By: J.O. Lawal
Date: June 21, 2026
Series: From Pastor’s Desk
Number: Vol. 15, No. 08
Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord. I am delighted to welcome you to another week of the month June 2026. My prayer is that your life will be rid of everything that is preventing you from fully enjoying His blessings that have been poured out on your life. Amen.
Now among the things that often hinder the manifestation of the blessings of God in the lives of His people is not relating to the leaders appointed in the church over them according to the will of God. And what is His will, as far as relating to the leaders over us in the church is concerned? His will is summarised for us in the following Scriptures:“Now we ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.” (1 Thess 5:12-13NIV)
“Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.” (Heb 13:17NIV)
“In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel.” (1 Cor 9:14NIV)
What do we see here? First, we see that the will of God for us is to hold those He has appointed over us in the church in the highest regard. And this must show in the we talk to them and interact with them. Why? Is it because they are better than us in God’s sight? No! Rather, it is because of His work that they are doing among us.Now we are to respect them in this manner not only when they are nice to us but also when they rebuke us.
One of the reasons God established David’s throne was that he continued to show King Saul great respect, even when the man had lost his way. He did not choose when to respect him and when not to respect him. If we too want the blessings of God to be established in our lives, we must not choose when we show respect to our church leaders. Instead, we must always show them high respect, for that is the will of God for us. And if any of them is misbehaving, though we are showing him respect, God will judge the person Himself in His own way.
The second thing revealed to us about the will of God in relating to our leaders has to do with submitting to their authority. What does this mean? It means that as long as a church leader is leading you in the will of God, you have to wholeheartedly follow his instructions. Why? The reason is that God will ask him about how you are doing. What report, then, will he give about you?When Korah, Dathan, Abiram and On ganged up against Moses and Aaron, Moses told God not to accept their offerings. And God did not accept them.
Not only that, He caused the ground to swallow them and their families up alive. So, even though they too had the blessings of God on their lives, those blessings could not protect them from His judgment. And that was because of their wrong attitude towards their leaders. You can, then, see why we are told that not being submissive to our church leaders will not work for our good. (Cf. Num 16)
Then the will of God is for us to support our church leaders with our money and other material things. And this is not what we do once in a while or when we are hoping that they might offer some special prayers for us. Rather, it is what we must be devoted to doing. And none of us has any excuse for not doing it. That is because even if it is only a cup of water we can regularly give them, God will accept it on our behalf and reward us for it.
Unfortunately, even though many of God’s people have been taught these things again and again, they don’t act on them. And this is one of the reasons there is still much manifestation of poverty, failure and weakness in many assemblies of God’s people. We are the ones working against His blessings in our lives.
See, if you don’t see a church leader as worthy of your respect, obedience and support, leave his assembly and go to where you can wholeheartedly respect, obey and support the leader. Otherwise, you will be working against your own prosperity. My prayer is that the Spirit of God will lead you to repentance wherever you are missing it on this matter without delay. Amen.Have a lovely week.
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