To me there is nothing more terrible for a preacher than to be in the pulpit alone, without the conscious smile of God.
D. Martin Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981)
HT: @preachingtoday
Tag Archives: Ministry
Don’t Stop Leading
Spiritual leaders who quit loving quit leading.
Reggie McNeal, A Work of Heart (San Francisco: Jossei-Bass, 2011), 126.
The Fear in Leadership
Leadership is about fearing God more than others do. Leadership is about revering God’s name. Leadership is not about taking pleasure in who God is and what He is like. Leadership is about making the chief end of your life helping, instructing, and challenging others to revere and delight in God’s name as well.
Mark Dever, The Message of the Old Testament (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006), 437.
The Only Way To Convince a Critical World
Many people who go to church have a withered hand, i.e., they do only half the work they should; they work with one hand only, they are working on only half their possible power. They are people self-handicapped. There are others who see with one eye only, and others who fly on one wing. It is that sort of thing which accounts largely for the church’s in effectiveness. Only fullness of life in sacrificial service will convince a critical world.
W. Graham Scroggie in Wilbur M. Smith, Peloubet’s Select Notes on the International Sunday School Lessons: 1938 (Boston: W. A. Wilde Co., 1937), 63.
Doing Great Things, but for Whose Sake?
Self likes to do great things; but grace teaches us to do little things with a great spirit — that is, for the Lord’s sake.
HT: Miscellanies
Preacher, What Are You Preaching (Part 2)
It is your duty to believe and to teach what the Bible teaches, not what you want it to teach.
HT: Challies.com
The Reason I Get up in the Morning
No matter what is or isn’t working in my ministry, no matter what difficulties or battles I am facing, the expansive glory of God gives me reason to get up in the morning and do what I have been gifted and called to do with enthusiasm, courage, and confidence. My joy isn’t handcuffed to the surrounding circumstances or relationships; I don’t have to have my heart yanked wherever they go. I have reason for joy because I am a chosen child and a conscripted servant of the King of kings and Lord of lords, the great Creator, the Savior, the sovereign, the victor, the one who does reign and will reign forever. He is my Father, my Savior, and my boss. He is ever near and ever faithful. My passion for ministry is not about how I am being received; it flows out of the reality that I have been received by him. My enthusiasm is not because people like me, but because he has accepted and sent me. My passion is not the result of my ministry being as glorious as I thought it could be, but because he is eternally and unchangeably glorious. So, I preach, teach, counsel, lead, and serve with a gospel passion that inspires and ignites the same in the people around me.
Paul David Tripp, Dangerous Calling (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 122-123.
When a Leader Forgets His Own Sinfulness
A true leader is not so much aware of the talents or gifts he has that others do not have as he is of the fact that he is as weak and as capable of sin as anyone. It is when leaders forget their sinfulness that they fall into sin and lose their ability to lead.
Preacher, What Are You Preaching?
The preacher should not enter his pulpit claiming to have received a revelation; his claim should be that he is a man who reads the Word and prays and believers that the Holy Spirit illumines and enlightens his understanding, with the result that he has a message for the people.
John Newton’s Word to Pastors
Our work is great; our time is short; the consequences of our labors are infinite.
HT: Miscellanies
Life Is Worship 