Disciples Who Are Willing to Pay the Price Are What God Desires

Originally, Pastoring the Church should have concluded last week. I was hoping that everyone could raise some questions, but not many people did, which left me a little disappointed. I am a bit perplexed that everyone just finished the course and that was it? If people are unwilling and do not want to do pastoral care, they will not encounter problems. In fact, if people do not act, they really cannot raise any questions. I do not blame you for not being able to raise questions, because you have not had time to act yet.

The previous four lectures basically focused on one thing, which is that God wants us to grow in pastoral care. If you are an old Christian and feel a bottleneck, that you feel like you can no longer grow, there is only one reason: you have not put God's deeper words into practice in our lives.

In fact, the entire Bible, especially if you carefully read the New Testament, the Gospel of Matthew, there is a Great Commission that asks us to go out and preach the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, to make disciples of all nations, and teach them to observe all that God has commanded. (See Matthew 28:19-20) In fact, what the Lord wants are disciples. But what do you see in the church today? I feel sad for God because there are too few Christians willing to pay the price!

One sister said that Christians are not the most selfish, only more selfish. This statement may not condemn everyone, but the probability of it being wrong is not high. Selfishness is a very deadly thing. As a result of being selfish, what you get is being messed up by the demons sent by God.

I have been deeply moved this past week. From Sunday until now, the good figs and bad figs have been echoing in my heart. The thoughts God has towards us are thoughts of peace. However, I did not explain it clearly in my sermon last Sunday. This week, I carefully considered this matter and discovered that after God said this, another group of people would experience famine, plague, and extremely painful things.

Aren't God's thoughts towards us thoughts of peace? That refers to the good figs, that is, the good Christians. In God's eyes, good Christians are not those who are self-righteous and cultivate themselves well. What God wants are disciples who pay the price, who pay the price to pastor God's flock. People are like children who grow up to be 20 years old and do not work, but live off their parents, continuing to do so until they have drained their parents dry, and they themselves do not know what they can do. Isn't that courting death?

If Christians become like this, what is God doing after raising us, bringing disaster? Why does disaster come? Because of the bad figs. It is better not to be a Christian than to be a rotten Christian. God wants disciples, not believers. This must be understood clearly. Disciples are willing to pay the price, believers do not need to pay the price, believers only need your faith has saved you to solve your current problems. But whether you are ultimately a disciple who pays the price is something you must consider.

Many of the Christians I have met have received grace among us, including one recently. After he came among us, many of his illnesses were healed, but one selfish illness was not cured. The illness of selfishness is difficult to cure. I, as a pastor, work very hard to cure it, but I cannot fix selfishness. Because people think they can live well without paying the price, they think they do not need to be disciples, just be believers and follow us. When they are sick, we pray for them; when they have problems or work pressure, they come to us for pastoral care, and they do not realize that as they are being pastored, they become rotten figs.

I have a dream that everyone in our church would be a disciple who pays the price, someone who passes on God's blessings. If the church is full of selfish Christians, I might as well do something else. Why would I build a church? I do not want it to end up like the destruction of the kingdom of Israel. From the beginning to today, I have been determined to build a pastoral church!

God's Will Is for Us to Pastor God's Flock

I have spent a lot of energy and paid a heavy price in pastoral care, but what I get in return is my heart being pierced by ungrateful people. It is very hard, but I am willing to change one if I can. Brothers and sisters among us today, when you come into contact with your pastors, have you noticed that they are all people who pay the price?

Among us, there is a sister who is almost 60 years old who serves and pastors very hard. She has had diabetes for more than 20 years, but she does not take it seriously and does not take anti-sugar medication, but she has not had any complications. She serves from morning till night, and the price she pays is beyond my imagination. She pays even more than I do, and I feel sorry for her hardship. I hope that the brothers and sisters she serves can emulate her and also emulate our Lord Jesus and become people who pay the price.

From the past to today, for the brothers and sisters who participate in our activities, we hope that you can understand one thing: you will sooner or later be raised up to become people who do pastoral care, otherwise, you will definitely become rotten figs. There is no end to our journey of growth. Whenever we stop growing, we will rot. Brothers and sisters who participate in this activity with us, starting this week, I encourage you to start signing up. I do not want our brothers and sisters to be like sheep without a shepherd, troubled and scattered!

I hope you can all find a church where you can grow, where you can break through, grow up, and become someone who can pastor others, grow to the full stature of Jesus Christ, be able to take up spiritual weapons, be able to fight spiritual battles, and let the captives be released and the oppressed be set free! But among us, there are also some pastors who have established their own churches and brought their sheep to participate in our activities. When they hear this, they cannot continue.

