The man of God can never take the place of Christ caring for His bride.

One model that our churches often look to for fathering is the pastor. I want to address a concern I have about pastors modeling fatherhood for their people. In our society, pastors have a growing divorce rate. Many could be properly classified as “workaholics.”

Often, pastors’ wives feel helpless in trying to turn their husbands’ hearts back toward home. The pastor seems to care for everyone else before his family.
To defend his workaholism, a pastor may say to his wife, “You know I’m doing this for the church. This is my calling. I’m doing this for the Lord.” Unable to compete with God, the family members desperately try to get their needs met inappropriately and may even end up blaming God for their father caring more for the church than for his family. The church then becomes a “mistress” to the pastor, as he leaves wife and family to suffer without him.
They expect the pastor to be Christ and not simply the pastor. The man of God can never take the place of Christ caring for His bride. Too often, church members turn to the pastor to meet their needs instead of to the Lord. As a result, the demands on the pastor’s counseling, calling, and visitation become unrealistic. Only Christ is omnipresent, omniscient, and ommnipotent not the pastor.
As far as the church is concerned, pastors should be the prime examples of fathers caring for their families. Again, one of the reasons we have so many broken homes among pastors is that they cared more for their work than their families. We see pastors’ children who are wayward, disoriented, confused, and backslidden because the pastor was not a father. He did not care for his family. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church, and care for your children as the heavenly Father cares for you.
A father’s care, therefore, is one of his major functions. He sits down and calculates the upcoming needs of his family and then plans and works to meet those needs. He does not allow his job to overwhelm his relationship with his family. He pays attention to the interests, desires, and fears of his wife and children and shows concern for them.
Fathers must set the right priorities. A father who cares like the Father thinks of his wife and children before his job.

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