Sermon Central
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A Word Of Encouragement For Discouraged Pastors
Contributed by Dr. Larry Petton on Aug 12, 2024 (message contributor)
A great evangelist, Dr. Chapman, has often told an amazing story about himself. He had been in business and became minister of a great church in Philadelphia. One Monday he was more than usually dispirited. (Mondays are hard on pastors!).
The Sunday had been a poor one, and he felt, as ministers often feel, as if he could never preach again. He had sat down at his desk and written his letter of resignation and was intending to post it to his church officers, when a girl brought in the New York Tribune, containing a sermon delivered on the previous week at Northfield.
In that address, these words stood out clearly to Chapman: "It is not what a man does for God that matters, but what God does through human life."
Dr. Chapman was arrested by that. He knelt down and said: "O God, I have worked for Thee, and have failed. Now......work through me." And then he said in his heart, "If God does great things through me, and I yield myself to Him, there is no limit to the possibilities of my life and ministry."
The discouraged pastor rose up, tore up the letter, and resumed his pastorate. He walked away from that moment with God's anointing on his life and went from strength to strength until the end of his ministry.
Don't give up, dear Pastor.
Let God work through you.
May the end of your ministry see you as Moses with more power and blessings than when you first began.
- Precept Austin, Larry Petton
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