In fact, we also encourage you to follow your own pastor and build your own church well. We do not want to see the church being torn down because of our service. We hope that those pastors who bring their sheep to participate in our activities can be moved by God's words because I am speaking God's words. If you are moved by God's words and decide that you are willing to emulate us, take on destiny, and become a pastor who pays the price to pastor God's flock well, that is wonderful!

I hope to see this situation, that all over the world, thousands upon thousands of pastors who are willing to pay the price to pastor God's flock will arise. Wouldn't our God be satisfied? But some pastors bring their sheep, do not pastor them well themselves, and then we say that those who do not have pastors can sign up, and they start to worry that their little territory will be torn down.

In fact, what is the use of doing that which cannot please God? Hearing this, many pastors among us cannot continue. It is not that I want to steal your sheep, but your sheep often come to me to graze! If you do not pay the price usually, then you want to control the sheep at this time, isn't that a strange thing?

A Pastoral System Built Through the Bible

Today, I will ask and answer myself: how to do pastoral care, or how to be pastored. In fact, I have interspersed some content in this area in the previous four lectures, but you may not have grasped these points. I will speak more clearly about pastoral care at the leadership level because it is all at the pastor level. Today, I will think about the content from a leader's perspective. So, how should we pastor? It is actually a system.

You will find that our church has a system for Bible study and a system for building the church. How are these systems built? They are built through the words in the Bible! After sorting out, summarizing, and organizing the words in the Bible, we established a system. What is a victorious church, how to build a victorious church, how to pastor, including why and how to do it, we have all organized it.

In today's church, only a tiny bit of the pastoral system remains. For example, is preaching on the stage considered pastoral care? Yes! Because preaching on the stage speaks the word of God, but if it speaks the word of demons, then it is corrupted! What today's church does is not what we should be concerned with. What we should be concerned with is what we ourselves should do.

Breaking People's Spiritual Bondage

The first thing is, if you look closely at what Jesus did, you will find that He must release people from diseases and bondage. If you are still full of diseases, heavier than the members, are you serving the members or are the members serving you? This is a very deadly thing!

I have encountered a church group where members often say: Pastor, I am taking leave today! I am sick! I am going to see a doctor! Then after a while, the pastor says: I am also taking leave today, I am sick! It is not that taking leave is not okay, but if it is like this all the time, then it is very deadly!

As a result, one of their members who is a doctor came to me for service. This doctor was also full of diseases. I asked: What about your pastor? Why don't you go to your pastor? She said: Our pastor comes to me for treatment! This sounds like a joke. If you do not think Jesus can heal, then you would think this is normal.

But if you go back to the Bible, you will see that the first thing Jesus Christ did was to release people from the bondage of demons. This is called grace, and anyone who believes can receive it. This is the first level of pastoral care.

Breaking People's Carnal Bondage

The second level is that people have many carnal and worldly things in them. This must be broken. How do we break it? It is actually dealing with people. For example, if a child is not disciplined from childhood, he will definitely be terrible when he grows up, unless the child is very well-behaved from childhood, but many children are not like this. If he is very fond of the flesh and very good at discerning good and evil, if the parents do not discipline him, they will harm the child!

Today, we see many children from wealthy families who have not been disciplined, and they are very difficult to deal with when they grow up! They are very carnal. However, the children of poor families are the same if they are not disciplined from childhood. This has nothing to do with whether they are rich or not. The problems of wealthy families are more serious because they get whatever they want, so they are more indulgent. The children of poor families do not have money and are very fond of the flesh, but they do not have as many conditions to indulge.

So, breaking the flesh is the most difficult part of pastoral care. If these carnal and worldly things are not broken, this person is basically living in corruption! When you study the Bible with me, you will find that I attribute people's sins to the flesh. God said to Cain that sin is crouching at your door, not that demons are crouching at your door, because this sin is our innate carnal nature. This carnal nature itself attracts demons. The carnal nature is sin. Who will rescue me from this body of death? That is what it means.

It is not easy to break the flesh. For example, there is a good horse that no one can ride. Whoever rides it will be thrown off, unless someone tames the horse, then he can ride it. The horse becomes a very good mount under the rider's crotch. Our flesh is like an old horse. If we cannot subdue the flesh, the flesh will not be controlled by us, it will do its own thing and act arbitrarily.

