A few months ago, a well-known and deeply respected pastor, author, and teacher posted a heartbreaking confession on his social media:
“It is with a shattered heart that I write this letter. I have sinned grievously against the Lord, against my wife, my family, and against countless numbers of you by having a sinful relationship with a woman not my wife.”
“I am deeply broken that I have betrayed and deceived my wife, devastated my children, brought shame to the name of Christ, reproach upon His church, and harm to many ministries.”
Sadly, this wasn’t an isolated case. Every generation of believers has seen once-trusted spiritual leaders fall—pastors, mentors, ministry heads—bringing heartbreak, confusion, and sometimes even the loss of faith to the body of Christ. Whether through sexual misconduct, financial scandal, narcissistic leadership, or spiritual abuse, these failures ripple through communities with devastating effect. The problem is so severe several states, such as Texas, have enacted laws criminalizing sexual misconduct by clergy, which can include “any sexualized behavior (verbal or physical) on the part of a religious leader toward a person under his or her spiritual care.”
So we’re left asking: How does this keep happening?
Some might respond—“That could never be me.”
But a wiser response is more profound: Could this happen to me? What resides in the deep recesses of my own heart that might lead to self-sabotage? Why do so many who love God still find themselves trapped in sin, stuck in shame, and repeating patterns they long to break? Is true heart transformation truly possible?
These are painful, courageous questions. Answering them begins with recognizing a deeper issue beneath our behaviors: the ruling passions of our hearts.
What Drives Us?
Many believers gauge their spiritual health by superficial signs: consistent prayer, Bible reading, church involvement, or theological knowledge. These are all good things—but they don’t necessarily reflect the true condition of the heart.
Over years of counseling ministry leaders, reflecting on public failures, and examining my own weaknesses and sinful tendencies, I’ve come to believe that spiritual health is more accurately measured by what truly rules our inner life—our “ruling passions.”
A ruling passion is a deep, sometimes unconscious desire that governs your decisions, shapes your responses, and fuels your pursuits. It may be a hunger for affirmation, success, safety, comfort, control, respect, or belonging. Often, these desires aren’t inherently wrong. But when they become ultimate—more important than obeying or loving God and others—they become functional idols.
The Real Battle Within
Most Christian leaders believe they are most passionate about Christ and His lordship. But if you peel back the layers, what often drives their decisions is something else entirely:
- “I will be liked.”
- “I will be in control.”
- “I will avoid pain.”
- “I will be admired.”
- “I will make an impact.”
- “I will be respected”
- “I will be unique.”
These inner vows—which often develop early in life through painful or pleasurable experiences—guide thousands of our daily choices. They also foundational to developing “meta-narratives” for our lives. And when these ruling passions take the throne of our hearts, they quietly dethrone Jesus—no matter what our mouths may say.
Timothy Keller put it this way:
“Sin isn’t only doing bad things—it is more fundamentally making good things into ultimate things.”
That’s the essence of idolatry: not always loving the wrong things but loving good things too much—more than God. When we build our lives around anything other than Christ, even ministry itself, we walk the path of self-destruction.
A Biblical Case Study: Peter
Consider the Apostle Peter. Few people had a more impressive spiritual resume—personally called by Jesus, one of the three disciples closest to Jesus and a leader among the disciples, a powerful preacher at Pentecost, a miracle worker, even given direct revelation from God instructing him not to discriminate against Gentile believers (Acts 10). Yet in Galatians 2, Peter compromises his integrity and the gospel itself by withdrawing from Gentile believers out of fear.
Why? Because his ruling passion—self-protection—overpowered his calling.
Despite all his spiritual experiences and knowledge, Peter’s fear of judgment led him to sin against the Gentile believers, offending them deeply, creating deep division, and betraying the very gospel he preached. His abject failure shows that even the most devoted can fall when their passions are not fully surrendered to the lordship of Christ.
What Rules Your Heart?
So let’s bring it home:
- What are you most passionate about—really?
- Where is there a gap between what you say you believe and what actually drives your choices?
- Are your longings for affirmation, power, impact, connection, security, or control quietly steering your life—even your ministry?
We may tell ourselves we’re building a church to serve the community, but deep down, we might just be chasing approval or admiration. We may say we’re training leaders for God’s kingdom, but we might be driven by a need to feel powerful or indispensable. We may say we are committed to the gospel, but we might be driven by a ruling passion to get relief from loneliness. Even our best intentions can become idols when they replace the centrality of Christ in our affections.
The Path to Transformation
Our hearts are battlegrounds of competing passions. The solution isn’t to suppress our desires but to reorder and redeem them. That begins with surrender.
God calls us to live coram Deo—before his face, fully exposed and fully loved. He invites us to name our ruling passions, bring them into the light, and place them under Christ’s loving lordship. This is not a one-time event, but a daily process of yielding and realigning our hearts.
We must learn to live as Jesus lived—with a heart fully submitted to the Father. Jesus’s ruling passion was obedience to God’s will and love for us. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, not for self-preservation or power, but for the glory of God and the redemption of our wayward hearts.
Our One True Passion
Ultimately, the only way to overcome this perennial problem of failing and falling is to make Jesus our ruling passion.
Let your deepest desire be to know him, love him, and reflect him. As we grow in awareness of our internal idols, let us respond not with shame, but with grace-fueled honesty and humble surrender. Surround yourself with a community that will lovingly hold you accountable and point you back to Christ.
When Jesus rules our hearts—above every longing for acceptance, success, impact, approval, or control—then we will walk in true freedom. We may passionately pursue many things in life, but if Christ is not our main pursuit, we will always be vulnerable to failure.
But when he is at the center of our lives, we will stand. Not perfectly. Not without struggle. But with hearts increasingly shaped by his love, and lives that reflect his glory.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” —Luke 10:27
Let that be your ruling passion.
The Spiritually Healthy Leader
Most ministry leaders don’t usually implode from outside pressures; rather, they are most often incapacitated from their inner struggles. Dave Wiedis, the Founder of ServingLeaders Ministries, helps pastors, counselors, and teachers uncover what is functionally most important to them, understand how their core commitments or “ruling passions” can hijack their lives, marriages, and ministries, and gently guides them to grow in their passion for God.
