Hibernating Ministers II

I want us to look at the reasons the hurt on these ministers is so deep.

Have you ever been called a demeaning name by a crowd? Apart from the blushes and shame, what else happened? Did it not just slide off you before nightfall?

Suppose the same was said by your father? How did you feel? Have you ever forgotten it?

A person we trust, especially a person with authority over our lives controls our destiny in more ways than one.

Many of these hibernating ministers were hurt more from the person involved than the abuse undergone. A pastor who has discipled someone is listened to more than the best preacher in spiritual matters.

I have been involved in discipleship most of my ministry and will give you something that repeats itself all the time.

A young man I was discipling (who was my age mate) came with a music cassette he had bought from a friend of ours. That was the eighties, long before CDs.

After listening it I just commented in passing, ‘Now what kind of music is this’?

Can you imagine he crushed it immediately?

That is the kind of influence a spiritual mentor, discipler, pastor has over the people he leads. You are given the role of father whether you deserve it or not.

Spiritual abuse occurs when someone we trust in spiritual things abuses that trust. And it goes very deep. Many times it destroys someone’s whole life.

Psalm 55: 12 – 14 talks of such kind of abuse from a friend. Imagine when it is a father figure or someone with spiritual authority over you!

That is why I want us to pray about ministering to these bleeding souls as they have been spiritually broken by people they had trusted with their whole lives.

Can you imagine Jonathan betraying David to Saul? This is exactly what has happened to these wounded giants.

But I believe my brief now is to offer a solution since there is healing available at the cross. And I am saying this because I have also gone through such abuse, exploitation and injury, but God took me through the healing Himself. I had even attempted to run away from the place the injury happened. But God told me I have to stay there as then I will be able to know when the healing is complete.

I want us to pray for God’s strategy for the healing.

I will say something else that should excite you. The healing will raise such an army that the devil will be trampled underfoot in a very short time. Do not be surprised when the Gospel spreads throughout the world once this healing happens. No wonder he works so hard to keep them in hibernation!

A Biblical example is David’s army. Healing from their rejection and downtrodden nature produced an invincible army.

But look at another army in Judges. They were left handed. This means that these had lost the full use of their right hands through injury that they had to train their left hands to fight. Incidentally they are the only ones we hear being able to sling at a hair’s breadth without missing.

This is what I mean by asking us to pray for healing for these ministers. God can use them in an even mightier manner than initially. But only after God has accomplished their healing.

Will you join me?

I will later talk about wounded and bleeding parishioners.

(My computer is still dead and I have to borrow one to write. This is the reason I am not able to write more completely. Pray about it)

But please let us pray that God speaks clearly concerning how this healing will be managed. And be ready to flow with this move of God in our times.