Is it because you feel like your Pastor is "the man"?
Do you find it a big letdown when he is absent and others step up to speak?
Does your Pastor spend enough time pointing you to Christ, or is he instead trying to get attention for himself?
I ask these questions because when a Church becomes too much about the Pastor and not enough about the Lord Jesus Christ, it can quickly devolve into a "cult of personality."
I'm afraid there are a lot of these cults of personality around today.
Being part of a Church is not supposed be Pastor-centric, rather, the Church should be focused on her real Leader, Jesus Christ, and one of the main reasons we're missing this point is because we are honoring our Pastors and leadership above Christ and His Word.
Sure, we still give Christ lip-service, but our hearts are far from Him.
The reason for this is because many of us do not have a tangible relationship with our Savior, who we can't see, and therefore we build the relationship that was intended for God with the person we believe to be His surrogate, the Pastor, the one we can see.
But this is idolatry, in the same sense that Israel built the golden calf to worship in the desert, when we put the Pastor in place of Christ, we have made him into our own personal golden calf.
So, our cults of personality are replacing Christ with our Pastors because we are not hearing from Christ ourselves. We are not following the Truth. We are not acting as His sheep, for if we were, we would not hear another shepherd, even one who is said to come in His name.
Jesus is our true Shepherd. A good Pastor knows this and should seek to send you to your true Shepherd, Jesus Christ.
But why is it that are we not hearing from God and have filled that void with overmuch honoring of our Pastors?
There's a one-word answer to this question:
Disobedience.
Jesus said, "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments."
But we, as a Church body are currently in a constant state of disobedience, and being so, we can't hear from God. We have, as the prodigal son, effectively left the estate of God to do our own thing and thereby we don't even hear His voice.
But, you say, how do we disobey?
Your false Sunday Sabbath, your Lent and Easter paganism, your Advent and Christmas paganism, your Halloween and Valentines paganism, and this paganism only serves to support and propogate many other sins such as the rampant divorce and remarriage in the Church, the adultery, lust, porn, homosexuality, the greed (prosperity gospel), the covetousness, the thefts, the pride and haughtiness, and so much more.
The pagan traditions of the Church have usurped the word of God and when this happens the people involved can't really know God. They know a false god, true, but NOT the true and living God.
And many of our Pastors who are running their cults of personality know these things, they know about these false days of worship, about our corporate sins, and they don't tell us. They keep us in ignorance because they're afraid to lose congregants.
So we remain ignorant. But it's not just our Pastors' faults. We're in this situation primarily because we are too lazy to eat and partake of the Word of God ourselves and not knowing God's Word we can't really know Him and can't know that these traditions of man are actually against His Word.
Then, when someone comes by who is not your Pastor and tries to warn you, your heart can't receive it because what you're hearing, though in line with God's Word, contradicts your Pastor. But because you're so caught up in your Pastor's teachings, rather than Christ's, you don't even know the Truth when it's sent your way. You're deceived. You're trapped in your Pastor's double bind.
We must, therefore, as a people, begin to to seek our own relationship with the Father through His Son Jesus Christ by partaking of His Word and seeking Him out in prayer.
This may sound crazy, but most of you would do so much better for your everlasting souls if you would only leave your current Church and pick up the habit of trying to get to know the Lord for yourself, one-on-one. How? By praying and reading your Bible (three chapters a day takes a year) everyday so you can know Him for yourself.
God is a very jealous God. He doesn't want any man, spirit, animal, celestial body, etc. to be between you and Him. The purpose of your spiritual leaders is simply to lead you to a closer walk to Him, but I tell you a serious truth, most of them are failing miserably at this. They are putting themselves between you and God by not sharing with you the WHOLE TRUTH.
This is why so many of you don't truly know God right now. You know your Pastor, you know what he says, but believe me when I say that for most of you your Pastor isn't telling you everything and in many ways can be hindering you from your walk with God.
Even if you have a perfect Pastor, who shares with you all his heart and all the counsel of God, he still isn't God Almighty with whom your relationship is really supposed to be cemented.
You must know God on a personal, one-on-one level.
It's time for many of you to drop out of your cults-of-personality and join in relationship with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, the one true and living God. Don't be afraid. God will still get you in fellowship with others. Trust Him and Him alone and He will lead you to another group/family of Believers. I warn you in advance that where God leads you next may not be anything like what you're used to (that's because what you've been made used to is just PLAIN WRONG!), but this new place will be one of peace and joy.
Find a place to worship where the Pastor is constantly pointing you to Jesus Christ and your personal relationship with Him, a pastor who is not seeking glory for himself or to make more followers for himself, but is seeking to point everyone in the direction of Christ, not toward himself.
Don't be afraid to stand alone on God a while. In actuality, this is the safest place to be.
Most Church-goers will ride you for not attending Church. To the contrary, you should first be scolded for skipping prayer and BIble reading so that you can personally know God. If you don't do at least that, it doesn't matter much if you go fill a pew each week. You're just an empty vessel at the point, and if you're Pastor is filling you with half-truths and lies, that's all you'll have inside. Instead, get the truth of God's Word down in you so that you can be a fount of truth to all around you.
So take this opportunity to meet and know God. He's so worth it. Let Him show you who He REALLY is. You will not be disappointed. You shall be more than pleasantly surprised. He's so much more than the this current apostate Church has made Him out to be. Give Him that chance to show you.
