The gift a pastor can best share is that which she or he has received from the Lord while in prayer and study of the Word. A life lived posing as a pastor, with the deep roots of connectedness with God is short-lived and hard challenged. We must have must much to share much.
With that in mind, and prompted by the dynamic message of the current movie, WarRoom, I started this morning, praying as I normally do, stopping to read in the Word, then praying what had come to me in my reading. I went to the "cream" of what I learned early on on how to find some epistles, "Go, Eat Peaches with Cream," which helps me distinguish Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, and here's what I learned (Yes, we keep learning, no matter our age):
Prayer is key to life. Anything attempted without prayer is starting something seeking failure. As we pray, like Paul, we should have a strong attitude of gratitude, for giving thanks and talking to God should be one and the same thing. God provides all, and as we receive all that we have, we give thanks to God.
Faith without thanks is like an empty grocery sack. One cannot come home to a hungry family and present them with a grocery sack and expect them to be happy nor fed by nothing.
Faith without love is like a bowl of cereal without milk. Sure, crunching something is better than nothing, but you know how much more those who enjoy cereal enjoy it with milk - in the same way, God loves for us to believe and live, with love for God, and for all people.
We should give thanks for the Word of truth that set us free from our sin; it is the Gospel's good news of freedom and fullness of life that we should share.
This key verse jumped out at me: Colossians 1:6b: "All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth."
Here's my Colossian prayer for today:
And I pray that I and all who pray this prayer, may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work (And let me not be idle, dear Lord!), growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. This I pray in Jesus' precious and powerful name, amen.
