From the Paul and Timothy Blog. #4 hits very close to home. I wonder if the reason that I haven’t found any opportunities to pastor / be discipled to the pastorate is because I’m not actually called to pastor. Once we have found a new church home, I am looking forward to actively seeking the input of more mature men in the ministry for their input and direction.

1. You don’t like the work a pastor does.

If you don’t like the idea of spending long hours of solitude reading books, working in study on your sermons, and spending copious amounts of time in prayer for your flock and your own heart, then this may be the first sign you aren’t cut out for the pastorate (at least of the preaching/teaching variety.) there are other types of pastors who are required to spend long hours in visitation with others, especially in homes and hospitals. these pastors are also required to spend much time in counseling sessions and prayer. if neither of these sound much like you, you may have some second-guessing to do. Needless to say, if your idea of a great work day is spending time outside in the sunshine working with your hands, you’re going to have a hard time reconciling that with pastoral ministry.

2. You have a lofty idea of what a pastor is.

Many believe that to be a pastor is to be in this exalted position which everyone looks up to. You have the respect and admiration of your people, and you really know God more than anyone else. You have all of your spiritual problems worked out, and your life is pretty great. You also get paid really well which makes most of your other problems go away. None of these things are true. Pastors have to constantly search their own heart and battle internal pride, and other minor sins which may trickle down to their flock. They will always have their detractors in the church, and their family may be treated differently (or even ostracized) because of their relationship to their husband and father.

Pastors certainly don’t get a free pass to heaven either. Many pastors will be among the people crying out to God “Lord, Lord, did i not do many miracles in your name? Did i not preach many wonderful sermons for your kingdom?!?” They must guard their hearts more than any other in the church. The book of James tells us that teachers willl be subject to a stricter judgement.

3. God has given you tremendous talents which can be used elsewhere in the body.

Many feel as though they should ignore some of their other incredible talents and abilities so that they can become a pastor. I think they feel like being a pastor or a missionary are the only 2 ways to serve God. nothing could be further from the truth! God has given us these unique talents and abilities so that we could go out and be salt and light in the world for him. if you have the desire and talent to do carpentry for a living, then you should do that to the glory of God! you can reach your co-workers and your clients for Christ in that setting! let others see what it looks like for a Christian to put his hand to “the plow” and produce! let them see that for a Christian, work is more than just work, it’s a calling! we serve an Almighty King with our hands, so let us do what he has equipped us to do!

4. God has not opened any doors for you to become a pastor.

If you haven’t been told “you should be a pastor,” or “you should really think about preaching for a living,” then there is a good chance that God is not encouraging you in that way. God gives us gentle help in the direction He wants us to go. If you can’t afford pastoral training, or it has not been offered to you, God MAY not be calling you into the pastorate. If you have a family, and cannot afford to provide for them while you train to become a pastor, then God is probably not leading you in that way.

I will add a disclaimer to this section. In order for you to know whether or not God is opening any doors to the pastorate, YOU NEED TO LOOK. if it is the desire of your heart to be a pastor, and you feel like you have the gifting, but you cannot find a way to make it happen fiscally or otherwise, i would encourage you to pray and seek God. Often it takes years of pleading and seeking for God to open doors and answer prayers. don’t be discouraged from becoming a pastor just because you can’t go to seminary or get an apprenticeship this year. God may be calling you to a few more trials and tribulations, or a few more years of experience, before he opens those doors.

5. The motivations of your heart are wrong.

I’ve saved this one for last because it is the most serious of all. It may also be the most difficult to discern. Our hearts, though being sanctified, are often still deceitful. We must search long and deep to understand what is motivating us to become a pastor. If you think you may desire to become a pastor for the following reasons, you need to reconsider your motives, and beg God for the grace to overcome and dispel these motives:

1. you want the admiration of the people at your church

2. you want to be seen as holy

3. you think it will get you closer to God

4. you don’t know what else to do with your life

5. you think it will be an easy paycheck

6. you have a lot to teach people

Challenging article from John Piper, writing at Desiring God.

