The Minister and His Private Life

Father’s Business Summit Series, November 2026

Life Teaching Ministry Worldwide Inc, Tel: 234 803 714 9105. Email: revoluwamuyiwa@gmail.com

THE MINISTER AND HIS PRIVATE LIFE

Oluwamuyiwa Okuseinde

Introduction

More than any other vocation, ministry exposes us to the danger of living a double life. There is the life that people see on the pulpit. But there is also the private side to the minister’s life. If there is a gap between the two, the minister is in trouble.

By private life is meant your life off the pulpit. When the collar is removed, and you are not holding the microphone, and the privileges of your ministerial position is removed, whatever is left of your life is the real you. We are talking about who you are as a person, as a Christian. The real you is who you are when no one is watching.

Every minister is fine on the pulpit. In fact, many are angels in the church. But what about our private lives? Until we bridge the gap between our pulpit image and our private lives, the Church will continue to be ineffective and the revival we desire will remain elusive.

We must therefore take heed to the life we live away from the pulpit and make sure that it is not radically different from what we advertise.

Bridging the gap between your pulpit image and private life

There are many reasons why we must do this. Here are five important reasons.

1. Your private life can discredit your pulpit life and destroy your ministry. Samson’s private life destroyed his ministry. Noah was an excellent minister, but at the end, his private life became an embarrassment (Genesis 9:20-21).

2. Your private life will determine how fulfilled you will be in ministry, irrespective of the successes you achieve publicly. For example, after a powerful ministration, you can end up in frustration if your home is not at peace.

3. Your private life will determine how far your ministry will go beyond your pulpit. The pulpit is actually the smallest part of ministry if you do things correctly. If everything about your ministerial life revolves around your pulpit, something is wrong. People who meet you in your regular private life should receive the touch of God through you. The disciples in Antioch were called Christians, not because of their sermons or pulpit activities, but because of the everyday life they lived (Acts 11:26).

4. Your private life will determine the life you will have in old age. How you have treated your wife, children, and the quality of your social capital, more than your pulpit activities will determine how your evening, night-time and memory will be. Your night-time is the time of trouble.

Father’s Business Summit Series, November 2026 Life Teaching Ministry Worldwide Inc, Tel: 234 803 714 9105. Email: revoluwamuyiwa@gmail.com

5. Your private life will ultimately determine what happens to you in eternity. Nobody get to share in God’s eternal kingdom because of his exploits on the pulpit. No one is excluded on account of pulpit failure but moral failure (1 Corinthians 6:9-10). That is why Paul said, after all the ministerial exploits, he was always careful to maintain a disciplined life so as not to be a castaway (1 Corinthians 9:27).

Critical Areas of Concern

There are three broad areas to explore.

1. Your private life with God – how does God see you as a Christian, as His child?

2. Your family life – how does your wife/ husband know you? What do your children think of you?

3. Your social or communal life. What does your community say of you? How do you respond to pressures and provocations?

Many don’t realize that ministry is life and that the pulpit is actually the smallest part of it. The greater part which greatly affects what is seen on the pulpit consists of what happens at home, on the streets, in your relationships with people, how you handle pressure and challenges, and of course in your private dealings with God.

The Minister’s Private life with God.

Your private life with God relates to who you are with the Lord simply as a Christian, without ministry. If God were to give you a three month’s leave from the ministry, how rich would your communion with Him be?

The primary calling of the minister is ministering to God (Deuteronomy 10:8). That is where God primarily examines us. If you fail there, you have failed everywhere. If God does not know you there, He probably does not know you at all.

God's estimation of our lives is more important than what people say or the image they have of us. The minister of the church in Sardis had a name among people as one who was alive, but to God he was dead (Revelation 3:1). In other words, he existed with people but had no existence before God. That is a tragedy for a minister.

God’s estimation of our lives is also more important than what we think of ourselves. Look at the minister in the church of the Laodicea – “Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Revelation 3:17). Packaging yourself may fool people for some time, but no matter how well you package yourself, it will never change God’s opinion about you.

Don’t be like Eliab, Jesse’s first son, who had a fantastic ministerial height and huge public stature, but was of no importance before God (1 Samuel 16:6-7).

