7.15.2018 The Church God Blesses - Jim Cymbala

Chapter 4 - The Hinge That Opens Heaven's Door

85  sometimes the most intricate or powerful machinery can become totally inoperative because of a missing or broken part or a faulty connection.  although its potential remains tremendous, the broken machinery is good for nothing.
another way to think of this same principle is to consider how even the most enormous doors swing open and closed on relatively small hinges. although the hinges are mostly out of sight and unimpressive in comparison to the door, the door's proper operation is vitally dependent upon those hinges. an unhinged door cannot

*86  function as a door. in the spiritual realm, there is also something that, when absent, shuts down the gracious operation of the Holy Spirit and wastes the great potential of booth the individual believer and local congregations. even though people way be in relationship with the Lord,  the Bible gives us some disastrous scenarios that can occur when things became spiritually unhinged.

consider, for example, the case of the Israelites. they were mightily delivered from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. god raised up Moses to be their leader and nothing Pharaoh and his armies did could stand before the power of Jehovah. after the Israelites wandered for 40 years in the desert of sinai, God raised up Joshua to lead the people. by God's power they crossed the Jordan Fiver into the promised Land, a land that was rightly named because God's promise to Abraham hundreds of years earlier was being fulfilled  (Genesis 17) by divined decree, god ceded the land to Abraham's descendants. God instructed the Israelites to boldly drive out all the canaanite nations because He Himself would fight for Israel!

*87  well, if both God's promise and power were on the side of the Israelites, how is it that we read these words not long after Joshua's death?  'He (God) sold them (the Israelites) into the hands of the Philistines and the Ammonites, who that year Shattered and Crushed them. for 18 years the Oppressed all the Israelites on the east side of the Jordan in Gilead....Israel was in great Distress'.  Judges 10.7-9 why did this tragic and unthinkable reversal in Israel's fortunes occur?  weren't the Israelites the chosen people of God? weren't they under covenant with the Almighty?  didn't the pagan Philistines and ammonites worship dumb, powerless idols? there's something seriously wrong with this picture!
as we probe deeper for an explanation, we discover that God Himself was behind the entire matter. 'He sold them into the hands of the Philistines and the ammonites'! How could God have turned against His own people? as always we look in Scripture to find the cause:  'again the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord...and because the Israelites forsook the Lord and no longer served Him, He became angry with them'. Judges 10.6-7

*88 persistent, unconfessed sin was the reason behind Israel's stinging defeats at the hands of the Philistines and Ammonites. persistent, unconfessed sin was the cause of Israel's submission to an idolatrous people who easily could have been defeated otherwise. persistent, unconfessed sin was at the bottom of the whole mess, just as it is throughout all of sacred Scripture. the Israelites did evil and God's promises and power were short-circuited by the people's ungodly behavior.

even as we gain insight into the cause of Israel's pathetic plight, we find in this passage a statement of even greater importance:  'then the Israelites cried out to the Lord,  'we Have sinned against You,  for- saking our God and serving the Baals (idols's) Judges 10.10 again they cried out.  'We Have Sinned.  do with us whatever you think best, but please rescue us now'.  then they got rid of the foreign gods among them and served the Lord. and He (God ) could bear Israel's misery no longer. vss. 15-6  we have just read about the great spiritual hinge that opens the door of heaven.

as soon as the Israelites honestly Confessed their sins and repented, God went from selling them into the hands of their enemies to quickly

*89  raising up a warrior leader. Jephthah,who subsequently reversed the fortunes of God's people. 'Then the spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah....the Jephthah went over to fight the Ammonites and the Lord gave them into his hands. Judges 11. 29,32 from defeat to victory, from slavery to dominion - it all hinged on the simple act of sincere confession of sin.

