The Shadow of a Godly Pastor: Oh How We Need An Anointed Ministry Today!

Our people need to sit beneath the shadow of a godly pastor.

Robert Murray M’Cheyne (1813-1843),

“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).   

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

Happy New Year 2012!!!

New Year’s Message from Mr. Spurgeon

BELOVED FRIENDS,

The season invites to renewal of spiritual life. It suggests freshness and awakening. As there was of old a time when kings went forth to battle, so are there periods when to gird up our loins anew is the order of the day. The furnishing of the armor, and the sharpening of the sword, are the duties now incumbent. Let the year of grace, 1870, be to us all a year of greater consecration, and more incessantly indefatigable effort for the great cause and kingdom of the Lord Jesus. To achieve this it will be most helpful to begin the year well, and to do this there must he holy resolve, and a settling of the whole soul to the work.

Being debarred from serving the Lord by my own public ministry, it has been laid upon my heart to endeavor to stir up my brother ministers to use increased diligence while they are permitted the great pleasure and privilege of preaching the word. It is a hard trial to be laid aside, and harder still if the heart he pierced with regrets for opportunities unimproved when health was in possession. That you may never know such poignant sorrows is my earnest wish, and to help in that end I ask leave to address a few words to you. I pray that every syllable I write may be approved of God, and may be by the Holy Ghost rendered serviceable to you.

It has struck me painfully, that for some little time a somewhat listless spirit has fallen upon many of the churches, and perhaps upon the ministers. A short time ago we heard more of special services, revival meetings, and aggressive efforts upon the world than we do at present; perhaps these may still be in full and vigorous operation among your people, but in many places it is not so; the pace of holy work has slackened, and the church is falling back into that dreary routine which is easily reached and is so hard to escape. Nothing is more dreadful than stagnation, even heresy is not more deadly in its consequences. Sleep at the hour of battle would prove as disastrous to an army as the most deadly artillery. The spiritual morphia with which some churches appear to be drugged and drenched is for all practical purposes as injurious as the poison of infidelity. A church whose religion is mechanical and whose zeal is non-existent may soon become a nuisance but is never a blessing.  Continue Reading >>>

M’Cheyne Daily Bread Instruction

Emmanuel: a New Year’s Devotional

Why New Year’s Resolutions Don't Work

 

 

The Personal Cure for Pride

Let these four phrases be the heartbeat of our ministries (and our lives):

1. I am a sinner (1 Tim. 1:15)

• Remember what I was (think on the sins you’ve been delivered from)
• Remember what I could be now (if God had not stopped you)
• Remember what I still am (research your own heart)
• Remember what I could yet be (if God removed His restraining grace)

Follow the example of godly me from the past who turned the devil’s deadly weapon of pride back upon himself by using it to keep them humble.

Robert M. McCheyne: “Oh, for true unfeigned humility; I know not how to be truly humble. I know I have cause to be humble, but I do not know one half of that cause; I know I am proud, and yet I do Not know half of my pride.”

J. Edwards: (twenty years after his conversion) “I abhor the bottomless, infinite depths of wickedness and pride left in my own heart.”

Richard Baxter: “Pride not only goes with me into the study, but often chooses my very subject and sometimes my very words. Pride writes my sermon, pride goes with me to the pulpit; it forms my tone and animates my delivery. It takes me off of that which may be displeasing to the people and sets me in pursuit of vain applause from my hearers. And when I have preached, pride goes home with me and causes me to eagerly seek for sings that I am applauded, rather than signs that my message was useful in the saving of souls.” Keep Reading>>>