We Are Pastors

By: Steve Paulson

We are bond-servants of Christ, slaves of the Kingdom and in chains for the gospel. We weep for others' joy, fight for others' peace, tremble for others' comfort and die for others' life. We shrug off fortune and fame, relinquish worldly wealth and sacrifice the comforts of family that we might follow a crucified King and be covered in the dust of a rejected Rabbi.

We are homeless but homeward bound. We walk with Abraham, leaving the land of our fathers for strange places and strange people, placing our children on the altar with the resurrection our only hope. We wrestle with God and like Jacob we come away limping. We weep with Jeremiah, sing with David and dream with Ezekiel. We die like the prophets at the hands of those to whom we are sent, we rage against injustice but claim no justice for ourselves.  We sow without the guarantee of reaping a harvest, and plant without the guarantee of tasting the fruit.  We ask only for daily bread, giving thanks for the crumbs that fall from the table set for others.

We are blood bought, laid low and poured out. We grow old but we do not retire. We work to be less that He might be more, finding His strength in our weakness and His power in our failings. We speak what He has spoken, we love because He loves, we die because He died, and we live because He lives.  We glory in the hope of His coming as we labor to make His wayward Bride ready.  There is no higher calling, and no lower standing.  To say yes is foolishness, but to say no is cowardice.  It is senseless, but to us it is the only life worth living. It is the narrowest path, fraught with dangers, toils and snares. Few find it, and fewer still dare to walk it. 

But the joys along the way are inexplicable, and the cherished moments are gems finer than diamonds.  His peace, like a flood, passes all understanding, and the fellowship of true brethren is deeper than the ocean.  In all these things we are the most privileged among men, for we bear in our flesh the reproach of the cross and the marks of its sufferings, while in our spirit dawns the limitless power of the empty tomb. 

We pray unceasingly for you—that you would know Him more. We wish that you could know the sweetness of your prayers for us—far sweeter than mountain air after a gentle spring’s rain. But we ask for no pity because our reward is with Him, and He is Faithful and True.  Fools in the eyes of men, we count every earthly thing as loss and press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of us, striving to live up to what we have already attained by His mercy. This is who we are, this is what we do, because of what He has done.

We are pastors.