Pastors and Prayer

Pastors and Prayer

by | Aug 7, 2009 | Featured Articles, Pastoral Ministry, Prayer

While away on a personal planning retreat, I re-read some sections from John Piper’s excellent book Brothers, We Are Not Professionals. I cannot begin to express how convicted I am over the chapters I read, particularly his comments on prayer: From chapter 8: “Brothers, Let Us Pray” 53 – He ordains to fulfill His plans by being asked to do so by us. God loves to bless His people. But even more He loves to do it in answer to prayer. 54 – A pastor who feels competent in himself to produce eternal fruit – which is the only kind that matters – knows neither God nor himself. A pastor who does not know the rhythm of desperation and deliverance must have his sights only on what man can achieve. But brothers, the proper goals of the life of a pastor are unquestionably beyond our reach. The changes we long for in the he arts of our people can happen only by a sovereign work of grace. 55 – The essence of the Christian ministry is that its success is not within our reach. A cry for help from the heart of a childlike pastor is sweet praise in the ears of God. Nothing exalts Him more than the collapse of self-reliance which issues in passionate prayer for help. 56 – The reason so few conversions are happening through my church is not because we lack a program or staff. It is because we do not love the lost and yearn for their salvation the way we should. And the reason we do not love them as we ought...

Prayer for the Lord’s Day

by | Nov 23, 2008 | Prayer

I found this an encouraging petition for this Lord’s Day: We rejoice in another Lord’s Day when we call off our minds from the cares of the world and attend upon thee without distraction; Let our retirement be devout, our conversation edifying, our reading pious, our hearing profitable, that our souls may be quickened and elevated. We are going to the house of prayer, pour upon us the spirit of grace and supplication; We are going to the house of praise, awaken in us every grateful and cheerful emotion; We are going to the house of instruction, give testimony to the Word preached, and glorify it in the hearts of all who hear; may it enlighten the ignorant, awaken the careless, reclaim the wandering, establish the weak, comfort the feeble-minded, make ready a people for their Lord. From “First Day Morning: Worship” in The Valley of...

Rightly Receiving Reproof

by | May 19, 2008 | Prayer

A prayer for this week: Teach me how to take reproofs from friends, even though I think I do not deserve them; Use them to make me tenderly afraid of sin, more jealous over myself, more concerned to keep heart and life unblamable. Give me such vivacity in religion, that I may be able to take all reproofs from other men as from thy hands, and glorify thee for them from a sense of thy beneficent love and of my need to have my pride destroyed. From The Valley of Vision, “Reproofs.” Being a pastor who is regularly saturated in pride and self-protection, I needed to hear, pray and prepare my heart for a faith-filled willingness to hear from others (saved or not) what I need to hear that will humble me and be used of the Spirit to sanctify me. Whether a look from my wife that says she can see what is in my heart, or comments this morning from my brother pastors who will graciously but fervently critique my poor preaching, or the pastoral interns who are learning from me but teaching me more than I am they – or the many unanticipated encounters of reproof that God knows I need this week. I do pray I will “be able to take all reproofs from other men as from thy...