In regard to the Christian ministries that suffered what I would call a betrayal of trust, when individuals in leadership secretly recorded private meetings while dealing with some very difficult issues and then made it public. I’m stunned of the treachery involved in recording private meetings, where the one recording is the only one who knows it is happening. This scenario took place around the same time in three different ministries last year. As people of God, we need to have meetings that iron out administrative issues just like everyone else. The church should be able to come together and navigate through hard places having to say difficult things to maintain God’s divine order in His house and ministry. After all what did Jesus do when He drove out the money changers at the temple? He did a hard thing and said some hard sayings, with a whip in hand. He would definitely have been dragged through the mud with accusations of being unchristian, in our times now. In 2024 we saw a Christian men’s retreat get turned over on its side for some ill-advised entertainment that was clearly inappropriate, yet the backlash on that was nothing short of surprising against those that stood up for righteousness sake.

A few years ago, the Lord spoke to me and said, “The greater glory will only come when Kingdom governance rules in the midst of my people called by my name. It begins when the spirit of the fear of the Lord is restored back to the church.”

When Ananias and Saphira conspired to lie about how much they sold property in Acts 5:1-11 and immediately dropped dead at the apostle’s feet for lying to the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of the Fear of the Lord was released upon the church in the age of grace.  Showing us there are certain things God will not let fly even in the age where Christ has given us mercy and grace and the forgiveness of sins through His precious blood. We need to know that there are lines we can cross that can put us in immediate judgment. Remember Simon the sorcerer who thought to purchase the Holy Ghost with gold. He was barred forever from “part or parcel” of the blessing of the infilling of the Holy Ghost, and was warned to be in mortal danger for thinking He could purchase the ability to lay hands on others to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. If that rebuke of Peter held water, then, it holds water now. Simon was ignorant of his blasphemy, that is why I believe he did not suffer the same fate as the husband and wife that conspired to lie to God. Ananias and Saphirah plotted their deception. While the happenings of those two are rare, there are stories that have been told throughout the ages, since then, of the demise of those who sought to lie, defraud, and trick, the Holy Spirit.

I remember many years ago when my elderly pastor came down with an illness where his doctor suggested Arizona to be a place of his recovery. During that time another pastor who was in his early sixties, from a nearby town, was closing a failing church that he had planted a dozen years prior. Our kind pastor often supported him and encouraged him and his wife through the difficult times they were going through with their church. Eventually, the church folded, and they began to attend our fellowship. While our pastor was gone, he was asked to preach a few times. The elders kept things going and they were well able to do so, during his three-month sabbatical. My husband and I enjoyed the visiting pastor’s preaching and liked the person and his wife, and I was even invited to speak at a women’s meeting in their church a year before. But something very unsettling occurred after this brother had preached one of the Sundays, just before our pastor was scheduled to vacation in Arizona. As he walked down the aisle and greeted the people and shook their hands, and came to my husband and I, and while we seemed to be a favorite of him and his wife, as we shook hands, I heard in my spirit two words that shocked me.

Undeniably, I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit say, take over! Loud and clear. The whole time we drove home I thought about the words I heard spoken to me in my spirit. I was young in the gift of the word of knowledge, and all I knew to do was pray. In the weeks to come, I prayed about this, trying to wrap my mind around what I heard the Lord say to me regarding this man who was well liked in our congregation, and was very nice to my husband and I. But the Lord began to allow me to hear confirmation, in statements that were made that would have otherwise been thought as harmless. Statements that seemed out of concern, but became more and more prevalent among our congregation, and that was this man’s opinion that our pastor was becoming too elderly to serve, and his pastoral duties were becoming too taxing for him, this was masked in concern for our aging pastor. Soon this man’s comments became more and more bold and opinionated, to the point that he discussed the matter openly to a few that would congregate around him after the service, that the pastor should step down when he returned. 

Eventually, he acquired enough boldness, and agreement of others, to actually approach our pastor when he returned from his sabbatical that it was time for him to step down. After all he was in his late 70s, and it was time to pass the torch to a younger man, this pastor was in his sixties, offering to take over for him. However, the whole time that this was occurring, I was praying for my pastor, praying for the congregation, and praying for eyes to be open, and for people to understand that what appeared to be out of loving care, was in fact, a wrong desire rising up to take over another man’s position, that God had not released him from. Had I not heard the Lord in this I probably would have just accepted it as an obvious work of the Holy Spirit. The Lord never gave me permission to say a thing. This man’s church had failed, and he was coveting an easy transition to take over our growing congregation.

