Dear Faithful Pastors/ Leaders,
Please consider the following:
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you live right, people will accuse you of selfish and ulterior motives.
Live right anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten by man tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you may get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
I happen to be one of many who are so glad that you decided to give of yourself and to sacrifice for the Lord ‘anyway’. The apostle Paul says that we shouldn’t boast of ourselves, so if I may, I would like to take this opportunity to boast on your accomplishments in Christ; Please indulge me. Consider these things:
- God has used you to build and/ or maintain a Christ centered church from humble beginnings and to lead many souls to Christ, providing them with a solid foundation of Biblical teaching to stand upon.
- You have been faithful to the Lord and his church and have maintained a good name amongst those that are without, that the name of the Lord and his church be not blasphemed.
- You have spent countless hours in deep study of God’s word to feed the Lord’s flock the sincere milk and meat of the word which establishes Christian converts and keeps those whom the Lord has chosen from falling.
- Many times you have encouraged (perhaps without even knowing it) those who were without strength and weary, to fight another day and to travel another mile through your examples and perseverance.
- The lives you have touched in your ministry are forever changed by your sacrifice and generosity. Though many may never be able to express their true gratitude to you, rest in this truth: the Lord is not unrighteous to forget your labor of love and will recall every kindness and every mercy you have shown when you stand in his presence.
- The foundation you have laid is a good and true one, upon which others may firmly stand and build together a spiritual building fitly framed together that groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.
It is a comfort to know that the criteria God uses to define a successful church are not numbers, nor multi-million dollar budgets, nor even a state-of-the-art building, but rather the heart of the church. For in the heart of the church lies its character, its love, and its affections. May your heart always beat with passion for the Master and with a desire to lift up his standard in the world through the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and may your church ever be a place where true disciples of Christ are molded and shaped by the lives of its leaders and members as they continue to look steadfastly unto Jesus—the Author and Finisher of our faith.
God Bless you for your love, devotion, and rich testimony in Jesus Christ which has made those under your leadership partakers of true greatness. May the Lord keep and strengthen you by the power of his might, now and forevermore. God bless.
Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you.
And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you:
To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.
–1 Thessalonians 3:11-13
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