“A son honors his father, and a slave his master. If I am a father, where is the honor due me? If I am a master, where is the respect due me?”, Malachi 1:6-14. God demands an honor towards Him. God demands an honor towards leaders, pastors and mentors, because they are not impostors. God has made them distinct from others, honored them with special duties and responsibilities for taking care of His people. These people pay a high price and they will answer to God for the people entrusted to them: “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you”, Hebrews 13:17. If we call someone a leader, a pastor or a father, then we should honor him. The cornerstone of all our activities and relationships should be our honorable behavior. It is necessary to do this for our own good.
Pastors, leaders and mentors – are precious people, because they teach us the lessons learned from their own experience, warn us of the suffering that we may go through in the same circumstances, save us from mistakes and their consequences. It is obvious that such people should be valued, revered and listened to with our mouth opened in awe. Only stupid people learn from their own mistakes. It is better to learn from other people’s mistakes and older peoples’ teachings. It is inefficient and takes too long to learn from our own mistakes. You may need 20 years of privations to get the life lessons that the pastor could share with you in 5 minutes. Pastors, leaders and mentors stop their progress in order to pull us to their level. They inhibit their excellence to push and to move us to success. They are worthy of a double honor as so jealous of our happiness and do everything possible to ensure that we have achieved it. Paul taught Timothy: “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching.”
1 Timothy 5:17.
There is one pastor, one leader, one mentor and a lot of us. Therefore, if we care about our fate, we should do everything possible to build a relationship with them. We must reach out to the leaders, yearn to communicate with them, ask questions and accept their corrections. Do not wait until a leader starts to look and run for you in order to share his knowledge, experience and wisdom. We need him more than he needs us. He has already become someone, he has passed through something that we have not passed through yet and we need his advice on how to keep up and carry on. One of the ways to honor a mentor is to reach for him and learn from him. In this way we show that his opinion is valuable and important to us, and carries weight. A pastor, a leader or a mentor, is someone who gives us the correct life path, speeds up our life’s progress and opens up new doors. We can avoid a lot of sorrows and troubles by simply listening to the advice and guidance of our fathers. “Then you will have success if you are careful to observe the decrees and laws that the Lord gave Moses for Israel. Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged”, 1 Chronicles 22:13. A mentor, a leader or a pastor is a person who takes care of others, edifies, helps, guides and positively influences our lives. This is a person who can help you to make a right decision, a right choice and who comes to the rescue when you go through difficulties and need advice or prayer support. Mentors, leaders and pastors help us to make life plans, create goals and become financially competent. Spiritual fathers, just like parents, play the role of mentors to their children.
We should have a mentor in our life, and should be a mentor to someone too. Sometimes it will be demanded of us to listen to someone’s pain, to give good advice or to help someone get out of a difficult situation, warn someone of danger and sometimes simply to tell someone the truth. A leader plays the role of a comforter. We understand that the main comforter is the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit also works through people. We all should be mentors! We must share everything that we receive from our pastors and leaders with others. Advise people, teach them, support, inspire, help them, share their joy and sorrow or just be there for them. You should always be available and up to date with what is happening in the life of the person under your care. I believe you do not want to stop the flow of God’s love, mercy and grace. After all, whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.
Another life aspect of a mentor, a leader or a pastor is his standing above others. You cannot treat him familiarly, contemptuously or indifferently. Through our attitudes, behavior and even thoughts of a pastor we show our attitude to the One who placed him there. The more we understand this, the more blessings we can get. The law of vertical power says that a blessing flows down from the head. There are three things that come to our lives through mentors, leaders and pastors: support, protection and life progress. In many cases our fate depends on the mentors whom God has placed over us and whose advice we follow. And it does not matter whether a person is a believer or not. If he is a leader, you should listen to him and honor him.
Please note that leaders are not our ordinary friends. We should not take them as ordinary friends. Jesus told the Samaritan woman by the well that if she could see in a person the gift of God, she could get much more blessings than from just a friend. If you see a mentor as a person whom God uses, you can be benefit from the gift that God has placed in him. Friends do not want to burden us, they make us feel comfortable. But a mentor may disappoint or expose us in order to make us better.
A mentor is like a coach who puts pressure on us, because he sees our potential and wants to develop it. A mentor is concerned about our future, while a friend feels comfortable with our present. A mentor sets us challenges that lead us to excellent results, and help to open and increase our gifts and talents. Friends are not interested in our success, they only care about feeling good in our presence. They are more like fans; they can boo or applaud. A mentor is not a fan, he is a coach, who makes us work and overcome pain, in order to have growing success and systematic wins.
A mentor is not one who just advises us, but the one to whose advice we listen. A person cannot be our mentor, pastor or leader if we do not view him as an authority, and we subsequently ignore his instructions. Ask yourself, do you really have a mentor? Or maybe you leading by independence, arrogance and disobedience are going quietly down the path of destruction?
A mentor is not just one whom we admire, he is one whom we imitate. This is the person whom we obey. “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God”, Romans 13:1. We should be obedient, compliant and obey all who are above us.
Let us enrich our lives with an honorable attitude and deep respect for those mentors, pastors and fathers, whom the Lord has appointed over our lives. “Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for 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 Thessalonians 5:12,13 (Modern Translation).
For a deeper studying of this topic the following literature is recommended:
“You and Your Pastor: Correct Perception of God’s Gifts,” Sunday Adelaja;
“Blessed Leadership,” Roman Trokhin;
“The Blessing of the Anointed,” Anton Litvin.
With deep respect, love and care for you,
Senior Pastor of the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations
Sunday Adelaja
www.godembassy.com guest@godembassy.org
P.S. Prayer in solitude:
1) To be zealousof of the ability to love and honor people as the Lord does.
2) For qualitative and timely accomplishment of all construction and finishing works of the Ukrainian Cultural and Spiritual Center.
3) For a new level of influence of Pastor Sunday around the world.
Translated by Yevheniya Pustova
Edited by Kizito Leacock
