The past few months, I’ve been spending a lot of time meditating on the essence of following Christ. The complexities of working with a tri-language, multi-cultural, but primarily one ethnicity church has sent my head reeling. Add to that a diversity and differences of Christian backgrounds within the congregation, and the sudden responsibility of being the sole full time pastoral worker at the church has begun to weigh heavily on my heart, soul and mind.
The longer i puzzled over these differences, the more my mind became muddled and befuddled.
And so I found myself, a bit like a teacher of the law striving to understand the complexities of teaching, leading and living, coming before Jesus and asking, “what is the most important thing?” Between, teaching, preaching, inspiring, guiding, praying, prophesying, evangelising, holiness, and social action – what is the most important thing? What is the law by which i should live?
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the first and great commandment.
A second likewise is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
It seems so simple, yet so complex. That at the end of the day, it boils down to loving God with my heart, my soul and mind. And loving my neighbour as myself. The entirety of Christian ministry and direction comes down to those two commandments. Life with Jesus opens the door to that love, and love of God and man begins with Jesus.
And though the daunting prospect and responsibility of serving the church in Birmingham remains, the fear of condemnation and failure begins to melt away as the focus turns again to the love of God. There is no greater joy than to love God, and in turn let that love pour out onto all around.
“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love.”
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The early church, of course, fell into the same quandary and came to effectively the same conclusion — though understood it in terms of prayer and the ministry of the word. Be encouraged my brother. See you soon!
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awesome stuff. looking forward to next year!!
Amen. To love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is better than all the sacrifices.
I was just talking to Dez (after ruptured his knee ligament) and mentioned how we are connected even though we live thousand of miles away. And I told him that I feel connected to you esp now that we are both full time pastors ^-^.
I could empathize with you about being a pastor. The past two years have been a roller coaster ride for me as I find out more about human nature and about things that I need to get right with God.
All you need is love ^-^ So true!
Love you my brother and keep up the good work!