In the following video, I ask and answer the question: “Is ministry your mistress?” Sadly some men engaged in full-time Christian ministry have lost sight of the fact that their wife and children (if they are married with a family) is their first ministry.
This video will be despised by some men who fashion themselves as full-time open-air preachers. The reason: their ministry has likely become their mistress. They are committing adultery against their wives, and the whore is ministry.
God has called men, all men, to love their wives as He has loved the church and given Himself up for her (see Ephesians 5:25-33). God has not called men to love ministry as He has loved ministry and given Himself up for it.
Well said Tony. We have to keep a careful balance and spend quality, as well as quantity time with our families, so that that they don’t resent our ministry.
Sometimes fathers with young children need to be told to go home. God comes first, then wife, children, the church, then work. Evangelizing the lost as a ministry sometimes has to come when our children are grown.
A fisher of men, until the nets are full,
David from Louisiana