Beating Ministerial Jealousy and Insecurity
This discussion is primarily intended for ministers, though I think anyone could benefit from reading it.
All ministers will face temptations in the areas of being jealous and insecure. The devil will see to that. Say that someone comes to your town and has mighty miracles of a kind you haven’t seen in your ministry (yet, at least). Will you rejoice that God moved and people were healed? Or will you think to yourself any of these thoughts: “I guess my ministry is nothing compared to his. Why should anyone listen to me?” “If God used anyone here, it should have been ME, not him.” “I wish I had that man’s anointing instead of mine.” Or say that you hear of a mighty move of God breaking out somewhere in the news. Will that encourage you, or will you get down in the dumps, thinking, “Maybe that guy will end up being the Chief Biggie of the Final Move of God before Jesus Returns, and if so, I will be really disappointed because I always wanted to be the Chief Biggie of the Final Move of God before Jesus Returns. Now I will get left in the dust as everyone runs off to follow that other guy and buy up his ministry material instead of mine! No one will pay any attention to me because I am not the Next Big Thing in ministry that Christian magazines and TV networks are promoting. Why is God using him instead of me?” Or will you go on a tailspin into despondency thinking, “The Final Move of God before Jesus Returns is off and running without me. How have I failed God? What am I doing wrong so that I was not involved with this move?”
Say that someone else moves into “your” (?) area and starts a church that teaches what you teach, but it’s backed by a ministry in another state with deeper pockets than you have. That happened to me! Was that a bad thing because now I had competition? No, it turned out to be a blessed thing because when my wife and I stopped pastoring that church to strictly go on the road, there was another church in the area where our members could go and still hear about divine healing! I will admit that this was not the first thought that came to mind when they planted their church, though! Can we just get honest about these things for a little while so that we can get to the root of some issues?
Of course, you would never want to admit that you could have any jealous or competitive thoughts (you sanctified thing, you) but just in case the devil decides to tempt you the same way that he tempts everyone else around the world, here are some things that should be helpful.
The Comparison Trap
2 Corinthians 10:12:
For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
It is NEVER wise to compare your ministry with any other ministry. You can conclude that you’re better and get into pride, or you can conclude that you’re worse and get into jealousy and insecurity. Comparison is a no-win proposition.
I realize that we live in a day where it’s popular for people to showcase their talents “against” other people’s talents on TV or at regional competitions. Even “Christian” (???) versions of such talent competitions are around. (I refused to participate in one in our area although I had enough musical talent to have a shot at “winning” it.) This fosters an unhealthy “your loss is my gain, my loss is your gain” attitude and gets people into the sinful practice of comparing God-given giftings with each other, as if one God-given gift is more valuable than another one.
Say that some nearby church hosts special meetings in your town, and the speaker flows prodigiously in the Holy Spirit in a way that you wish you did. What should you do? Assuming that you at least check out where he’s coming from, or call and find out, and that he is a genuine person of faith who isn’t preaching something really harmful, why not go yourself and encourage your church to come with you? You and I both know full well the reasons why most pastors would never do that. “They might decide that they like that other church better than mine and go there!” If you have a real pastor’s heart, you’ll tell your flock what I told mine – “If there is another church in the area that can meet your needs better than this one – go there with my blessing!”
Don’t compare yourself with any other church or ministry – that’s a guaranteed way to lose out. Find out from God what He wants YOU to do, and do it.
Comparison Is Not New
The sins of comparison and jealousy did not originate with you or this generation. Even in the gospels, the disciples indulged in it and Jesus rebuked it. At one point, the disciples wanted Jesus to stop someone from casting out demons in His name just because that person didn’t run with their particular group:
Mark 9:38-40:
And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name, and he followeth not us: and we forbad him, because he followeth not us.
But Jesus said, Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.
For he that is not against us is on our part.