There is such a thing as unconditional love in God, but it’s not what most people mean by it.

• It’s not a saving love that he has for everybody. Else everybody would be saved, since they would not have to meet any conditions, not even faith. But Jesus said everybody is not saved (Matthew 25:46).
• It’s not the love that justifies sinners since the Bible says we are justified by faith, and faith is a condition (Romans 5:1).
• It’s not the love of working all things together for our good because Paul says that happens “to those who love God” (Romans 8:28).
• It’s not the love of the most intimate fellowship with the Father because Jesus said, “He who loves me will be loved by my Father” (John 14:21). And James said, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8).
• It’s not the love that will admit us into heaven when we die because John says, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). And faithfulness is a condition.

How then does God love unconditionally? Two ways (at least):

1. He loves us with electing love unconditionally. “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world . . . for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 1:4-5).He does not base this election on foreseeing our faith. On the contrary, our faith is the result of being chosen and appointed to believe, as Acts 13:48 says, “As many as were appointed to eternal life believed.”
2. He loves us with regenerating love before we meet any condition. The new birth is not God’s response to our meeting the condition of faith. On the contrary, the new birth enables us to believe.”Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been [already!] born of God,” (1John 5:1). “[We] were born, not . . . of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

Let us pray that thousands of people who speak of the unconditional love of God would discover the biblical meaning of what they say. If that happened many would find their feet on solid ground.

 

From John Piper writing at Desiring God

In this age, even the greatest, strongest saints experience deep darkness. None of us are spared sorrow or satanic oppression. Most of us suffer agonizing affliction at some point. Most of us will experience seasons when we feel as if we’ve been abandoned. Most of us will die hard deaths.

The Savior does not break the bruised reed. He hears our pleas for help and is patient with our doubts. He does not condemn us. He has paid completely for any sin that is exposed in our pain.

He does not always answer with the speed we desire, nor is his answer always the deliverance we hope for. But he will always send the help that is needed. His grace will always be sufficient for those who trust him. The hope we taste in the promises we trust will often be the sweetest thing we experience in this age. And his reward will be beyond our imagination.

In John’s darkness and pain Jesus sent a promise to sustain John’s faith. He will do the same for you.

From Mark Driscoll, writing at TheResurgence.com

Fasting

Fasting is the voluntary act of abstaining from something for the purpose of growing in self-discipline, which is the essence of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Perhaps the most common form of fasting is from food. This is because, as Paul says, for some people their stomach is their god. By fasting from food, they are learning to enjoy food as a gift from God without allowing it to become an idolatrous functional god that controls them.

Good Things Become Idols

However, there are seemingly innumerable other things that, though they are good, can become bad when they rule over us in a way that only God should. Modern examples include fasting from the internet, email, or cell phone for a period of time if you find yourself compulsively spending too much of your time and energy checking websites, emails, phone calls, and voicemails.

This point was painfully illustrated to me at a recent dinner out with my children. My wife, Grace, was teaching at a women’s event, and so I took the kids to a restaurant. Sitting around us were many other families like us, with one exception. Every single father was either talking on the phone or responding to emails on his BlackBerry throughout the meal, not connecting with his children in any way. Sadly, rather than visiting with their kids and having some fun, these daddies allowed their technological gods to rule over them. Their gods required the sacrificing of their own children, not unlike Molech in the Old Testament.

When You Fast

Jesus Himself exemplified the discipline of fasting for us in His own earthly life. One of the most well-known examples is Jesus’ forty days of fasting in Matthew 4:1–11. When Jesus spoke to His disciples about fasting, He said, “when you fast,” as if it was simply expected to be done (Matthew 6:16–17). As an aside, anyone wanting to practice an extended period of fasting would be wise to first speak with their doctor about how to do so safely.

