Four Reminders of My Pastoral Ministry [How I Pray & Counsel My Own Soul]

Four Reminders of My Pastoral Ministry. 

Geoffrey R. Kirkland,  Christ Fellowship Bible Church 

1. The motive - know Christ & preach Him
The motive of my heart consists in knowing Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Paul said: I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This passion consumed Paul. His heart throbbed with the glory of God and the knowledge of Christ. He pursued the Lord intimately and lived for God fully. The driving force and the compelling purpose of the life of a shepherd must be to know Christ and make Him known to others. Nothing less will keep a man going strong. The ultimate motive must continually consist in a relentless, unshakeable, and deepening knowledge and love for Jesus Christ. 

2. The mission  - to preach the WORD (full counsel)
My mission, given by God and clarified by Scripture, demands that I preach the Word of God. I am called to herald forth God’s Truth. To herald means that I cry out passionately, clearly, urgently and precisely what the King has ordered me to declare. What I preach must be nothing other than the written Word of God, the Scriptures. I must preach the Bible. Paul declared the whole counsel of God to believers and the Bible calls all shepherds to preach the Word — all the Scriptures that make us wise unto salvation. All the doctrines must be preached. All the texts must be expounded. All the truths must be affirmed. The exegetical nuances and theological points must be known and proclaimed faithfully. My duty compels me to study intensely, to pray desperately, to craft the message carefully, to ascend the pulpit soberly, to exposit passionately, and then to trust God for results. 

3. The mechanics  to my ministry - to hold on to these 4 non-negotiables

1. preach - my foremost duty is to preach and expound the Word of God to feed the people of God with divine Truth. 
2. pray - that which makes my ministry, my preaching, my shepherding, my counseling effective is the almighty power of the Holy Spirit. So I must pray for power, intercede for the flock, care for the sick and weak and plead for lost souls to be converted. 
3. pastor - I love the calling to ’shepherd the flock of God’. I must love God’s people as a faithful under shepherd pointing them to Christ and emulating Christ before the people of God. 
4. stay - When ministry becomes so difficult and hardships arise and the temptation is to leave and move to another place of ministry, I must, by God’s grace and with biblical wisdom, seek to be faithful to serve and care for God’s people in this local assembly for the long haul. I do this because I love the people with genuine affection to see them know Christ, persevere with Christ, run the course, and finish well. 

4. The majesty - the high calling: ambassador, herald.

Awesome is the privilege to serve as a herald of Heaven’s Sovereign. Nothing can compare. The King of heaven has summoned me to partake of ministry together with Him to serve Him so that He makes his appeal to sinners through my lips. As Paul said: we are working together with God — and so we urge sinners to not receive the grace of God in vain. No greater calling ever existed than to serve the Lord as a spokesman, a prophet, a declarer, a herald, a messenger for the Lord. The calling is quite simple, really. I must take His message and deliver it the way He intended it to be communicated with the same force, sobriety, emphasis, balance, and authority to the hearers. When the word has been spoken, the work of the preacher is done. He leaves the results to God. So my high calling has seized my soul and has captured me with sovereign arms of love and driven me to prayer, to desperation, to humiliation, and to praise for such a calling to be the mouthpiece of the Lord.