So don’t get upset if someone else whom you don’t know starts having miracles in your town. You should be happy whenever any genuine miracles of God are happening, regardless of whether you or your acquaintances have any part in the action!
Then we see that Peter and John wanted to get reserved seating beside Jesus in heaven and be considered the greatest disciples. They even got their mother involved! Any time “-est” words start getting involved, comparison is involved and you need to stop it. Jesus’ answer to you would be that you need to learn to serve instead of seeking admiration:
Matthew 20:25-28:
But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.
But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister;
And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:
Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.
In God’s kingdom, the way up is down. Focus on serving others.
“What About This Other Minister?”
Jesus’ answer to this question is “What’s it to you?” I can say that confidently because He is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). Jesus told Peter how he was going to die and Peter wanted to find out what Jesus wanted John to do, which wasn’t his business:
John 21:18-23:
Verily, verily, I [Jesus] say unto thee [Peter], When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.
This spake he, signifying by what death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me.
Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?
Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?
Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.
Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
It is none of your business what other people’s callings are. Your business is to pursue your calling. Don’t be distracted by what other people are doing – it isn’t your business.
Stay in Your Lane
If you run a race, you are disqualified if you don’t stay in your lane. When “running your race” in the ministry, you have to stay in your lane. Don’t try to get into someone else’s lane. Also, it can hinder your race if you peek into other lanes to see what everyone else is doing. I read a testimony from a minister who used to literally run races. He lost one by 1/100th of a second because he looked ever so briefly at what someone in another lane was doing.
God Is Not Hosting a Competition
God does not run a reality TV production company where the least popular person gets axed every episode. He did not give multiple people the same gift and then say, “You all go out and do what you do, and whoever does it best, I’ll promote him to something even bigger and better.” Some people seem to think that God works this way, even to the point of thinking, “Well, I’ll just pray in the Holy Spirit and read the Word more than anyone else around, so when the time comes that God is looking for someone to be the Chief Biggie of the Final Move of God before Jesus Comes Back, He will pick me over the other competing candidates who don’t read and pray as much.” But God called you from your mother’s womb, before you had ever had a chance to do anything spiritual. He pre-ordained good works for you to walk in (Ephesians 2:10). The secret of success is to find out what those works are and walk in them.
God did not give multiple people callings so that they could compete with one another for attendance, publicity, real estate or anything else. Is your left toe in competition with your right ear? No, your left ear isn’t even in competition with your right ear even though they have similar functions. You need them both! No part of the Body of Christ be in competition with any other part. We are all to complement one another as different parts of one Body.
The Need to Be Yourself
“Another church is scooping up my youth because their worship involves light shows and fog machines that produce a fake glory cloud every service. I’d better go invest in some computerized pulse-with-the-music lights and fog machines myself if I want any young people!”
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that you need to find out what the church down the road is going to have sudden growth and then imitate it at your church. Why does your town need two of the same thing? It is better to be yourself and let the other pastor be himself, regardless of what you might think of the methods he employs to bring people in. If the Lord isn’t in something, it will be built in vain anyway (Psalm 127:1), but you don’t want to find yourself “fighting against God” (Acts 5:39).
You are the best-qualified person in the world to be yourself, but you are completely unqualified to be anyone else. So be yourself. God wants to use YOU, complete with YOUR personality. (Note: Your FLESH is not your real personality!) You might present things in a different way from someone else. This means that you might teach something in a way that someone will “get” who would not “get” it if it were presented by that other person. The opposite could also be the case. We all have certain styles of preaching that we like better than others. If there are those who don’t like my approach, thank God that there are others writing completely different books with different approaches that will also point people to healing.
It is so tempting to compare your anointing to another healing minister’s anointing, but you need to remember this: You are anointed to do whatever God has called you to do, and you are not anointed to do things He has not called you to do. Another person has the anointing to do what HE is called to do. I’ll say it again – comparison is always a dead end. Flow in YOUR anointing and let God prosper what you’re doing as you obey Him.
