In 1998 John Piper preached a sermon directed to professors and seminary leadership whom are charged with the responsibility for teaching Pastors and Missionaries for the next generation.
In the sermon he says:
“…doing our job well as pastors and missionaries means mainly bringing more and more people, among more and more peoples, to know God and to delight in him above all things. That’s what our job is. And therefore the most fundamental, essential, pervasive need of our lives and our ministries is that we ourselves know God and enjoy God above all things.”
We as Christian leaders have a substantial responsibility. In order for us to achieve our task of bringing more and more people to Christ and training them to bring others to Christ; we must constantly be living our lives in devotion to Him. We must delight in Him, yes, but we must also bring honor to his name.
The Bible says: “And now, O priests, this command is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the Lord of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. (Mal. 2:1-2, ESV)
We must take the command to heart. We must understand that there are repercussions of our laziness, but we also must remember our task. We must take it to heart for the sake of our task so that our worship, our counsel, our message will focus on bringing other people to honor him as well.
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Photo from Unsplash.com
This post is a fresh rewrite from a post title “Priests Take Heart” posted in December 2007.