Israel didn't add more soldiers of more sophisticated weapons to its inventory; the Israelites simply confessed their sin and God moved over to their side. they didn't need any new promises. they didn't need any new prophecies. they simply needed to get right with God by confessing from the depth of their hearts,  We Have Sinned'. until they took that step, God's hand Had to oppose

*90  His own people. otherwise he would have been encouraging them to continue down an evil path that leads to every misery known to man.
now, I know that dealing with sin isn't a politically correct concept to examine in these shallow, user-friendly days, but let's do it anyway. God Hates Sin. that's the best place to start because it is the essential fact about all sin. god's holy nature detests every kind of sin. He is grieved and provoked by sin, as we see over and over again in the Bible. sin, and nothing else, is what separates man from God. this is why Christ shed His blood, endured the cross and its shame and went through the agony of being God's sacrificial lamb. He did it all to deal with the ugly face of sin in your life and mine.

in the end, God will annihilate all sin. He cannot relent from this because it is the essence of his holy nature. through Jesus he provided for the washing away of sin's guilt. through the presence of the Holy Spirit within us, He provided an antidote to sin's power over us. but always remember that in the end God will destroy the

*91  very fact of sin in the universe so that righteousness and peace can reign eternally.

it is obvious, then, that our first order of business as Christians every day is to deal with sin. daily, hourly and moment by moment, we must by the grace of god bring all our sin to the Lord in sincere and contrite confession. confession of sin is the most important key to being a people and church that lives continually under the blessing of heaven. once unconfessed sin begins to fester in our hearts and lives, there is absolutely no telling what sad chapters will be written even though we claim to be the people of God.
our need to confess sin exposes the whole fallacy of 'positive confession'  (a teaching that you can have from God whatever you say) or the recitation of certain prayers as if they are a magic mantra for success. if there is unconfessed sin and a clogged-up  spiritual life underneath everything, we can recite Scripture all day and claim every promise in the Bible, but God is bound by His own word not to answer us.psalm 66.18 states, 'If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear'  (NKJV) this truth brings out in bold relief not only the awful effect of sin but

*92  also the incredible power  of confessing our sin openly to a loving Saviour.

confessing our sin leads to the greatest spiritual joy and peace we can experience as human beings. the psalmist David, who was an expert in these matters, described it this way:
Blessed is he
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord does not
count against him
and in whose spirit is no deceit. Psalm 32. 1-2

notice that David didn't say,  'How blessed and happy is the man or woman who has never sinned', because that would leave no chance of blessedness for anyone who has ever lived.

*93  David went on to tell us about his own experience with sin:  'when I kept Silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. for day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer' vv3-4 here this anointed servant of the Lord was going through a very hard time because of God's displeasure and relentless pressure against his disobedience. we aren't sure of the exact circumstances to which David refers, but we are certain that God's 'hand was heavy upon ' him as long as he kept silent and unrepentant about his sin. instead of the inner peace and joy he so often sang about in the psalms, he felt a horrible, dry and parched condition in his soul.
as we read on, we see a sudden reversal in David's pathetic situation:  'then I acknowledged my sin to You and did not cover up my iniquity. I said,  'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and You forgave the guilt of my sin'. Psalm 32.5 it's as if David said, 'why do I continue to live under the Lord's displeasure? I may not be able to Undo my sin, but I Can Confess  it to the God of my salvation',  at the very instant he made a true confession, David found abundant mercy and pardon waiting for him.

*94  David's experience and that of the Israelites in Judges are tow examples of the incredible power and privilege we have as the children of God. we can  - daily, hourly and moment by moment  - confess our sins knowing that god will forgive us and chase away the dark clouds that hover over our spirits.
the great danger is for us to cover up sin, lessen the seriousness of it or justify our behavior because of 'special' circumstances. we must also void dealing selectively with our sins by confessing certain acts of disobedience while we cling to other attitudes and habit that are especially dear to us. satan  uses each of these natural tendencies to keep us from the mercy of God. open and complete confession f sin brigs it to the only place it should go - to God, who can forgive and take our sin away.
real confession means to Say The Same Thing About Sin That God Says.  real confession involves humbling ourselves and Agreeing With Him out the very nature of our sinfulness. to live under the

*95  blessing of heaven is to always be running toward god with our guilt and not away from Him (as if we could very hide from Him anyway). as we renounce our sin and turn from it, we give it up with full confidence that god will act in accordance with His Word. he Will forgive freely, He Will cleanse us from every stain of sin. He Will help us because of His great love.

but let's be careful to deal thoroughly with our sin, because god can never alter His holy opposition to it. what we call 'little sins' might be easily excused, but we are deceiving only ourselves. why lose God's best for our lives and dishonor Him by permitting little foxes to spoil the vine? let us ask His help in confessing every kind of disobedience, no matter how inconsequential it might seem.

remember God's eternal promise in I John 1.9:  'If We Confess Our Sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness'. the  problem is not with the Lord's ability or desire to forgive and purify us; it is in the word If.  we must confess agreement with God's view about our in and turn from it as something we do not ever want near us.