What Was That Minister’s Secret?
If I wanted to sell a lot of books quickly, I could give them titles like, “Kathryn Kuhlman’s Secret Way for You to Have a Stronger Anointing” or “Your Daily Planner with Insight from Smith Wigglesworth on How You Can Be the Next Smith Wigglesworth.” People want to follow a formula to trace the footsteps of some great preacher. But the truth is that whoever your favorite preacher of old is, his main secret was being called by God to do what he did! Trying to mimic what he did will NOT result in mimicking his results. That’s another example of getting sidetracked by what someone else did rather than just following Jesus for yourself, letting Him make you what He wants you to be.
That New Church in Your Area
As a pastor, you might be tempted to have panic attacks when some “cool” new church is announced in your community. Rather than rejoicing that there are more laborers for the harvest in town, where both churches can reach people whom the other church would not reach, your first fear is that some of your people will run off to check out the Novel New Thing in Town. This is a distinct possibility, and those who run off just might be the same ones who ran to your church from other churches when you first opened and you were the Novel New Thing in Town.
So you can secretly hope that some kind of dirt under the surface will bring that church down so that you don’t have competition anymore (bad), or you can reach out to that new pastor and offer to pray together with him, not against him (good).
If another church in your town gets planted, Satan may try to convince you that God had to send someone else to your town to really “get the job done” because you have obviously not gotten the job done because you are a dud. Ignore the devil. Let GOD tell you where you are supposed to be. If God has not called you elsewhere, He has not “fired” you from your current position for underperformance!
I’ve known “territorial” pastors who were convinced that their town was, well, “their” town, as if they had an exclusive spiritual title deed to the place. Thus, in their thinking, anyone else who showed up was a rebel to the plan of God. Don’t get it backward – your church is a gift to your city. God didn’t make your city a gift to your church. Besides, if everyone suddenly got saved, it’s doubtful that ALL the churches could take care of them all, and you’d have to pray for MORE laborers!
But getting jealous and territorial won’t hurt the other church – it will hurt YOURS because of your rotten un-Christian attitude.
What About That Annoying Preacher in the Area with the Terrible Attitude?
Paul faced situations where other preachers were insincere and were making trouble for him. Yet his attitude was as follows:
Philippians 1:15-18:
Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will:
The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds:
But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel.
What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
Everyone will get rewarded for his works – good works will get a reward and “wood, hay and stubble” works won’t. Everything is fair at the end. On the earth, things are not always fair, but don’t let that get to you.
If someone is preaching heresy, you can warn people away from him by name as Paul did. But don’t go doing that with brothers in Christ who don’t suit your fancy with their conduct. Way too much mudslinging goes on between Christians. If you have a problem with someone’s doctrine, that’s OK, but keep any objections in the doctrinal realm – don’t make them personal and start calling an actual brother in Christ a heretic or a false teacher and try to shame him by name.
And one more thing – keep in mind that someone else might consider YOU to be that annoying preacher with the terrible attitude. How would you like that person to treat YOU and speak about YOU?
Full-Time Jealousy
“Brother, are you in FULL-TIME ministry?” I still don’t like that question. You can be full-time devoted to Jesus while being bi-vocational. There are ministers’ lines at some conferences that you can’t even get into if you’re bi-vocational. I understand that they’re trying to keep the pretenders out, but when they say, “This is only for people whose sole income source is the ministry,” they exclude serious ministers who DO belong in that line even though they work another job. Many small-town churches have always had pastors who had to work another job on the side.
