Reminder from a Widow

August 31, 2026 Leave a comment

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I have often said, “No one gets more out of my sermons than me.” I don’t mean to sound prideful, but it’s the truth much of the time, and should be true all the time. After all, if I’m studying God’s Word, it should have an impact on me, right?

Then too, I’ve learned that the message I’m delivering to the congregation is most effective when it’s first preached to me. Not only is this the preferred practical outcome, but I also believe it’s the Lord’s plan that our sermons preach to us first. If the message is to strike a responsive chord in the hearts of the listeners, it should first ring true in the heart of the preacher.

In fact, in all areas of pastoral ministry, not just preaching, I’ve found it is in giving that I receive. I was reminded of this when reading the August 21 devotional in C.H. Spurgeon’s classic, Morning by Morning. Spurgeon wrote, “In order to get, we must give. To accumulate, we must scatter. To make ourselves happy, we must make others happy. To become spiritually strong, we must seek the spiritual good of others. In watering others, we are watered ourselves.”

Even in our pastoral care we are blessed by attempting to be a blessing. Spurgeon wrote, “Oh, what gracious lessons some of us have learned at sickbeds!” I agree. There were times I left the bedside of a seriously sick or dying parishioner and realized I had been standing on sacred ground, that in my attempt to bring something of God to my parishioner, God gave me something of Himself at the person’s bedside.

Our parishioners can teach us much about the things of the Lord if we’re perceptive enough to be teachable, as Spurgeon reminds us. “In our conversations with poor saints, we are taught the way of God more perfectly for ourselves, and we get a deeper insight into divine truth.” Many a time I learned much from the words or examples of my parishioners.

Spurgeon references the example of the widow of Zarephath who planned on making a final meal of a small cake for herself and her son with the little remaining flour and oil she had. The prophet Elijah insisted she feed him first. Out of obedience she did. To her delight she found that in her giving she received, abundantly, to the point that she and her son were fed through the duration of the famine by the now bottomless containers of flour and oil.

We pastors/preachers know the text well and have undoubtedly used it as our text for a sermon or teaching on several occasions. It would be good to look at it again, in a fresh way, with us as the target recipient! So, let me reprint it here for such a purpose.

“And Elijah said to her, ‘Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’ And she went and did as Elijah said. And she and he and her household ate for many days. The jar of flour was not spent, neither did the jug of oil become empty, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah” (1 Kings 17:13-16).

Ministry can be draining, no doubt about that. And we do need times of rest, renewal, and refreshment. But we also need to guard the self-talk that says all ministry is going to be draining. Often in the giving there is receiving. The widow of Zarephath reminds us of that!

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Silence Can Be Golden

April 14, 2026 1 Comment

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The three men took turns at a congregational meeting, holding a wireless microphone, lambasting me before the congregation for my “weak” leadership that I displayed in asking a paid youth pastor to step down. They felt I had yielded to the complaints of a few, when I felt I had judged the situation rightly in asking him to step down.

It was a very painful meeting. I sat in the front row of the sanctuary taking it all in; being punched and pummeled by their words would be a more accurate description. I chose, by the grace of God, to remain essentially silent, resisting the temptation to defend myself.

The three men and their wives left the church. The storm passed and within a couple of years two of the couples returned to the church. The one man told me, “When I was speaking in front of the congregation at the meeting, I could see it in their eyes that I had lost them.” For the remaining time of my ministry at the church this man would often pray for me before a service, particularly before the Christmas or Easter services, sensing my anxiety at trying to deliver God’s message on such crucial occasions. I can also say, thanks be to God, that I retired from the church on good terms with the other two men as well.

We can do no better than to follow Jesus’ example after His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. “And the high priest stood up and said, ‘Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?’ But Jesus remained silent” (Matthew 26:62-63a). “When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him, and he was hoping to see some sign done by him. So he questioned him at some length, but he made no answer” (Luke 23:8-9). “And Pilate again asked him, ‘Have you no answer to make? See how many charges they bring against you.’But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate was amazed” (Mark 15:4-5).

Before the high priest, King Herod, and Pontius Pilate, before all three, Jesus remained silent, fulfilling the prophecy of Him in Isaiah 53:7, “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.”

As pastors, if we are seeking to do the Lord’s will, we can count on Him to defend us when we are falsely accused. We don’t have to defend ourselves. He has our back!

C.H. Spurgeon says in Morning by Morning: Daily Devotional Reading, the April 2 devotional, “The ambiguous and the false, the unworthy and the scornful, will before long overthrow and discredit themselves, and therefore those who are true can afford to be quiet, finding silence to be their wisdom.”

