Entitlement & Ministry
 

So you are called to preach?

To evangelize nations? To pastor? To plant churches?

That's wonderful, but please remember that a calling does not entitle you to a blessed thing. This concept of "deserving" material things because you're a minister is muey loco. To deserve means to "have a claim for."

I hear people throw the word "deserve" around a lot nowadays. "She didn't deserve that," or "He deserved better than that."

How many times in life do we really get what we have a claim for?

I think we claim things that God never meant for us to have sometimes. And when we don't get them we feel cheated.

Godliness with contentment is great gain.

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

If we all got what we deserved, it would most likely be a hard life and a long eternity in hell.

..just saying...

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

We need from God air, water, food, clothing, and some type of shelter. Anything other than these are blessings that we don't deserve. What we do deserve is hell.

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

Are you preaching to yourself now?

Seems you are the one that feels cheated.

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

:thumbsup

Sometimes bitterness shows itself. I have to wonder if this flurry of posts today on various threads all on the same subject by this person and one other are not some of that coming out.

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

Maybe, just maybe Charnock, you should consider what you posted on the other thread. Where was your contentment?

Your quote.... "Yes, I do. The difference is I didn't just "live around" poverty, I was the one poverty-stricken. My family suffered for the work of God right here in America. We gave everything, including our health."

BT

Another wonderful attempt at mindreading from a person quite adept at personal destruction.

Great job.

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

Thank you. I am willing to let the readers of those persons posts come to their own conclusions as to whether my speculation is correct or not. I am only speaking from my life experience that usually people that unclassy and rude are bitter. I could be wrong. According to my wife I have been wrong before.

I take it you think it is just fine that these two persons are attacking by name a missionary this way? If everything they said was true they would still be wrong for doing what they did in the way they did it.

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

I think it has to do with American culture. It's a culture of entitlement. But it is not what Jesus was all about. He denied himself and became poor for our sakes. He served others instead of being served. Jesus was entitled and deserved to be treated like a king but instead was ridiculed, accused of being crazy, possessed of a devil, spit on, and brutally killed. And we are to follow in his steps.

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

Dear mizpeh,

Please don't blame anything on the Americans. It will start a whole new argument.

Thanks,
bratti

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

i remember once at a preachers conference, brother hayne preached Entitlment or passion.

He sated whats your drive that is fueling your desire to serve God.

He pointed out that people over a long period of time develop a entitlment.

He used the like figure of a family comming to church for many year, always setting in the same seat. but one day they come in and some one is sitting in it.

entitlement says he buddy, im a regular church tither, im a youth minister, and i give half a day on saturday to do lawn work around the church, and by the way i want to let you know your in my seat.

were people with passion who have love for God doesnt know its your seat, their really not concerned about the seating arrangments, they are they for God.

So again we always need to look at motives.

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

While I believe things are better then they were in the 80's when we left the UPC, there still seems to be pockets of Pentecost in the country where ministers are treated like the royalty they believe they deserve. I keep going back to the church services I have seen on podcasts from East Texas, LA, and OK where all the ministers sit on the platform in their thousand dollar suits nodding in approval at every "strong holiness point!" that the preacher speaking makes.

Our own pastor during the 80's continually stuck to the "double portion" theory and took a salary exactly twice what the average annual American salary was at the time despite the fact that the church could not afford it.

We need to get our focus off of earthly systems and positions.

I have a friend named Scott that was a pastor of a Baptist church in TN. All the politics, money, and power grabs troubled him greatly. After several years he got fed up and freed himself of man's system. He resigned and he moved to OH and started a house church that became a network. He hasn't been in a traditional church in years. But he's touched hundreds of families deeply. No position, no salary, works for a living and starts house churches. Great man who found freedom in Christ.

Let man have the system, God's Kingdom is greater.

Re: Entitlement & Ministry
 

So are you saying if someone feels they are called that automatically get an entitlement attitude?