Our pastor was a humble godly man who walked in the power of the Holy Spirit. He just happened to have gone through a rough patch, but now he was refreshed and ready to go upon his return. While he considered the offer and listened to this man’s reasoning on why he should step down, and it was mentioned that he was up for considering whatever God had planned, our pastor decided to continue the work because it was his conviction to do so. I don’t know what would have happened had we not been in prayer during this thing the Holy Spirit called a “take over”. The irony of all of this is that our pastor shepherded that church until he was 91 years old (installing younger folks in leadership at the appropriate time to bear responsibility), and the church did very well, but this man who wanted that position would be dead within two years of our pastor’s return from Arizona. When he didn’t get what he wanted they parted ways. I do believe the couple were good people that were true Christians, but I also believe they listened to a wrong spirit, born of a desire to take over a growing fruitful work, with no problems, after folding what they had before. Beloved believe not every spirit. Pray that you yourself enter not into temptation.

Recently, an interesting private meeting was made public, and I listened to it completely not realizing to the end that the entire meeting had been secretly recorded. It involved a ministry that was working out issues among their leadership, and because that kind of thing has always been interesting to me, being in management for several years, and taking my own teams to minister in various outreaches, I have always had an interest in the dynamics of Kingdom governance. So naturally, when I saw the video demonstrating   the raw reality of what has to happen when Christians disagree, and the topic of insubordination towards authority had to be addressed, it sparked my interest to see our governing guidelines at work. First, I want to say that the details of a Christian not-for-the-public meeting should stay in the meeting. It’s never ok to secretly record private conversations. Legal in that state or not. It reveals a level of deviance and craftiness that should disqualify anyone in a leadership position that would do such an underhanded thing, to record and then release that recording to outsiders or anyone not in that meeting. Of course, the person knowing they are recording will behave themselves differently, and not genuinely. The organization professes Christ and Christian values and has interviewed Christian leaders from all over the world. So, their processes must always be biblical, and their people who do not hold to biblical standards should repent of that or be dismissed, I noticed a journalist releasing stories on this ordeal, overlooked the obvious when reporting against the leadership in this Christian organization. The fact that their source plotted and planned to record, and did so through the entire meeting revealed his character. Knowing he was deceptively recording while engaging with the two others in the meeting.

Mathew 18 gives us the guidelines to navigate through conflict. If there is no environment for reconciliation after endeavoring to resolve issues between ministry partners, then a Christian takes the high road and moves on. They must part ways. Remember Barnabas and Paul, when they had to part ways. It was for the purposes of God, but I’m sure was difficult for them both having to move on. In the world we live in now Christians’ will take each other to court for less of a reason than that.  We don’t hand the baby (ministry or church) over to a secular king’s guard to cut the baby in half. If we love the baby as the mother did in the story of two women wanting one baby, where the judge said we’ll cut the baby in half, then both can have half of a dead baby. (He did this to test the heart of the woman jealous for another woman’s infant.) The woman who did not love the baby who was not hers, agreed to the plan.

The real mother walked away. In this case the imposter overseer handed the baby over into the hands of a secular and cruel instrument. Public opinion and a self-proclaimed watch dog media with a bone to pick. That is not the Kingdom of God. If we believe in His WORD, we know that HE will judge HIS. We are either of His Kingdom or we are not. Paul said why do you take each other to court?  1 Cor 6:1-This is a serious scripture for Christians to consider. At this point this beacon of Christian programming is being challenged in the way all of us are and have been. Will we trust God to make wrongs right and biblical instruction to work out its wisdom? Or will we run to the secular judges and get our ministries handed back to us in a meat sack? As much as it depends on us, we really need to make sure worldly courts are not at the helm of our most precious endeavors for the kingdom. Kingdom Governance is a higher call. God is restoring the fear of God back to the church, His bride is getting cleaned up, but if anyone thinks that secretly recording meetings and releasing them to the secular world is ok, they need to think about 1Cor 6. The spirit of this world has its way of doing things. To teach or support any other way, will not prepare the Church for His Return for a spotless bride. Trust in Him. Trust in His processes.

1 Corinthians 6

Now brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers. Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?

“Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?

Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?

If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.

I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?

But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.

Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?

Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren. Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.”