*96  without this careful dealing with sin, our lives and our churches will become hollow and lifeless. we may continue an outward observance of Christian ritual, but we will be strangers to the power and blessing that have been promised by god. when confession of sin is seen in its true light an is practiced by a humble, contrite people, there will always be a fresh release of the Lord's grace among us.
in recent decades many believers have rediscovered certain biblical truths. the second coming of Jesus Christ has been preached and written about more during the last 100 years than during all the preceding centuries put together. the importance of worship among Christians has been newly emphasized also. praise choruses and recordings abound across the world . these truths are very important, but they cannot even be compared with what God can and will do when confession of sin is brought back to its vital and rightful place among us
honest confession of sin undergirds and make genuine all the other things we do as Christians. how deep can our praise and worship

*97  be if the people lifting their hands and singing have made a treaty with sin? and what good are all the Christian books and sermon tapes if they never get to the heart of the matter - the reality of our sin in the eyes of a holy God?

God has faced the problem of unconfessed sin with His people many times. much of the book of Hosea is about the sad plight of Israel when the people would not give up their sin no matter what God said or did  for them. the Lord loved His people dearly and expressed this over and over again as He called them back to Himself.  He even threatened severe remedial action, saying that he would become 'like a lion to Ephraim  (Israel),  like a great lion to Judah. I will tar them to pieces and go away....I will go back to my place'. Hosea 5.14-5 what a terrible consequence for the people of Israel:  the blessing and special presence of Jehovah Himself would go away as part of a divine strategy.

and what was the strategy? what was the aim of these strong, corrective steps taken against His very own? 'then I will go back to My place Until They Admit Their Guilt. and they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek Me'.

*98  v15.  the whole point was to get the Israelites to admit and confess their sin. the emptiness God wanted to heighten among them by His going 'away' was only to cause them to face up to their sins. once they admitted their guilt, a brand-new channel of fellowship and blessing from God would be opened.
please remember, this entire process of discipline was carried out against the chosen people of God. the Lord was not a 'lion' tearing to pieces the nations of Moab or Egypt. he was a 'lion' to his won wayward children who needed to confess their sin. and so it remains to this day.

as peter wrote in the New Testament,  'for it is time for judgment  to begin with the family of God'. I peter 4.17 Of course it must begin with the family of God. how will unbelievers be convicted of their sin and turn to Christ if the people who are preaching the gospel deal fast and easy with their own sin? or, more to the point, how can the Holy Spirit effectively carry out His work through a church that permits unholy things in the lives of the congregation?

the church God blesses must maintain a holy guard against the cancerous nature of sin. sermons

*99  and exhortations cannot omit this important truth just because it makes some people feel uncomfortable. we must remember that wonderful things happen when sin is brought out into the open and confessed.
consider what happened in Ephesus about 2000 years ago when 'many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. a number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly'. Acts 19.18-9  was this bonfire an unnecessary, melodramatic touch or did it serve an important purpose?  the Bible makes a clear connection between such a radical dealing with sin and the spiritual results that followed.  'In The Way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power'. v20 when confession and carefulness about sin prevail in the church,. so will God's will prevail in the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ. the worst possible scenario is for our churches to be supposedly 'growing'  but with  'members'  who have no deep longing to be delivered from the power of sin. that situation will fulfill the New Testament prophecy of 'terrible times in the last days' when people will

*100  have 'a form of godliness'  but live every day  'denying its power' II Timothy 3.1,5

we all know how easy that can begin to happen in our own lives and churches. we can attend services regularly and even read the Bible without getting to the root problem on which god is putting His finger. an incident from my life serves as a reminder of how important it is to deal with sin no matter how insignificant it may seem to be.
Carol and I  had been married only a few months and were both working in New York City. the  furthest thought from our minds was that we

