Ministers - Get Your Priorities Right!

When a minister is very tired, his work can be the means of stirring up their soul. For me, there were three activities – writing the updates on my wife's condition, preparing the conference paper for the Amyraldian Association Annual Conference 2013, and the sermon for the following Sunday morning. What a profound joy it is to dwell in the presence of God! What an indescribable privilege it is to enter into communion with the living and true God. Oh, how many God-given years I’ve squandered instead of seeking deep personal communion with God. How seldom I had as a priority to seek to meet with God. God had called me and set me apart to the Christian ministry and to the Gospel. This requires a man to live close to Christ, and forsaking every other occupation.   

While I sought to have this as a priority, far too much of my time was taken up with nonsense, with dealing with trivialities, with denominational responsibilities that did nothing to forward the Kingdom of God. It almost seems that the purpose of the church is to keep ministers off their knees before God. Sadly, all too many ministers just adore being on this church committee and that committee. They covet being ‘big men’ within their own church structures. They love the position, the power, and the prestige being a minister gives.  

These men (and now, women!) have to concentrate upon being good churchmen rather than being Gospel men. Being a good churchman in any denomination is the greatest safeguard against being thrown out of the church, because for these men the priority is to keep the church before their eyes, knowing only too well that if they become Gospel men first and foremost, they are in great danger of being removed from the Christian ministry.  

God has mercifully delivered me from all that, and has brought both my wife and me into “a closer walk with God.” If Christians and ministers are not entering into such a closer walk with the Lord, they are very ineffective witnesses to Christ. Oh, to be assured in our hearts that God really does love us, even us. To be assured that we really are the adopted children of God is beyond price.  

How true it is to be a Christian than a minister. Why? Because a minister can go to hell, but a Christian never.

My dear praying friends, strive for this above all else. Strive to be conformed to the image of Christ. Strive to be more and more like Christ. Stay close to the Saviour Who died to take away your sins and the sins of the whole world. Abandon yourself to our beautiful Saviour. See in Him the altogether lovely One, and give yourself to Him completely.