Saturday Read: The Trap of Ministry Success

Demas had a front-row seat to apostolic ministry. He traveled with Paul, witnessed miracles, saw churches planted, and experienced the power of the gospel firsthand. Yet Paul's final letter contains this heartbreaking epitaph: "Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me" (2 Timothy 4:10). Proximity to ministry success doesn't guarantee spiritual maturity. Sometimes it breeds the opposite—pride, entitlement, and a gradual shift from serving God to serving self.

Ministry today operates dangerously close to the culture's success metrics. We measure churches by attendance, pastors by speaking fees, and ministries by social media followers. We create celebrity pastors, compete for conference platforms, and turn ministry gifts into personal brands. The result is a generation of Christian leaders more concerned with platform than faithfulness, more focused on influence than integrity, more addicted to applause than accountable to God.

Jesus warned about this trap when the seventy-two returned from their ministry assignment rejoicing that "even the demons are subject to us in your name!" (Luke 10:17). Instead of celebrating their success, Jesus redirected their focus: "Do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven" (Luke 10:20). Ministry success can become a deadly substitute for personal salvation, external effectiveness masking internal emptiness.

King Saul started well, chosen by God and empowered by the Spirit. But success corrupted him. He began keeping the best spoils of war instead of destroying them as commanded (1 Samuel 15:9), built monuments to himself (1 Samuel 15:12), and eventually consulted mediums when God stopped answering his prayers (1 Samuel 28:7). The man who started as God's anointed ended as God's enemy, destroyed by the very success that should have humbled him.

Paul understood this danger and deliberately embraced weakness to avoid it. "When I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty words or wisdom" (1 Corinthians 2:1). He could have leveraged his education, his miraculous experiences, and his apostolic authority for personal gain. Instead, he chose vulnerability, authenticity, and dependence on God's power rather than human impressiveness.

Whether you're a pastor, small group leader, or volunteer, ministry success poses the same temptation: to find your identity in what you do for God rather than what God has done for you. How do you respond to ministry success? What motivates your service—genuine love for Christ or the satisfaction of being needed, appreciated, and recognized?