Our people need to sit beneath the shadow of a godly pastor.
“So that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them” (Acts 5.15 ESV).
Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843),
I was preaching at a conference some time ago when I heard something
that gripped me and gave me a vision for the kind of pastors I pray God
will grow in our seminary. The church where the conference was being
conducted was without a pastor. The pulpit was “empty” as we say. The
elders talked with me about the kind of pastor they wanted. They asked
me to seek such a candidate for them in my various contacts. As the
leaders discussed among themselves the kind of minister they should pray
for and seek, one of the elders warned the others:
“Just remember: the man that comes here will influence your wives and sons and daughters, your grandchildren, and in fact this entire community for years and years to come.”
And it was then that I thought, “That is what we really do at our
seminary. We prepare and hope to send out pastors, and other Christian
leaders, but especially preachers of the Gospel. They go out and are
called and preach the Word of the Lord in a certain place; to a certain
people; and in a certain period. And between the place, the people, and
for a period, the life of the pastor—not just his sermons, mind you—but
his entire life, leaves an impression that changes generations of human
beings long after he is gone.”
In the days of the Apostles, we are told that people brought their
loved ones to get near even the shadow of Peter. The anointing of one
preacher was so powerful that even his shadow was enough to bring
transformation. Such is the power of a godly preacher. Continue at Michael Milton
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