, not on how spiritual you are.

What I'm saying is that whatever you speak must be from your heart and from your life. Today we have liberal theological colleges and evangelical theological colleges, but what's the difference between the two?

In one, the information transmitted from one brain into another is theologically incorrect, whereas in the other, the information transmitted is theologically correct. But spiritually speaking, the evangelical seminary may be no better than the liberal one.

In both seminaries, the lecturers and the students may be lovers of money and slaves to their lusts. Jesus did not teach his disciples like that. He did not come to make us better informed about theology.

He came to make us like him in character. Jesus taught his disciples more about character than about theology. What about you? Do you teach your flock how to overcome the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life?

There are a lot of people in our churches who look up to us to hear what God is saying to them. It's a solemn responsibility to preach to them Sunday after Sunday. If I were you, I would fear because we are accountable to God for what we tell them.

We have to give an account to God one day for every message we ever preached, for what we spoke, why we spoke it, and how we spoke. If you take your responsibility in this matter seriously, your ministry can change radically.

For over 20 years now, I've judged my own ministry in the Lord's light. After I preach God's word, I ask the Lord to tell me whether there was something unnecessary in what I said, whether I wasted people's time, whether I sought my own honor, etc.

Thus, I've cleansed myself gradually from these evils and from boring people and preaching over their heads. Do you listen to God after you've preached a message? Do you ask him to show you whether you could have done it better?

The fact that others considered it to be a good sermon means nothing at all. What did God think of it? That is the important question. Many of you have so many people listening to you in your churches Sunday after Sunday.

Are you influencing their lives for eternity? Have you changed their sense of values so that they are no longer worldly but heavenly? This is what you must ask yourself frequently. We must be especially careful to listen to God when we have some important decision to make.

God speaks to us through many ways. He speaks to us primarily through his word. If something is clearly written in God's word, then we don't need to pray to find God's will because it has already been revealed.

God also speaks to us through our circumstances. Our Lord has the key to every door, Revelation 1 .18. And when he opens a door, no one can shut it. And when he shuts a door, no one can open it, Revelations 3 .8.

So our circumstances are very often an indication of whether God wants us to go along a particular way or not. We don't have to bang away at a door that God has not opened. We must of course pray when we see a door shut.

But if after repeated prayer a door still remains shut, it may mean that God does not want us to go through that door. We must ask God to show us if this is so or whether he wants us to continue in persistent prayer to open that door, Luke 11 .5 -9.

God also speaks to us through the advice of mature godly brothers. Such men have gone through many experiences and they can warn us of pitfalls that we are unaware of ourselves. We don't have to blindly obey them, but their godly counsel can help us.

God often speaks to us while we are fellowshipping with other believers. Thus, he teaches us our dependence on other members of the body of Christ, even for revelation on his word. God always has something important to say to us, whether we go through a trial or when we are sick.

God also warns us through the failures of others. If, for example, we hear of some servant of God who has fallen into sin, it is good to ask God what lessons we can learn from that man's failure, for we are all weak, and how we can preserve ourselves.

God can also speak to us when we hear news of evils being done somewhere or of accidents that have taken place. Jesus told the people of his time to repent when they heard of Pilate butchering some Jews and when they heard of the accident in Siloam where a tower fell and killed some people, because such things could happen to anyone.

Luke 13 1 -4. Let me add a word of warning, however, against trying to hear what God is saying by randomly opening the Bible and reading the first verse that you see. If you're eager to marry a particular girl, you may open the Bible at random to find some confirmatory verse.

And if you don't find it, the chances are that you will keep opening the Bible until you find the verse that you want. That's how you can deceive yourself. I heard a story of a man who was trying to find God's will in this way, who opened the Bible at random and read, He went away and hanged himself.

Matthew 27 -5. He opened the Bible again and found, Go and do the same. Luke 10 -37. He opened the Bible a third time and read, What you do, do quickly. John 13 -27. That cured him forever of trying to find the will of God in this way.

There may be times, however, when we are under pressure, when the Lord may encourage us through a verse that we get by opening the Bible at random. So, this method is alright if you're looking for encouragement, but not if you're looking for guidance.

I want to encourage you, dear brothers, to develop the habit of listening to God. This is the single most important habit that you can ever develop. Chapter 5. Balanced by the Body of Christ. A spiritual leader will recognize that his ministry is imbalanced.

So, he will find his balance in the ministry of other members in the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ can be compared to a hospital. When a man is sick and goes to a hospital, the hospital has various departments to help him.