The church has somehow migrated to this mindset that Pastors are the Head of the church... they aren't! Christ is the head! Pastors are a just a tool to help the members grow and point to Christ!
I am being more and more convinced that discipleship with new believers is not teaching doctrine.. but teaching new believers how to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.. How to hear his voice.. how to worship Him.. how to rely on Him.. all else will fall into place.
Do you have issues that keep on coming up. If they keep on coming up.. that is because God wants to deal with them.. and heal them. Don't ignore them! Let Him heal you!
I mean, you don't have to deal with it.. but don't you get tired of people pushing your buttons?
Don't you get tired of letting other people's actions determine how you feel and what kind of day you will have. It doesn't have to be that way
The quickest way to healing in this area is to keep our eyes on the Father. Let our source of joy and accomplishment be pleasing Him. Everyone else can and will be fickle at times. I know because I have my times of fickleness. But.... we have a ficklelessness Father!
Don't let the only time you hear "well done good and faithful servant" be at the end of your life. Listen for those words everyday! Listen for the affirmation of the Father throughout the day! I am sure that the Father pronouncing over Jesus "this is my Son in whom I am well pleased" was not just a once in a lifetime occurence. I am sure that it happened on a daily basis.\\
God should always be the source of our joy and fulfillment. He does use others to flow through though. Today it might be our spouse, our children. Tomorrow it might be the homeless man that we give a little money to or the coworker that helps us with a project. He likes to change it up like that so we do not look to people as our source... but Him
If the Jesus needed to frequently get away alone and spend time with the Father, how much more do we need to do that. I don't think that we need to always sequester ourselves for long periods of time.. but we dinfintely need to develop an attitude of keeping in touch with the heart of the Father. The more we keep touch with the heart of the Father, the more fulfilled we will be and much more usable vessel to be poured out for others.
There is a book I read about a year ago that helped me develop this mindset.. It is called "Practicing the Presence of God" by Brother Lawrence. If you get it.. try to get the modern day translation as it was writen in the 1600s. Here is an Amazon link.. and it is available for Kindle. http://www.amazon.com/Practicing-Gods-Presence-Brother-Lawrence/dp/157683655X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1313153774&sr=8-2
