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What are some of the most subtle pitfalls
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and attacks from the devil
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that you can warn others about?
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You know, Paul said we shouldn't
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be ignorant of the schemes of the devil.
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Jesse: It seems to me there's a summary
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that Satan is continually working on.
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Now, the means he will go about;
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the schemes he will go about
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to bring us to this place are innumerable.
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But it seems to me it keeps
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getting to one point, and that is this:
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to get your eyes off of Jesus Christ
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and onto yourself.
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And so there are many different ways
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he goes about this,
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whether it's through
different relationships,
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whether it's spiritual pride,
whether it's in sin, temptations,
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but inevitably, as I talk with people
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or look at my own life,
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we come to find out
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there's been a shift
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and I'm no longer looking to abiding
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in Jesus Christ.
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And if he can get you to stop
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abiding in Jesus Christ,
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and get your eyes off of Him
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and onto yourself,
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then what John 15 says is true -
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without Him you can do nothing.
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It will just unravel very quickly.
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So the subtlety of Satan
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in so many different ways
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to just slowly get your eyes
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off of Jesus Christ.
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I confess last year in the conference,
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he did it with me in the area of ministry,
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where I was finding identity in ministry
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rather than the identity of a
resurrected Savior in Jesus Christ.
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And things began to unravel.
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And as I would look at my life,
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I would say what's wrong?
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I'm reading. I'm studying. I'm preaching.
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I'm evangelizing. I'm praying.
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What's going on here?
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Well, what had subtly happened is
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is I no longer found my identity
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as a person under Jesus Christ
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or in Christ.
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It was: I'm a pastor.
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So it's very subtle, but usually,
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you'll find that, oh, I've
taken my eyes off of Christ.
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Question: As you look back,
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how did that subtly happen to you?
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Jesse: Well, I began to see that I was
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asking of pastoral ministry
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what it could never give me.
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I was asking it to be
my functional savior.
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And so you begin to put demands on things.
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And you can do this with your marriage.
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You can do it with friends, your job,
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your workplace.
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The moment you ask something to be
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what only Christ can be for you,
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then you put demands upon that thing.
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And it will eventually begin to expose
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and show, hey, you've done
something wrong here.
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And so, I was asking of
ministry to be my joy.
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I was asking of ministry
to be my identity.
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And I was so looking for it in ministry,
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that I was willing to begin to neglect
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other areas of my life
that God's called me to,
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namely, my marriage, my children.
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Because I'm so wanting to find joy
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and identity in ministry,
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not in Jesus Christ.
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Paul Washer - this has been 14 years ago.
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Probably the first time I
met him or second time.
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He looked me in the eye
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and he said, "Jesse, the will of
God for your life is perfect."
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I said, "What do you mean by that?"
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He said, "God will never ask you
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to forsake one area of stewardship
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to fulfill another."
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And you apply that to
where I was at last year.
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I don't have to forsake my wife
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to fulfill my call in ministry.
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There are always going to be strains.
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There's always a constant reforming -
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semper reformanda -
we're always reforming.
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We're always looking and examining.
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But you never have to forsake the one
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to fulfill the other.
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And that's a sign that we're off.
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Question: And I guess this kind of deals
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with the one question.
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Have you ever struggled
with being burned out
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as a pastor? If so, why?
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And what helped you to
get out of that season?
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And what did you learn?
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Jesse: In 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul says,
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we ask you, brothers, to respect those
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who toil, who labor among you.
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And he asks them to respect them
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because of the work that they do.
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And so I take from that
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that the role of the pastor
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is going to be one that is a toiling
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and an exhausting role.
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And that's different though
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than being burned out.
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So when we're fulfilling
our role pastorally,
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we should be exhausted.
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And that's not wrong.
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The difference is being burned out.
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And what I came to see is
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I was beginning to be burned out
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because I was relying on my own strength,
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my own power,
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and again, I was looking to ministry
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to be my functional savior.
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And it's a very subtle change.
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It happens gradually over time.
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You know, one of the evidences
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you can see in this is
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you'll fill your schedule
with so much busyness,
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that one of the things that
will begin to slip away
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is prayer.
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And prayer always reveals pride.
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In other words, the more I'm praying,
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probably the less proud I am
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and the less I'm praying,
the more proud I am.
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So, your prayer life is
revealing your pride life.
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Your dependency upon Jesus is seen
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in your prayer life.
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And so as I began to see
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prayer begin to take a back seat,
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and as I began to look to ministry
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what it could never be
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and ask of ministry to be
what it never should be,
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which is my functional savior.
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And I began to be
willing to give up things
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to get from ministry
what I was looking for
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which can only be found in Christ.
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And so, pastoral ministry
in the true sense
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has always been energizing
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and exciting for me.
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But when you see yourself beginning
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to be burned out,
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then you are looking to ministry
for what it shouldn't be,
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you're relying upon your own strength
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instead of the power of the Holy Spirit.
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Or, you've given ministry the priority
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it should not have in your life.
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Meaning, you're willing to
neglect other things,
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like your wife and your children.
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And when you do any of those things,
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you're going to burn out.
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Because now you're in it alone.
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And praise God that He
brings you to that place.
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Our church was very gracious with me.
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My co-pastor who
pastors me and I pastor him
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came to me and said,
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brother, you just need to take some time.
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And so I stepped away.
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I went and got with the Lord.
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Question: How long?
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Jesse: It ended up being three months.
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That was the best and the
hardest time of my life.
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Because I woke up every morning, James,
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with nothing to put before the Lord
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for His approval -
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in the sense of ministry.
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Like, look at the sermon I preached.
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Look at these people.
Look at the counseling.
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Look at the souls.
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I had nothing.
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I woke up in desperate need
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of a resurrected Savior every day,
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and found my identity and acceptance
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before God in Christ alone.
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And it was healing.
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I repented to my wife.
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Repented to my kids.
Repented to the church.
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And God has graciously
restored me in that.
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And the church was so
gracious and kind with me.
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And I think one of the great challenges
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with pastoral ministry
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is that when you begin to give it
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a wrong priority - meaning,
you neglect things
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in your life that you shouldn't -
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and I'm not accusing anyone
in our church of this -
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but it's almost accepted,
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because you're doing kingdom work.
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Where if someone was giving up their wife
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for the stock market,
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we would say, oh, look
how impure this man is.
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Look how ill-motive and
wrongly prioritized he is.
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But a man can do it in ministry
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and people will almost applaud him.
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And brother, it's wrong.
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It's wrong.
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So, yeah, by God's grace - three months.
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And we stepped away from the church.
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Because I knew if I was in the church,
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I would pastor.
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So we went to Mack's church quite often.
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We went to a few other brother's churches.
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We traveled some.
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And it was a very restoring time
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for the church
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and a very restoring time for me.
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So, praise the Lord.