Confidence...

OUR GREATEST CONFIDENCE - 

"When we help God’s people pastorally, we have one tremendous source of confidence: It is that when God begins a good work in people’s lives He will continue it until the day of Jesus Christ. The hidden factor in every encouragement we give, or exhortation, or difficult piece of advice or correction, is that God the Holy Spirit indwells the believer to back it up, and to apply it with a force we do not possess. 

  

Our confidence that people will react and respond in the right way is not our confidence in human nature but our confidence regarding God’s working in them. This explains why Paul spoke of being confident in the Lord concerning the behavior of Christians (2 Thessalonians 3:4; Philemon 21). Without that confidence we would despair; with that confidence we are brave and strong to fulfill any pastoral responsibility."

  

- ON BEING A PASTOR: Understanding Our Calling and Work, Derek Prime & Alistair Begg

May YOU always be confident in the Lord's affirming your ministry. While you are a physician of the soul, remember that you are just a PA (Physicians Assistant) to Jehovah-Rapha, the Great Physician, and HE most certainly "restores the soul". 

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen." - Ephesians 3:20–21 

Only by HIS Power within, 

~ PJVS 

Lift Him Up!

"To lift Him up, to preach His name, and to invite souls to love Him and to follow Him is the highest, heavenliest privilege of human life ... After seventy years of expository preaching, I have yet to touch the hem of His garment." - W. A. Criswell

As you prepare for each and every sermon in 2025, may the Lord bless you with a fresh passion and vision for His high and holy calling in ministry. While some live to change the world, we live to change souls... And this is the greatest way to truly change the world. What a privilege!

"Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet’s son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs. But the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’ Now therefore HEAR the WORD of the LORD." ~ Amos 7:14-16

In His Eternal grip,

~ PJVS

Risky and Self-Sacrificing...

"Risky, self-sacrificing service to the church and to the world, in the name of Jesus Christ, belongs organically to Christian obedience. In his own words from The Cost of Discipleship: "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Not in pursuit of something for oneself. All things are ours already in Jesus. Not in order to make something of oneself. Our lives are hidden with Christ in God. Rather, in order to serve, in order to help others, in the name of Jesus Christ. Followers of Jesus are free for such service and such service belongs to and authenticates genuine witness to their crucified and risen Savior." 

- Mark Devine, Bonhoeffer Speaks Today: 

Following Jesus at All Costs

It's a New Year Pastor ... and my hope for you includes a fresh vision and passion to make the kind of disciples who will "come and die" in order to help others, in the name of Jesus Christ. May our Chief Shepherd give you all that's needed to promote this "Risky, self-sacrificing service to His church".

In His Eternal Grip,

~ PJVS

Success or Service?

"For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." -- John 13:15-17

Ah yes, the success syndrome... we have all been inoculated with this virus and it has taken its toll. Even ministry leaders have been led down the yellow brick road of glory and prestige. From one season to the next; comfort, abundance, health and wealth dance like sugar plums in the heads of believers. Is this not their right and privilege as children of the King of Kings?

Yet, the King sets a very different example for his followers doesn't He? He reminds us that we are His servants, and a servant is never any greater than their master. If our master humbles Himself to fulfill the lowly task of foot washing, shall we resist the simple task of serving others?

As you begin a New Year, what are your ministry expectations my friend? But wait... what is "ministry"? One definition suggests a rushing about in the dust, caring for the needs of others, without any concern for self. Does this define your ministry? Are you seeking success... or service? What was the example that Jesus left us again?

"Care for the flock that God has entrusted to you. Watch over it willingly, not grudgingly—not for what you will get out of it, but because you are eager to serve God." ~ 1 Peter 5:2 (NLT) 

 ~ PJVS

All Glory to God in 2025 ....

"For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen." -- Romans 11:36

Aristotle embraced the geocentric model, believing the earth to be the center of the universe. In 1543 Copernicus proposed a new paradigm placing the sun in the center. Over the years I have met some rather unusual individuals that dogmatically believe that they themselves are in fact the center of the universe. Could they all be wrong?

Paul has taken the church in Roman from the answer for mankind's lost condition to the divine elective plan for Israel. When all the detail and design is thoroughly revealed, the reader can see that all the glory belongs to the LORD of ALL. The whole universe comes together with beautiful symmetry when we acknowledge God as the true Center. Paul alone was right.

The best year is the one that begins and ends with this truth: "For from him and through him and to him are all things." Every pastor and every church will continue to grow stronger and more effective only when, the Lord alone is given all the glory. Life and ministry is never about us... it's ALL about Him!

"Finally, I ask you to think about your work, particularly your work for God as a Christian. Perhaps you say, “Surely that at least belongs to me, is achieved by me, and can be for my honor.” Really? If in your unsaved state you had no righteousness of your own, understood nothing of spiritual things, and did not seek God (as Romans 3:10–11 tells us), how could you even have had a desire to work for God unless God himself put it there? Our work for God flows from our love of God. But “we love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). How can anything be achieved except through God? Even the ability to plan a secular project or the strength to dig a ditch comes from him, since all is from God. If that is true of even secular efforts, how much more true must it be of Christian work? Spiritual work must be accomplished through God’s Spirit. So it is not you or I who stir up a revival, build a church, or convert even a single soul. Rather, it is as we work, being led in the work by God, that God himself by the power of his Holy Spirit converts and sanctifies those whom he chooses to call to faith... Do not take the glory of God to yourself. It is fatal to do that in any work, but especially in Christian work. Instead, glorify God."

 ~ James Montgomer Boice,  

Romans: God and History. Vol. 3

May 2025 bring great blessings from

the One who deserves all the Glory,

~ PJVS 

Upon His Shoulder...

“...And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God. Our eyes are at fault, that is all. God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment. No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone… For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” ~ Isaiah 9:1, 6

May this Christmas day bring the promise of a new day coming my pastor friend. As you rejoice in the birth of our Lord ... may you see in Him a great light at the end of the tunnel!

Because it's all on HIS shoulder,

~ PJVS

An Honorable Ambition...

Here's a good word of counsel from J. Oswald Sanders from his book on Spiritual Leadership... 

"Under the dangerous circumstances that prevailed in the first century, even stout-hearted Christians needed encouragement and incentive to lead. And so Paul called leadership an 'honorable ambition'. 

We ought never to forget that the same situation faces Christians today in certain parts of the world. Leaders of the church in China suffered most at the hands of Communists. The leader of the Little Flock in Nepal suffered years in prison after church members had been released. In many troubled areas today, spiritual leadership is no task for those who seek stable benefits and upscale working conditions. 

It remains true that any form of spiritual warfare will inevitably single out leaders who by their role present obvious targets. Paul urges us to the work of leading within the church, the most important work in the world. When our motives are right, this work pays eternal dividends."

My pastor friend, may you stay the course and never forget Paul's words of great encouragement found in 1 Corinthians 15:58..."Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain."

Because He NEVER leaves us...

~ PJVS1