A healthy walk with the Lord cannot be developed on a one-day-a-week meal; it must be nurtured every hour of every day. This is why the Bible tells us we must always pray and not faint (see Luke 18:1-8). Praying allows us to stay in communication with God throughout the day and builds our faith to believe that He hears the cries of His people.
How does this tie into our relationship with leadership? Just as our heavenly Father requires us to be in constant communion with Him, He wants us to go as often as we can to eat from the table of the “messenger” He has sent to stand in His stead on the earth. It is all part of the process.
Spiritual leaders stand in the stead of the Father. If you do not have a relationship with your spiritual leaders, God will not stop until He establishes that relationship. The Father is concerned about every individual sitting in the pews, but His primary goal is relationships–with Him and with those who represent Him in leadership. He is a God who moves through divine order.
That is also why He didn’t send an angel or another created being to fulfill His plan of redemption. He sent His very own Son. In doing so, God was helping humanity to understand that deliverance must come through the relationship of family. Deliverance comes through the bloodline. Deliverance comes through God’s being our heavenly Father–and our being children of the Royal Family.
Leadership is supposed to be set up in our hearts as well as in our churches. This is His order. And when the body of Christ receives this revelation, our spiritual metabolism will kick in and cause us to shed the excess flesh that has hindered our growth and development as a family in Christ.
At this point, you may be considering the conditions in your own church. You might be thinking: But you don’t know what I’ve been through. You don’t know about the Jezebel who is trying to take over our church. You don’t know how many times I have been humiliated and embarrassed by people in leadership positions.
I can respond to your objections by saying, “I can identify!” I have experienced the same types of things. What I didn’t realize at the time is that God has a remedy for every condition I was experiencing.
I had to come to grips with this important fact: If God didn’t tell me to leave my church, then I couldn’t go anywhere. And if God is not telling you to leave your church, then you might as well buckle your seatbelt because He is preparing you for your next level. Believe me when I tell you, He is about to birth something great in you–and you cannot give birth while running.
You may think that it is time to switch ministries, but it may just be time for you to switch your “spiritual seat” and begin to see through the revelatory eyes of the Spirit. That’s what I did…and it changed my life. So pull your chair up to your father’s table, and dig in!
Juanita Bynum is a speaker, writer and TV host.
