Proclaimer Blog
Beautiful Christ in the ups and downs of ministry
Last week was a bit of a struggle in the PT office. We had moments of great joy, especially in planning for and thinking about the future, but also in seeing students grow and develop. We had moments of utter despair, particularly with government regulations, but other disappointments and sadnesses too. It's easy to be blown about by all these various trials and struggles; journeying to the top of the mountain, then falling down to the valley before the next peak of excitement hits.
I guess anybody in Christian ministry will feel this burden. It is Christian ministry. One moment the pastor is replying to criticisms about his last sermon and the next he gets an email in his box saying what a help the last message was. One moment his study is occupied by a struggling couple, the next he is reading the Bible with a future leader. One day he feels dry and weary in his walk with Christ; the next he finds prayer comes naturally and joyfully.
We're meant to feel some of this tension. We're not automaton Stepford pastors. We have to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Those ups and downs shape our ministry, focus our ministry and connect it to those God has given us. But we don't find our worth or value or joy in those moments. I've learn that last week.
We gather the staff to read briefly and pray each Monday and last Monday Robin shared a Flavel sermon he had read and found greatly helpful. Regular readers will know I'm a great Flavel fan (come on, a Puritan you can read and understand!!!). Here's a link to the sermon: Christ Altogether Lovely. (If you have the works, it's not in there, though there are plenty of other Flavel nuggets.) It's been a helpful corrective. Here's a taster:
Is Jesus Christ altogether lovely? Then I beseech you set your souls upon this lovely Jesus. I am sure such an object as has been here represented, would compel love from the coldest breast and hardest heart. Away with those empty nothings, away with this vain deceitful world, which deserves not the thousandth part of the love you give it. Let all stand aside and give way to Christ. O if only you knew his worth and excellency, what he is in himself, what he has done for you, and deserved from you, you would need no arguments of mine to persuade you to love him!
Esteem nothing lovely except as it is enjoyed in Christ, or used for the sake of Christ. Love nothing for itself, love nothing separate from Jesus Christ. In two things we all sin in love of created things. We sin in the excess of our affections, loving them above the proper value of mere created things. We also sin in the inordinacy of our affections, that is to say we give our love for created things a priority it should never have.
Let us all be humbled for the corruption of our hearts that are so eager in their affections for vanities and trifles and so hard to be persuaded to the love of Christ, who is altogether lovely.