Recently pastor Chen had asked me if I would financially support another pastor/preacher who's currently low on income. I immediately refused. This is not the first time it happened.
I am astounded by Rev. David Chen's ego at his version of helping others while not realizing that he's devaluing the stature of pastors in the world. Devaluing himself as God's servant is bad enough, he had to do this to other servants of God...sigh.
No doubt, Rev. Chen is not the only one, judging from what is seen in the world. But I believe whoever devalues God's calling, God's blessing and God's gift in such a perverse motive is going to face serious judgment from God, DESPITE their MOTIVE.
Pastors are God's anointed servants. They have the authority as God's representative in the community they serve. In one sense, a truly called preacher is even greater than all the presidents of the world combined, and yet lives a humble life.
Unfortunately, the world treated pastors like beggars, it treated God's servants with sympathy, just because the pastor or the preacher is poor or financially lesser than an average working man. Consequently, many give offering in a sympathetic attitude, treating offering in church as donation. If this is not corrected in us, we can never understand God's grace and have the right relationship with God.
Because one sees a pastor is so nice to one, he/she loves the pastor. Which is good. But when he/she learned that the pastor is poorer than he/she, he/she began to treat the pastor with some kind of sympathy. Now this is wrong attitude, the apostle Paul often corrected that, especially to the Corinthians, 1Corinthians Chapter 9.
Some would say...okay okay, but don't be so serious about this. This kind of study is useless.
On the contrary, this is why there are those who are jealous of Jesus, this is why prophets were persecuted, and this is why many can never have the right attitude towards God, so you see problems in so called Christian communities and families. Why? Because we all love to have sympathy on someone, but when we realize that the ones we have sympathy on are really the ones who don't require our sympathy, and in fact, expect our respect and listening ears, we began to feel jealous.
Has anyone sympathy on Elijah? Many will see their "sympathy" for God's servants threatened and will have problem with Elijah's command of fire from heaven consuming the 100 soldiers and two captains of King Ahaziah, simply because the captains treated the man of God lower than the king. (2 Ki 1:13)
A truly called servant of God is to be respected and even followed. For the one he is serving is God, creator of the whole universe, destroyer of both soul and body in hell. Of course, more importantly, one must be able to discern who truly works for God and who doesn't.
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