*101 might some day pastor a church. we were a typical, newlywed couple living in a tiny apartment in Brooklyn.
there are many adjustments  you have to make when you are first married and I wasn't  mature enough to make some of them well. one day after we came home together on the subway from work, Carol was good enough to cook one of my favorite meals -steak with a baked potato and vegetables. the only trouble was, I like steak on the rare side and what she put in front of me tasted like a piece of well-done she leather. this disturbed me because Carol Knew how I like steak cooked. in my immaturity i made a less-than-complimentary remark to her. she had experienced a long day at the office and was in no mood for my lack of appreciation of her culinary skills, so she gave me a less than pleasant reply. this provoked me to say some unkind words, which resulted in a classic, newly married couple's spat. the meal was ruined.  (my precious steak went down the drain!) and the atmosphere was no longer love and kisses.
I was determined to have the last word and determined that it would be a righteous one at

*102  that! I declared that I was going to the midweek church service that night and added that not even a burnt-to-a-crisp piece of steak would keep me from my devotion to Christ!  not surprisingly, I went alone. and I justified my behavior all the way to the church door. I listened as best i could to the sermon, but then the pastor called the few believers present to come to the altar for a season of prayer. that's when my dilemma came to a head.
I knelt down and was silent for a while. to say that the skies above me were like brass would be an extreme understatement. instead of having faith to lay my needs before God. all I could sense was my hardness of heart and guilt for my sins. almost immediately I sensed God speaking deep within me: 
'Ge up
go home
tell her you were wrong and
say you're sorry!' this was not exactly what i had in my mind when I made my way to church. didn't God understand the extreme cruelty of a burned-up piece of meat?  was this really the Holy Spirit speaking to me, or a false spirit from the pit of hell? how could anyone who loved me ask me to do such an impossible thing as saying 'I'm wrong' and 'I'm sorry' all in the same night?

*103 I disregarded as best I could what i felt God was saying to me. I tried hard to pray, but I was between a rock and a hard place. the One whose help I needed was the very one who had a controversy with me. and he would not relent! all I could hear over and again as I knelt at that altar was, 'Get up, go home, tell her you were wrong and day you're sorry!'  finally, I gave up pretending to pray and went home as directed.
while driving home, I still argued about the unfairness of the  whole situation. I was willing to do a lot of things for the  Lord , but I thought He was really being unreasonable. i would have visited the sick and shut-in folks. but to confess my sin openly to my wife, of all people and then apologize on top of it - well, that was a cross far too heavy for a mere mortal like me to bear. my proud and sensitive soul could not accept why I had to be one who came crawling!

I quieted down a bit while walking to the apartment after parking my car and my heart became very tender as i ascended the one flight of stairs to our door. as soon as I  opened it and walked down the hallway, tears began to flow

*104  before I could call out to Carol, she was already heading toward me. as i reached out my arm to hold her, I sobbed out as best i could. 'i'm so sorry, I was so wrong to talk that way. please forgive me'.  Carol then said with brokenness that she was also sorry for how she responded.  (she didn't need to say that because i knew I was the real culprit.)
if someone had seen us embracing lie that in a half-lit hallway, they never would have understood the depth of what was transpiring. as I spoke aloud my confession of failure and sin to my wife and to God, the blessings of God poured down upon me like a rive of fresh water on a dry desert. peace and joy welled up together as my tears became a language that i knew God understood, because it was to him and not Carol alone that i was speaking. and I can tell you from firsthand experience how true the psalmist was when he wrote
'then I acknowledged my sin to yo
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, 'I will confess
my transgressions to the Lord' -

*105  and You forgave
the guilt of my sin.
therefore let everyone who is godly pray to You
while You may be found;
surely when the might waters rise,
they will not reach him.  psalm 32.5-6

this powerful truth applies to all believers and every Christian congregation. when we honestly confess our sins, we clear the way for fresh blessings to come upon us from the Lord. it is possible that right now you are sitting in the shadows rather than in the sunlight of God's favor. the only thing in the world that can keep you there is unconfessed sin. why live one minute longer in that condition when a loving, merciful god is calling you into fellowship with Him? don't put it off another day. use David's prayer for mercy as a help as you go to the throne of grace. 