Breaking the flesh and breaking the carnal logical system, as well as breaking the worldly values, are the most important components of pastoral care. How to break the flesh? It is difficult to do without some conflict. Why do many churches not do these things? Because it requires conflict. For example, Peter is very carnal:

Jesus spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. “Get behind me, Satan!” he said. “You do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” (Mark 8:32-33)

This is a carnal logical system, naturally courting corruption. How to do pastoral care is very important. This is why some brothers and sisters come among us. The problems they have must be broken and built up, and it really requires conflict. I have had many successful cases of pastoral care through conflict. I am not afraid of conflict. In the process of conflict, I insist on God's word, and the other party insists on his carnal logical system. People are transformed in the conflict.

How is it transformed? I will give you an example: A child is not stupid, but he feels uncomfortable when he studies. I told his mother to take a discipline rod to discipline the child. Later, his mother summed it up. When she stood there with the discipline rod, the child could study. This is dealing with the flesh. Because the child naturally obeys the flesh, the discipline rod breaks his bad habits in this area. This is the rod of discipline in Proverbs. If you do not discipline your child from childhood, you will harm the child.

The application of breaking the flesh is in all aspects. Our selfish nature is carnal. Some time ago, someone left a message online: Two elderly people were both widowed and single. They were old and lived together, and they got a marriage certificate. One of them got sick, and the other divorced and moved away. He asked me if it was appropriate to do so. I said it was quite appropriate to do so. Why?

Because two carnal people are very selfish when put together. They expect each other to take care of themselves. I have something to expect you to take care of me. Now that you have something to do, I will leave. The two people initially moved together, not wanting to take care of each other, not wanting to give, but wanting to gain. As a result, one of them did not gain and left. That is what they originally thought, so how could it not be appropriate? This is the carnal nature—selfishness.

The carnal nature is selfish, and in the end, it will corrupt itself. Speaking of dealing with the selfishness of the flesh, it is multifaceted, including the carnal logical systems of learning, life, and so on.

Proclaiming the Word of God

Bible study, preaching, and teaching are all ways of proclaiming the Word of God. In the process of proclaiming the Word, there are two approaches: one is to study the Bible book by book; the other is to connect related themes throughout the Bible, which we call a course. Proclaiming the Word of God, preaching is generally thematic, stringing together Bible passages, while Bible study involves examining chapter by chapter or even book by book. By alternating preaching, Bible study, and courses, we can clearly explain the Word of God.

In the process of proclaiming the Word, those who are being pastored can be set free. When you lead someone, speak the Word of God to them, you directly confront their carnal nature. Breaking spiritual strongholds is useless if you don't instill truth in them; everything must be restarted, and the problem cannot be solved. Break spiritual strongholds, then break the carnal nature, and then proclaim the Word of God – these three things must be interwoven.

Proclaiming the Word of God must target spiritual strongholds and the very essence of the carnal nature. Proclaiming the Word of God is placing God's logical system and spiritual concepts into people, fundamentally solving their problems. If God's Word is placed in people but not implemented, it is as if it was never placed there at all.

Implementing the Word of God

How do we implement the Word of God? By hearing and doing it. When you pastor others, if you see that they are not implementing the Word, you must discipline them. The church should not maintain superficial, personal friendships – you're good, I'm good, we're all good. This kind of relationship is not pastoring. I've encountered some Christians who maintain only superficial relationships in their previous churches. Don't tread on me, and I won't bother you. If the pastor teaches this way and everyone follows suit, where does pastoring come in? People must be taught, rebuked, corrected – teaching is instruction, rebuke is admonishment, correction is supervising how people implement the Word of God, and the 责 means those who should be reproved must be reproved.

In the process of pastoring, we will inevitably encounter these four levels, and we have detailed courses to teach people. For breaking spiritual strongholds, we have healing and deliverance courses, with beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Pastoring develops into a vast system. For example, regarding implementing the Word of God, we do not consider doing poorly at work to be a spiritual matter, nor do we consider doing well at work to be a worldly matter. We believe that people should do their jobs well. After implementing the Word of God, people should do their jobs well, but not by treating work as God; rather, by treating work as work, they can do it well.

Therefore, we are very effective in the breadth and depth of implementing the Word. During the pandemic, many brothers and sisters among us received raises because we do not train people to be spiritual cripples. What is a spiritual cripple? Someone who cannot do anything but shout Hallelujah all day long. We train people to live out God's glorious image, so business owners among us will see their businesses rise, and professionals will see their work rise. This is because they have the image of God within them, which is the result of implementing the Word.

If someone does not implement the Word of God and constantly has a mountain of excuses, it simply means they don't want to implement the Word. Haven't the miserable ways you've lived in the past years proven that your old methods don't work? I am also surprised that so many years of Christians adhering to this erroneous belief system. In fact, if a person hears and then implements the Word of God, it is difficult for that person not to thrive; how could they not grow?

