12/12/17 SHEPHERD AND WARRIOR CHIEF

12/12/17 SHEPHERD AND WARRIOR CHIEF

God provides the pastor to SHEPHERD the local body.

God expects the believers to follow His leadership through qualified men.

The church is also the army of God, waging spiritual warfare, and the pastor is God's officer in charge of training, equipping, assigning, deploying and leading the troops in victory.

Sadly, some folks treat church as a distasteful obligation, which they do at their convenience, or they see their church activity as if it is a game (like Risk or Lazer Tag), which they play for amusement or as "weekend warriors" at best.

God does not provide pastoral leadership to entertain you, but rather to train, organize and lead you and your family into an unrelenting campaign against the powers of darkness. When you just play church, you aid and abet the enemy.

The following passage not only reveals God's charge to pastors, but it also indicates the importance of being a true follower of Christ by being a submissive soldier of the cross in the local church.

2 Timothy 2:1-4
1 Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2 And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.
3 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
4 No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.