Have mercy on me, O God,
according to Your unfailing love;

*106  according to your great compassion
blot out my transgressions.
wash away all my iniquity
and cleanse me from my sin.
for i know my transgressions,
and my sin is always before me....
hide Your face from my sins
and blot out all my iniquity....
restore to me the joy of Your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
then I will teach transgressors Your ways.
and sinners will turn back to You.  Psalm 51.1-3,9,12-3

Chapter 5 - Heart Problems

*107  while I was writing this book, my wife and i were visited by her Uncle Mel and his wife, Phyllis, from Portland, Oregon. Mel Arn grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and became a Christian at a young age. his zeal for the Lord and spiritual things, especially prayer, never flagged and was still evident during his stay at our home. he was 81 years old. physically full of vigor and did daily push-ups to help keep himself fit!
yesterday, before I began writing this chapter, we received a phone call that Mel had gone to be with the Lord. he had returned home from

*108  his trip 'back east' and was excited and grateful that he had visited with so many old friends and family members. then he simply went to bed and during the night was ushered into the presence of the Lord. an old soldier full of prayer and devotion to Christ, he entered into his eternal reward. while he slept that last night, his heart simply stopped beating. no matter how fit you are for your age or how many vitamin supplements you take, when your heart stops working, your life ends.

although physical hear problems claim many victims each year across our country, there are heart problems of another kind that  I want us to consider. the heart is also of critical importance in a spiritual sense. the church and especially the pulpit that god blesses, has to have a unique kind of Heart. i believe the heart factor is the most overlooked aspect of all our sincere searching for keys to living successfully for Jesus Christ.
when ever we think about the ministry of a Christian pastor, teacher, or evangelist, our minds turn to the example set by the  apostle Paul. whenever we analyze the building of an

*109  effective Christin church, our thoughts again turn to Paul, the  'expert builder', I Corinthians 3.10, who by the grace of God laid the only true foundation and built wisely upon it. no one in the Bible had such insight into the blessing of god upon both the ministry and the church as the apostle Paul. this is illustrated by the fact that his life after conversion dominates the  book of acts and most of the epistles (letters)of the New Testament were written by him. no one had deeper insight into the gospel and the  mystery of divine grace than this man who went from being a Jewish zealot who persecuted believers to being the greatest ambassador for Jesus the world has ever seen. so if we want to experience more of God's power working through us, we must study carefully the life and ministry of this great Christian.
because of his great impact, more books have been written about the apostle paul than any person in Scripture other than Jesus Christ. in these volumes 2 very important aspects of paul's phenomenal ministry have often been analyzed: his message and his method.

*110  first, the Message Paul preached is essential to our understanding of him. his main focus was always the Gospel, or good news, about Jesus Christ. in fact, Paul saw his calling as an apostle to be centered in the 'priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God' Romans 15.16 Paul, unlike Moses, was not a preacher of merely the Law of God. the apostle certainly used the holy commandments in his message, but it was only to prepare the minds and hearts of his audience for the message of Christ. Paul also proclaimed the Promise of salvation and a new life through Jesus. he was 'not ashamed of the gospel, because it  (the gospel!) is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes'.  Romans 1.16
Paul didn't ask his listeners to make promises to do better or to make commitments to turn over a new leaf. that will never bring the  liberating power of the Holy Spirit, because those vows are characteristic of the law of Moses, not the gospel of Jesus Christ. the apostle understood, as few others ever have, the truth that 'the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ'.  John 1.17 the church

*111  God blesses is a Jesus Church, a church that recognizes that He is the only answer to the need of the human heart. a Jesus church is a place that proclaims the Good News concerning salvation, not merely the law of God that can convict of sin but does nothing to lift a soul out of its despair it is a congregation that is excited about the Lord Jesus and provides living proof of the  dynamic power that is experienced when people repent of sin and put their faith in Christ. that was the message of the apostle Paul.
Second, the Method of Paul is revealed through his movements and ministry as traced through the book of acts and his letters. the odd thing about this subject is that Paul knew little about Methodology s we use the term. the apostle was a Spirit-led man from start to finish. he depended on the guidance of the holy Spirit for what he was dong and for what to do next and we can discover no church-growth formula from his life. his ministry was characterized more by divine anointing than by clever methodology.

