A Pastor's Kingdom

Did you ever wonder about the Kingdom of God as it relates to your pastor? I have. Maybe I'm just a student of pastors and preachers and those sort of folk. To me, they have always been up on a pedestal. They represented some sort of a conundrum where I would look at their life and then look at my own --- to be struck by the contrasts that I believed were there. But the past few years have taught me something about pastors though. They're human, it seems. Fallible, sinful, fallen and in need of a Savior --- very much like the rest of us.

Matthew 6:10 says, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. "

Aldous Huxley, often a critic of orthodox and evangelical Christianity, has been quoted as saying: "My kingdom go' is the necessary correlary to Thy kingdom come." Certainly Christ's Kingdom can never be realized in my life until my own selfish kingdom is deposed. It is when I resign, when I am no longer king of my domain that Jesus Christ will become king of my life.

Now I see that even the greatest Christian preacher or pastor cannot follow any other route to spiritual victory and daily blessing than that which is prescribed so plainly in the Word of God --- for everyone else. It is one thing for a minister to choose a powerful text, expound it and preach from it. But it is quite something else for the minister to honestly and genuinely live the meaning of the Word from day to day. A minister is a man, and often he has a proud little kingdom of his own, a kingdom of position and often of pride and sometimes with power.

Pastors must wrestle with the spiritual implications of the crucified life just like everyone else, and to be examined men of God and spiritual examples to the flock of God. They must die daily to the allure of their own little kingdoms of position and prestige. So while I see myself as a man who has been called by God to minister to others, I see even more that I am a sinner in desperate need of a Savior. And I conclude that this is a good thing --- to realize the sinfulness and fallen nature of one's own self. Perhaps that is the proof of God's calling in me.

"Lord, I quit, I resign, I'm no longer 'king of my domain. I die this morning to my own little kingdom of position and prestige. Rule in my life today. Amen."