But if your own home is in a chaotic state, can you live well? Why is this so? Because you don't implement the Word of God, you don't want to put things in order. If you can't even manage your home well, what else can you manage? You can't do anything well, you can't do your job well, you can't raise your children well, you can't manage your home well. Take a close look: can a person who diligently implements the Word of God make a mess of their home like this? It's impossible to be so messy; it must be clean and tidy, and the person must love to work.

A person who implements the Word of God must love to work. Therefore, proclaiming and implementing the Word of God is not only applied to ourselves but also to those we pastor. Do we apply it to people who are completely unrelated to us? We don't do that. A stranger is just a stranger to us, with whom we have no pastoral relationship. A passerby on the street is just another passerby to me; we are just strangers with no pastoral duties to one another.

If someone is being pastored by me, either I pastor them or there is no pastoring – it's as simple as that. If there is no pastoral relationship, simply uttering some remarks is useless. That's called meddling, which is a terrible habit. You don't manage what you should manage, but you meddle in a bunch of things you shouldn't.

Building Confidence in Pastors

We all need to understand today that breaking spiritual strongholds, breaking down the carnal nature, proclaiming the Word of God, and implementing the Word of God – these four levels are viewed vertically, while horizontally, it's first, building faith; second, building relationships; third, solving problems; and fourth, enabling growth.

Building faith is not building faith in oneself but building faith in God. How do we build people's faith in God? By building their faith in the pastor. Don't think I'm talking nonsense; this is all from my experience. I've found that if people have great faith in their pastor, the pastor can quickly deliver them through prayer, and many illnesses will be healed. So who benefits? Certainly, the person being ministered to.

If the person being ministered to looks at the person ministering to them and thinks, Oh no, it's him! It's my bad luck that he's ministering to me today! I tell you, even if he prays to death and pays a great price, it's useless; they won't get better. This is why we often find that this faith seems like faith in God, but it's actually faith in the person ministering to us.

What does this have to do with faith in God? Because the person ministering to us is ministering in the name of Jesus, so we have faith in them, He will definitely make me better when he leads me in prayer! When you lead such people in prayer, they will get better quickly because your faith has saved you. Therefore, never ruin your faith in yourself or the faith that those being ministered to have in you.

I've given you many such examples. For example, someone's eyes were about to go blind, and I said to him, Brother, I've prayed for people with eye problems and they've all been healed! His whole appearance changed. He just looked at me, but that's okay. Seeing his faith, I led him in prayer, and five minutes later, he could see clearly. Before, his vision had been foggy, as if he were looking through layers of plastic, very difficult!

As a result, he could see everything clearly. Later, he went to the hospital for a checkup and was completely healed. Afterward, he even sent me a message. But what's the point of going to the hospital for a checkup? Don't you know if you can see clearly or not? I just think people are quite foolish; this is building faith. If I had just said, Come, let me pray for you, it would have been useless; I've tried it.

Many people like to ruin people's faith in them, saying things like, You must have faith in God; even though I'm not good enough, Jesus is! Many pastors often say things like this, and in the end, they find that many people are not edified. Especially in matters of healing and deliverance, building faith is not building others' faith but building that person's faith in the pastor. This is also mentioned in the Bible. How is it said? If someone receives a prophet in the name of a prophet, not in the name of Jesus, they will surely receive the benefits that the prophet receives.

This authority comes from God, and the authority of the pastor also comes from God. If someone does not submit to the authority above them, they are disobeying God; if someone has no faith in the person above them, they have no faith in God. Ponder this carefully; is what I'm saying true? Perhaps I can't convince you, but that's okay; you'll know once you put it into practice yourself.

Building Pastoral Relationships and Solving People's Problems

The second is building relationships, building pastoral relationships. Without a pastoral relationship, there's no way to break down a person's carnal nature, and it's difficult to break down their spiritual strongholds. If you proclaim the Word of God without a relationship, what's the use of preaching? You're just a stranger. Therefore, a deep relationship can deal with the carnal nature; just like a mother who spanks her child, the child is still her child.

There's a businessman who does very well in business, his mother always spanked him from the top of the mountain to the bottom of the mountain when he was little. As a result, he is now the most filial. Breaking down the carnal nature is actually conveying love. With a pastoral relationship, with a loving relationship, he really knows that you are good to him, so when you break his carnal habits, he also believes that you are doing it for his own good.

