The Most Important Thing in Christian Ministration

The spirit with which the minister carries out his or her ministry is one of the most significant aspects of pastoral ministry and all other church ministries. Every minister operates under the influence and control of a spirit. He or she performs under the direction of the Holy Spirit or wicked spirits. The spirit is to a minister what the heart is to the human body.

When a man's heart is healthy, he lives well and vis-à-vis. Similarly, a man who ministers from the Holy Spirit will excel spiritually and make a significant impact, whereas a minister who does not have a close relationship with the Spirit will have a lesser impact. The worst case scenario is a minister who does not have the Spirit but ministers through another spirit.

The sad reality is that the gullible and undiscernible, who often make up a major proportion of the church in each generation, are skeptical about the possibility of ministry under the power of another spirit in the church. The Bible, on the other hand, has documented instances in which some men of God labored under the influence of an evil spirit, and it has also cautioned that those who are not called by God can enter the community and assembly of God's people and deceive them.

The next day an evil spirit from God came forcefully on Saul. He was prophesying in his house, while David was playing the lyre, as he usually did. Saul had a spear in his hand and he hurled it, saying to himself, I will pin David to the wall. But David eluded him twice (1 Samuel 18:10-11).

King Saul could prophesy even under the influence of evil spirit. Ministration is just a performance that can be done by just anyone who so wish and so commit himself or herself to it. But the spirit through which a person ministers is the most important aspect of ministration. The spirit is what determines the effect of the ministration. 

King Saul prophesied under the influence of an evil spirit because the Spirit of the Lord had departed from him as a result of his disobedience to God’s command (1 Samuel 15), and he was at this point jealous of David because of the victory God gave him over Goliath and the praise that came with it (1 Samuel 17). 

Motive is something that every minister must consider in their ministry. People can utilize ministration as an opportunity to vent their rage or get revenge on those who have wronged them. Some people take advantage of the opportunity to demonstrate their human abilities in order to gain praise and validation from others. Some are motivated by competitiveness or jealousy, as was the case with King Saul. Any Christian ministry that is founded on ill-motives that are not aligned with God's will is done under the influence of another spirit. When a man ministers under the power of the Holy Spirit, he blesses the people, but a man who ministers by the influence of evil spirits casts evil spells on people.

The presence of this in the church is not an issue because it has been prevalent since the early church. Jesus has revealed that on the last day, persons who minister with bad motives and another spirit in pretense would be unmasked and disappointed because Christ knows them for who they truly are:

Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and, in your name, perform many miracles? Then I will tell them plainly, I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers! (Matthew 7:22-23).

The church of God as a community through church leadership, and every individual Christian have the mandate to identify another spirit other than the Holy Spirit that ministers through men in church and flew from such. Apostle John the beloved enjoined the church: 

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit. Test the spirits to see if they belong to God. Many False prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1).  

The scriptural criteria for judging a minister are centered on the heart and spirit with which the ministry is carried out, rather than the outer appearance. Do not make a mistake of prophet Samuel; God looks at the heart, not the bodily appearance (1 Samuel 16:7). A minister may appear to be as saint as an angel, innocent and harmless as a dove, highly eloquent, well-articulated in interpreting the Bible, deep and extensive in Bible knowledge, elegant, and charismatic in miracles, signs, and wonders, but still fall short of God's standards.

The integrity and quality of ministration depend only on the spirit with which a man ministers. It is not difficult to distinguish between bogus and true teachers. When someone ministers in a spirit other than the Holy Spirit, it takes little time for the Spirit of God in us to reveal the emptiness, shrewdness, and deception buried in such ministry since such ministration cannot have positive impact on our regenerated spirits. For more information on how to discern false ministers ministries, read our other articles: The True and False Concept of Christian Ministry, and The Differences between Christian Message and Sermon.