Father’s Business Summit Series, November 2026 Life Teaching Ministry Worldwide Inc, Tel: 234 803 714 9105. Email: revoluwamuyiwa@gmail.com

We should be careful not to be carried away by the praise of men when we are abomination to the Lord (Luke 16:15).

Your family life.

Titus 1:6 says, “If any be blameless...”, check his family life.

Your family is your first church. If the church in your house succeeds, you have truly succeeded. A successful family life is a divine requirement for public ministry (1 Timothy 3:2-5; 1 Timothy 3:12). Abraham’s case is of particular interest. God seemed to be saying that the extent He would go with a minister will be determined by the way the minister handles his home (Genesis 18:17-19). If people have the chance to see your private family life, how you treat your wife and children, would they be comfortable to commit their family to your care?

Is your wife happy with you? Look at the incredible synergy of Aquila and his wife, Priscila (Acts 18:26; Romans 16:3-4).

Are your children proud of you? Have you raised them in the way of the Lord? Isaiah 61:9 says, “And their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people: all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the LORD hath blessed”.

Have you raised them to be examples of the believer (1 Timothy 4:12)?

Some examples in the Bible – Shallum (Nehemiah 3:12).

Philip (Acts 21:9).

Noah – Consider Noah's family coordination before the flood. How he, his wife and children laboured together joyfully to build the Ark and how they lived together in confinement for over a year without quarrelling.

But on the other hand are people like Eli and Sceva. Is it not a shame that the sons of a priest were called sons of Belial? (1 Samuel 2:12). Is it not an embarrassment to heaven that the sons of the chief of the priests should be addressed as vagabonds? (Acts 19:13-14).

Your communal or public life.

“When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” (Matthew 16:13).

From the words of Jesus, we understand that what people think of you is important. It is not about living to please people; it is about representing God properly to the public.

Isaiah 61:6 – “But ye shall be named the Priests of the LORD: men shall call you the Ministers of our God”. God is interested in what men call you.

Father’s Business Summit Series, November 2026 Life Teaching Ministry Worldwide Inc, Tel: 234 803 714 9105. Email: revoluwamuyiwa@gmail.com

Timothy was well reported of by the brethren, so much so that Paul was willing to do what he would normally not do, just to have Timothy on his ministry entourage (Acts 16:1-3).

Ananias was described as a devout man according to the law of God who had a good report of all the Jews which dwelt in Damascus (Acts 22:12).

1 Timothy 3:7 says the minister “must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil”.

Think of Daniel. Even his enemies who were his colleagues at work testified that he was a faithful man and that there was no error or fault found in him (Daniel 6:4).

Jesus had a private life that was above reproach. Remember he had worked as a carpenter, perhaps for the first thirty years of His life. No one came to make trouble with Him over an undelivered furniture.

The bottom line is that people are watching and they see us more than we know.

What should we do to enrich our private life?

1. Surrender fully unto God (Romans 12:1-2). Fresh consecration is always the beginning of every change and advancement in God.

2. Keep your eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-3). He has invited us to learn of Him (Matthew 11:29). As we learn from Him, we shall also be able to draw strength to be like Him.

3. Understand that you are Christ’s ambassador and live as God’s representative everywhere, every time (2 Corinthians 5:20). It is not only on the pulpit that you represent God.

4. Understand that you are God’s pride in the face of Satan and live your private life without reproach (Job 1:8). You must never give room for the accuser of the brethren to have anything to say about you. Jesus said, “the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30).

5. Walk in love - toward God and man. 1 Corinthians 13 tells us so much about love. But let us look at Romans 13:8-10.

6. Apply faith to your private life. Faith is not only for public ministry. We are also to live every aspect of our lives by faith (Habakkuk 2:4; Hebrews 10:38). If you have faith to heal the sick, you can use the same faith to order your family life. If you can confess your way to breakthrough in the ministry, you can also confess your way out of anger with your wife.

7. Keep yourself under perpetual divine scrutiny. We are encouraged to examine ourselves (2 Corinthians 13:5). Like David, we must constantly come before God and ask Him to search us (Psalms 139:23-24). We must be honest with ourselves, humble enough to accept the result of that spiritual evaluation, regardless of who God uses to conduct it, and courageous enough to make the necessary changes.

Conclusion:

God does not like hypocrisy. We must keep striving until our public or pulpit life becomes a mirror or an extension of our private life.