Life Here and There

I love being a Pastor. I’m passionate about preaching. I am humbled that God has called me to shepherd a flock of His choosing. And I especially love the fuel that fires me up – the Word of God and what it has to say about whom I am.

One of my favorite passages on the subject is Paul’s gut-wrenching goodbye to the Epehsian elders who met him at the island port city of Miletus. It’s recorded in Acts 20:17-38. I’ve been reading it afresh today and have discovered a pattern of ministry I hadn’t spotted before…

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In Acts 18:24-28, we get introduced to this slightly little-known hero of the New Testament, Apollos. A long time ago, I decided Apollos was the kind of guy I really wish I could hang around for a while. He kind of symbolizes every God-called communicator in that he had the raw materials and a calling from God, but needed some shaping.

He needed to know Christ, to whom Paul gladly introduced him. He also needed to understand the New Testament fulfillment of all that he knew of the Old Testament, which was a lot. But look at the raw materials that made Apollos great…

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I have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I’m saved and secure. I’m on my way to heaven someday. But I still live here and I know that my purpose is to glorify Jesus Christ in all of the life that I have left. But how?

A common plight Christians suffer is this wrestling between getting ready to do something, and doing it now. When I surrendered to God’s calling on my life to ministry, I wrestled – do I spend some years in school, doing little and learning much, or do I get involved, doing much but perhaps learning little. I’ve heard it preached both ways. You have too, and it’s confusing, isn’t it?

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Message Based on The Life of Paul, Acts 9

Change is a tough word. It’s all around us in technology, nature, and culture. Yet I think we fail to understand the most powerful change of all which happens in a human soul that meets and trusts Jesus.

Paul had things going for him quite well. He had ascended to power and prestige. He had the authority of the Roman government to go and arrest Christians for treason and heresy, but Jesus confronted him.

The four things God did in Paul’s life, He does in ours as well…

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