*112  even Paul's plans to evangelize in certain areas were subject to the Holy Spirit's intervention. 'Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Dalatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia'.  Acts 16.6 this is none of the beautiful secrets of the church and ministry god blesses. the people know that god's desire to lead His people by the Spirit has not changed, so they seek to remain sensitive to his voice. how else can God's people accomplish God's will except by being led by God's Spirit:  who wants to mechanically follow dead church traditions or man-made formulas when we can have God take us by His hand and guide us?
being led by the Spirit was not an unusual experience for Paul, as we see in the next verse:

*113 'when they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus wold not allow them to' (v7) Paul was not planning a vacation in Bithynia. he was planning to preach the gospel in a province that needed to hear it. even so, the Spirit of Jesus had other plans for the apostle and he obeyed in childlike fashion. Oh, how we need to follow the example of Paul's tender submission to the promptings of the Holy Spirit! others may call such devotion fanaticism or emotionalism, but the people God blesses believe their Bibles they know that the Holy Spirit has not changed one iota in 2000 years. WHAT HE DID THEN FOR PAUL HE WILL DO FOR US AS WE YIELD OUR HEARTS TO HIM AND LEARN TO LISTEN.

as important as the apostle's message and methods were to his spiritual success, there is one more piece to the puzzle. I am convinced that paul's motivation (or heart) is the most overlooked and least-taught-about  aspect of his ministry to people. re there not countless churches today that proclaim the gospel of Christ from their pulpits, yet

*114  make little, if any, impact on their communities?  their doctrine and message are biblical, but the results are meager compared with the apostolic model. are there not many congregations that confess belief in the present-day ministry of the Holy spirit?  yet even when this belief is part of the doctrinal statement, we do not see the kind of gospel proclamation that cuts to the heart of the hearers and brings multitudes into God's kingdom. this brings us to the heart of the matter, which happens to be paul's heart.
read carefully s paul reviews his ministerial style and motives to the church in Thessalonica: 
we speak as me approved of God to be entrusted with the gospel. 
we are not trying to please men but God, who tests Our Hearts.
you know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed- God is our witness.
we were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else. I thessalonians 2.4-6

Paul took his calling as a preacher of the gospel quite seriously. it was a sacred task, fulfilled with

*115 a deep desire for god's approval. that longing for God's approval is always true for the ministry God blesses. there is no place in god's work for impressing people with clever oratory or using flattery to get on their good side.
the apostle wasn't looking for money and had no secret motive to fleece the flock. he wasn't interested in selling books, becoming famous or receiving accolades from the people he spoke to or anyone else. then what was his motivation as he toiled among them?

as apostles of Christ we could have been a burden to you, but we were Gentle among you, Like A Mother Caring For Her Little Children.  We Loved You so Much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as sell, because you had become so dear to us. I Thessalonians 2.6-8
what a radical picture of  minister these words present to our modern minds! the apostle reminded his readers of the passionate heart of love he had as he labored among them. he was 'Gentle...like a mother caring for her little 

*116  children'. the picture presented her in the original Greek is that of a mother tenderly bringing a baby to her breast to be fed and nourished. the apostle boldly declared that he wasn't ready just to give the gospel message but TO GIVE HIS VERY LIFE AS WELL.  that is why he described himself as having the heart of a mother who so cherishes her children that no sacrifice is too much if only it will bring blessing to her offspring.
this was the  motivation behind paul's preaching and gospel work in the church in Thessalonica. no wonder his sermons had a bit to them and reached the hearts of the  people his message didn't come from an educated intellect alone, but from the fervent love that burned within his soul no wonder he didn't care about their money or applause. it was all about them and their welfare, just as it always is when a mother is caring for her children.
when God blesses a pulpit and church, the heart of the pastor and congregation must be in proper working condition. selfishness and 'comfort zone' religion must be replaced by the same sacrificial love God gave to Paul. how can people powerfully preach the message of Christ without having the tender Spirit of Christ inspiring them?

*117  In fact, if I am writing this book to become well known or to profit financially, then I prostitute the  high calling  of a minister.  (and woe to me when i have to stand before God in the end.)





Paul went on to reveal more about the inner workings of his heart:  'but, brothers, when we were torn away from you for a short time (in person, not in thought), out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you....(that sounds more lie a gushing love letter than a minister writing to a congregation!) 'FOR WHAT IS OUR HOPE, OUR JO OR THE CROWN IN WHICH WE WILL GLORY IN THE PRESENCE  OF OUR LORD JESUS WHEN HE COMES?
IS IT NOT YOU?
INDEED, YOU ARE OUR GLORY AND JOY.' I Thessalonians 2.17,19