An old sister came to me with dizziness. I established a relationship with her in a very short time, and her dizziness quickly went away. She even jumped up on the ground at the time, and I was very happy. This old sister is quite lovely; I still miss her when I think about her. That is to say, the relationship is quite wonderful. There is a Chinese saying: If you have connections, it's not a problem; if you don't have connections, it becomes a problem.

Do you understand this saying? If you don't understand, think about it slowly. I'll explain it to you when I have the chance. I heard this saying from a Taiwanese pastor. If we have a relationship, nothing is a problem. Because we have a good relationship, nothing becomes a problem. If we are strangers, some arguments may occur because there is no relationship.

When building pastoral relationships, never build greasy, personal, or friendly relationships, because friendship cannot lead to pastoring. After building faith, we begin to build relationships, and then we begin to solve problems. Why must people among us do pastoring when they reach a bottleneck in growth in order to continue growing? Because pastoring solves more problems. We do pastoring to solve problems. If pastoring doesn't solve problems, then what are we doing? Playing on the surface?

For example, do you want to solve this person's laziness? You must solve it because laziness will ruin this person. For example, if this person gets nervous when they encounter something at work, do you want to solve it? You must solve it. I often solve this kind of thing because the tricks I use are very effective. Sometimes I yell at people, not because I like to yell at people, but because it's my trick, and it can solve the problem after yelling.

Some time ago, I was teaching a child to learn programming. When it came time to turn in the homework, I asked him to turn in homework A, but he turned in homework B, and then I yelled at him. After yelling at him, the child has grown very quickly in the past two days. What problem did I solve? I solved the problem of fooling around at will. He didn't take it seriously, so I yelled at him, not for the sake of yelling, but to solve the problem.

Therefore, building faith, building relationships, and solving problems can bring growth. The four horizontal levels of pastoring include: building faith, building relationships, solving problems, and enabling growth. The four vertical levels are: breaking spiritual strongholds, breaking down the carnal nature, proclaiming the Word of God, and implementing the Word of God. If you sort these things out, you will find that breaking spiritual strongholds, breaking down the carnal nature, proclaiming the Word of God, and implementing the Word of God are all related to building faith, building relationships, and solving problems, and the final result is growth. Ultimately, people will be fruitful and extremely rich.

Taking on the Responsibility of Pastoring

Brothers and sisters among us must know that we are all people who take things seriously, and our pastoring is all serious. You must grow, pastoring is my job. The destiny God has given me is to build the church, for the purpose of constantly pushing everyone into the image of Jesus Christ and into prosperity.

There are not many pastors who enjoy their work as much as I do. Many pastors suffer from depression and cancer. Someone told me: the most difficult job in the world is to be the President of the United States, and the second most difficult job is to be a pastor. In fact, no job is easy, but any job you enjoy can be very powerful.

We must take on the responsibility of pastoring and establish a system of pastoring. Establish a system of Bible study, establish a system of church, and establish a system of pastoring. Your whole mind and heart are clear, and you are doing everything in a very enjoyable state.

Sometimes it will be very painful, but it is also very enjoyable. Although sometimes we will encounter ungrateful people, when we see the growth of all the brothers and sisters, it will be very enjoyable, and all the sweat and hard work will be nothing. We are to complete God's destiny for us in Jesus Christ. In the future, we look forward to coming before God, receiving the exceeding and eternal weight of glory, and receiving the crown of glory. Enjoying with God the rewards He has prepared for us in eternity, and handing in a beautiful exam paper before Jesus.

Lord, look: one thousand talents has become two thousand, two thousand talents has become four thousand, five thousand talents has become ten thousand. Look, the flock I have pastored has come before God, and God will surely say, Come in and enjoy the glory in God with us! What a joyful thing that will be, and we look forward to God raising up more people to pastor among us. Today, you are being pastored among us, and after you grow and mature, you also begin to pastor. Such a church will have sustainable development, and we will continue to move forward, so that God's will may be fulfilled.

Next week we will begin a new lecture: Obtaining Destiny to Become a Blessing. Everyone must know: it's not about obtaining blessings, but about becoming a blessing. Many people want others to bless them, but this is not the way to solve the problem. Only by obtaining destiny and becoming a blessing can we obtain blessings. Next week's course is called Obtaining Destiny to Become a Blessing. After three lectures, we will rest for a while, and everyone can participate in our new activities again. Those who are willing to sign up to be pastored today can sign up. Those who have already signed up to be pastored can continue to be pastored, but don't stay in the stage of being pastored; you must begin to yearn to become someone who pastors others, and you will surely be blessed.

May God bless everyone!