It’s easy to get so consumed with solving the problems in the church that we miss slaying the enemies of the church.
Problems come in a wide variety from things such as developing effective strategy in a time when the future is so uncertain to financial pressure and complexity of hiring staff. They involve factors like understanding culture, how to lead the online church, and both ideological and theological differences. You get the picture.
Here’s how it works.
As leaders, it’s part of our job to see and solve problems, so we understandably invest a great deal of time in that process.
The pressure to solve problems in the church requires so much focus that we have little energy left to conquer the enemies of the soul.
That leaves room for these quiet destroyers to do significant damage.
These enemies of the soul tend to run underneath many of the practical problems we face and, in fact, are often the cause, or at least the aggravation of our problems.
Learning to see them quickly and take the time to address them is vital to the health and progress of your church.
The good news is that we can:
Get honest about their existence.
The human mind is powerful and can create amazingly intricate rationalizations for attitudes and behaviors that do not please God or build up the body of Christ. So the first step is to get honest about them.
Allow growth to overcome guilt.
When we do get honest about the enemies of the soul, guilt can prevent us from taking the action steps to growth. It’s important to allow growth to win over guilt.
Learn and practice the spiritual remedy.
There is a spiritual remedy to each of these enemies of the soul.
5 Enemies of the Soul That Hurt You and the Church:
1. Divisiveness
Division is a mortal enemy of the church and is birthed in the souls of individuals, not the organization.
There are numerous causes of division, from not getting our way and the desire for control to various levels of immaturity.
Division can appear in your church at two levels.
- The result of an honest disagreement but lacking resolution.
- A spirit of divisiveness that seeks to divide and get its own way.
The second of the two is rare, though it does exist.
Spiritual passion can often result in honest disagreement, but it doesn’t need to result in sacrificing the overall mission.
The spiritual remedy to divisiveness is a spirit of commitment to unity. (Ephesians 4:3-4)