Yes, there are times when we should respond. At such times a reminder from the book of Proverbs is often in order. “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). But more often than we think, silence is golden.

All Scripture references are from the English Standard Version

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Relax, Results Can’t Be Orchestrated

March 9, 2025 Leave a comment

Growing up on an Iowa farm I helped my dad till the soil, plant, cultivate, and then harvest the crops. We put much effort into growing crops but never made them grow.

I recall us having planted a field of corn east of the farm buildings. For days all you could see when looking at the field was black soil. Then, about a week after planting, I looked east at the sun coming up over the horizon and the sun’s glimmering reflection on rows of small spikes of emerging corn. We had done nothing after planting the corn seed. It had come up all by itself.

This memory reminds me of a parable Jesus told, recorded only in the Gospel of Mark which has clear application to pastoral ministry. “He also said, ‘This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come’” (Mark 4:26-29).

J. C. Ryle comments on this passage, “Let us observe this truth also, for it is deeply instructive. It is humbling, no doubt, to ministers and teachers of others. The highest abilities, the most powerful preaching, the most diligent working cannot command success. God alone can give spiritual life. But it is a truth at the same time which supplies an admirable antidote to over-anxiety and despondency. Our principal work is to sow the seed. That done, we may wait with faith and patience for the result. We may go to bed at night and [get] up by day and leave our work with the Lord. He alone can, and if He thinks fit, He will give success.” (Expository Thoughts on The Gospel of Mark, J. C. Ryle, Aneko Press)

As a pastor, I often saw myself as a farmer. My farm was my local church. Like a farmer, I planted, tilled, watered, and weeded in many metaphorical ways. Like the farmer, the results were up to God. This thought, when embraced, can lighten a pastor’s burden. It did for me.

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The Perfect Motivation for Being a Merciful Pastor

October 8, 2024 Leave a comment

Pastors are expected to be nice to everyone in their church. Who wants a nasty pastor? Sometimes people who didn’t attend church told me the reason is that churches are filled with hypocrites who act badly. Sound familiar? And they think this is news to us pastors? No one knows better than the pastor how imperfect the church is! I was tempted to respond, “That’s okay, one more hypocrite who sometimes acts badly won’t be a problem for us at all.” But I bite my tongue; I don’t want to be nasty.

Most of us have heard, and undoubtedly used, the phrase, “Churches aren’t nursing homes for saints but hospitals for sinners.” If churches are “hospitals for sinners” then it wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest that the “doctors,” are we pastors, and that we are ill ourselves and in need of further healing ourselves. This fact, I came to find out, in my ministry, was the key for me being a merciful pastor.

Sometimes the hurt I experienced as a pastor was quite intense. Keep in mind that most of the time most of the parishioners were wonderful and exhibited the love of Christ. But sometimes, with a few people, not so much.

Jesus taught us that we’re to love our enemies. That would mean anyone who hurts us, including those in our church. But it can be difficult to love our enemies, especially those enemies within our church family. Oh, we might be able to fake it outwardly if we’re a good actor, and make it look like we’re loving our enemy. Down deep, however, we’re likely still seething with anger and unforgiveness. If I had to grit my teeth with those who mistreated me over the years, trying to love them, I’d have ground down my teeth to the gums long ago.

There’s a better way, I found, the only way to truly love our enemies. Jesus gave us that way when He said, “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:36). The way to be able to show those in our congregation mercy (forgiving them) is to focus on how we, as the pastor, also need God’s mercy (forgiveness) in our own lives. I know, we might argue that we’ve never done something so despicable as the person who has hurt us. True, we may have not done the same despicable thing as that person, but if we’re honest, we must admit that we’ve found our own creative ways to be despicable.

It’s when we acknowledge we have had to depend on God being merciful to us that we can then, in turn, find the will and strength to be merciful toward those who have hurt us. Reflecting back to those 40 years of ministry where I encountered some hurtful people, I can testify that focusing on God being merciful to me was the key to being merciful to those hurtful people in my congregation.

When I found it difficult to forgive and show mercy, I learned I had to turn the focus onto myself and how I had to count on the constant mercy and forgiveness of God myself. Then, by the help of my merciful God, I could give the mercy and forgiveness to others that I’d been given by God.

“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

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Book Recommendation

November 21, 2012 Leave a comment

I just finished reading Jesus Himself by Andrew Murray on my Kindle, a free download from Kindle.  It’s a wonderful little book in which Andrew Murray helps you see just how wonderful it is to seek a daily sense of a personal walk with Jesus.

Especially for those of us in “professional” ministry it’s a wonderful reminder.  Click on the title above and it will take you to the Kindle page for the free download.

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