Personal Ministry
In the work of many ministers there is too much sermonizing and
too little real heart-to-heart work. There is need of more personal labor
for souls. In Christlike sympathy the minister should come close to
men individually, and seek to awaken their interest in the great things
of eternal life. Their hearts may be as hard as the beaten highway, and
apparently it may be a useless effort to present the Saviour to them; but
while logic may fail to move, and argument be powerless to convince,
the love of Christ, revealed in personal ministry, may soften the stony
heart, so that the seed of truth can take root.
Ministry means much more than sermonizing; it means earnest
personal labor. The church on earth is composed of erring men and
women, who need patient, painstaking labor, that they may be trained
and disciplined to work with acceptance in this life, and in the future
life be crowned with glory and immortality. Pastors are needed,—
faithful shepherds,—who will not flatter God’s people, nor treat them
harshly, but who will feed them with the bread of life,—men who in
their lives feel daily the converting power of the Holy Spirit, and who
cherish a strong, unselfish love for those for whom they labor.
There is tactful work for the under-shepherd to do as he is called
to meet alienation, bitterness, envy, and jealousy in the church; and he
will need to labor in the spirit of Christ to set things in order. Faithful
warnings are to be given, sins rebuked, wrongs made right, both by
the minister’s work in the pulpit and by personal labor. The wayward
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heart may take exception to the message, and the servant of God be
misjudged and criticized. Let him then remember that “the wisdom
that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be
entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without
hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that
make peace.” [
James 3:17, 18
.]
The work of the gospel minister is “to make all men see what is
the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world
hath been hid in God.” [
Ephesians 3:9
.] If one entering upon this
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