“Oh, if only I were FULL–TIME in the ministry! THEN I would have all day to hang out with God and study the Word, and I would be so much mightier than I am now.” Ever think that? You might, until you talk to someone who IS in ministry full-time, who is probably saying, “If only I didn’t have to spend all my time TRAVELING between meetings! If only I could just sit and have all day to hang out with God and study the Word rather than always be trying to book additional meetings during flight layovers or during whatever little spare time I get when I’m not hauling luggage in and out of hotel rooms.” The bi-vocational person may think, “I am tired of having to devote this time to ‘non-spiritual’ activity when I really want to do ministry” while the full-time person may think, “I wish I had a nice side business that could provide a lot of extra money like my bi-vocational friend has.” The devil would love for you to believe that the grass is greener somewhere else. However, true contentment comes when you are comfortable with yourself and where God has you now. Quit comparing your circumstances to someone else’s. Don’t let what other people say define you – it’s only what GOD says that matters.
A Scene from Heaven
Shock gripped heaven when a woman who was faithful to clean toilets and run the church nursery was rewarded with the same degree of reward that went to the man who was the Chief Biggie of a Great Famous Historical Move of God. You see, God rewards you based on your faithfulness to do what He called you to do. Man rewards you for numbers, influence, prosperity, and so on. Man DOES look at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart:
1 Samuel 16:7:
But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.
Man was still looking at the outward appearance in New Testament times, so Jesus warned:
John 7:24:
Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
The Big Lie About Rewards in Heaven
The big lie about rewards in heaven is that they will go to the same ministers who seem to be reaping the big rewards in this life. Yet Jesus said the OPPOSITE will be true in many cases:
Mark 10:31:
But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.
He didn’t say that EVERYONE who seemed to succeed down here would be last, as it is possible to be a godly success here. But you can’t use apparent success in this life to gauge who is great in heaven. Only God knows everyone’s hearts.
It would be UNFAIR for God to reward someone else more because he did more signs, wonders and miracles by the gifts of the Spirit than someone else who was not called to that ministry. Not everyone flows in gifts of healings, working of miracles and special faith. Anyone can use his authority in Christ, but that is not the same as flowing in special manifestations of the Holy Spirit. God can’t punish you by rewarding you less just because you didn’t flow in gifts in which the Holy Spirit did not decide to use you!
I think many of us have been guilty of assuming that we need to be more prominent here so that we can have a greater heavenly reward, but the only yardstick will be obedience. This is apparent from Jesus’ story in Matthew about two people who were given five talents and two talents (a talent being a unit of money, not an ability). We’ll leave the one-talent-burier out of the picture as he is irrelevant to the point I want to make:
Matthew 25:20-23:
And so he that had received five talents came and brought other five talents, saying, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me five talents: behold, I have gained beside them five talents more.
His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
He also that had received two talents came and said, Lord, thou deliveredst unto me two talents: behold, I have gained two other talents beside them.
His lord said unto him, Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.
Note that both were commended in exactly the same way and got exactly the same reward, even though one ended up with 10 units of money on the earth and the other ended up with only 4. So you see that God rewards you based on with what you do with what He gave you, not based on what He gave someone else. People in heaven are not ranked by what they had on the earth. If you’ve been given more, more is required of you:
Luke 12:48:
But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.
Security Instead of Insecurity
If you want to be secure instead of insecure, learn to quit comparing yourself to others and follow Jesus into whatever He wants YOU to do. Be secure knowing that if you fully follow Jesus, you will get the same reward as anyone else who fully follows Jesus, regardless of what giftings you have, which could only have been received from God anyway.
Love Instead of Jealousy
Jealousy is clearly defined as a work of the FLESH (“envyings” at the beginning of verse 21):
Galatians 5:19-21:
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
In Christ, you are not a debtor to the flesh, to live after the flesh (Romans 8:12). You who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts (Galatians 5:24). You have victory over jealousy. Remember that you have the God-kind of love in you, and God’s love is not jealous (1 Corinthians 13:4). You may have to remind yourself of that often, as your flesh may rise up with jealousy when you see someone flowing in a way that you wish you were flowing right now, but you can beat Satan’s jealousy trap by walking in the Spirit so that you do not fulfill the lusts of the flesh such as jealousy (Galatians 5:16).