Other Scriptures also include reports of fasting. In Nehemiah 9:1, we are told that the entire nation of Israel fasted. Esther 4:16 likewise records a national three-day fast. In the New Testament, Acts 13:2 reports that a leadership decision regarding who should be sent out from the church at Antioch to plant another church was made after a period of seeking the Lord through fasting and worship. Acts 14:23 reveals that upon appointing new elders for some churches, Paul and Barnabas commissioned the new pastors with prayer and fasting.

From Kevin DeYoung, author of Why We’re Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be

When I say am I am Reformed I mean:

I marvel at God’s holiness, that he is independent, pure, good, and utterly beyond me.

I glory in God’s goodness, that he should save a wretch like me, totally undeserving, bent toward evil in all my faculties.

I rejoice in God’s sovereignty, that he chose to save me for the praise of his glory, not owing to anything I did or would do or any potential in me.

I find my hope in the second Adam who gives me life and imputed blessing triumphing over the first Adam’s imputed death and curse.

I am grateful for God’s power by which he caused me, without my cooperation, to be born again and enabled me to believe his promises.

I take comfort in God’s all-encompassing providence, that nothing happens to me by chance, but all things–prosperity or poverty, health or sickness, giving or taking away–are sent to me by my loving heavenly Father.

I praise God for his mercy, shown to me chiefly on the cross where his Son died, not just to make a way for me to come to him, but died effectually in my place such that my sins, my guilt, and my punishment all died in the death of Christ.

I find assurance in God’s preserving grace believing with all my might that nothing–not even myself–can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord which he began in me and will see through to completion.

I rest secure in God’s covenant love, depicted in both the Old and the New Testament, showing me the incomparable blessings of knowing that the Lord is my God and I am his beloved son, that God is a God to me and my children after me.

I stand amazed in the justifying grace of God whereby I am acquitted of all my sins and clothed with new garments in the presence of my King and Judge, not because of anything I have done but only because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in which I trust.

I delight in the glory of God and in God’s delight for his own glory which brings me, on my best days, unspeakable joy, and on all my other days, still gives purpose and order to an otherwise confusing and seemingly random world.

I cherish the word of God because it is all true, because I Christ in it, and because its rules and precepts are for my good,

I rely on the power of the Holy Spirit to illumine my mind, convict me of sin, and make me holy as God is holy.

When I say I am Reformed I mean that God is the center of the universe and I am not. I mean that I am a worse sinner than I imagine and God is a greater Savior than I ever thought possible. I mean that Lord is my righteousness and the Lord alone is my boast. By Reformed I mean all this and most of all that my only comfort in life and in death is that I am not my own but belong, in body and in soul, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen.

Magnifying God: The Legacy of John Calvin in the 21st Century

Looking forward to it, but the weather may not comply. We’re expecting 5-8 inches of snow tomorrow, so I should make the trip fine tonight, but trekking back up there tomorrow may be sketchy. I’d hate to miss the second day of the conference, but I don’t want to get stuck in East Lansing

Another great post by Jody Fox

So then baptism by immersion is a beautiful picture of Christ redeeming us from the wrath of God unto eternal life. It’s a proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a call for all to believe by faith in the substitutionary death, burial and resurrection of Christ and submit to His Lordship so that they may be resurrected into eternal life with Christ. Therefore we should rejoice in baptism, not with giddiness and jokes, but with humble joy and an overwhelming sense of the mercy and grace of Christ.

Finally, Baptism is for the church and is not an empty individualistic expression of faith. If Baptism is so clearly a proclamation of the Gospel of Christ, why would we dare take it from the church which is in desperate need of hearing the Gospel proclaimed. Baptism is then not something we do to experience some personal feeling or for personal worship. Baptism is Christ marking out through His church, men and women who are in Christ Jesus.

From these scriptures and many more, we must redeem such a glorious ordinance from an empty sign of self-glorification to an all surpassing glimpse of the glory of Jesus Christ and the redemption that He brings to all who call upon the name of the Lord.