April 2022
Dear Praying Friends,
“Pastor, to be honest, we have lost our enthusiasm for the ministry. It is just so hard and we have so little to show for all of our labor...” the young preacher and his wife confessed last Sunday. She has struggled since last year with his call to be a pastor and is still resistant to God’s will, now her husband was questioning if their labor in the ministry was worth it.
I encouraged them to remember that some plow, some plant, some water and some pull the weeds, but it is God that gives the increase. Of course, I wish all of our labors would produce many more saved and serving. Certainly, I wish Portugal wasn’t so enslaved in Catholic traditions. Sure, I wish our 2,000-year-old city wasn’t the center of witchcraft and homosexuality in southern Portugal. But I reminded them of something I have to remind myself of regularly: We are simply servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, called to serve Him where He wants, how He wants, however long He wants and with whom He wants.
I asked them a question I ask myself all the time, “Will this decision [to laboring stop for Christ] result in Jesus Christ saying to you, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” or will it prevent you from hearing those glorious words from the perfect lips of our Savior? Jesus never promised the life of serving Him would be easy, painless, or without sacrifice, but He did promise to be with us until the end of the world! May each one of us remember that one day, very soon, every Christian will stand before our Lord and Savior; some will hear the approval of Christ; others will stand ashamed.
Which will you be?
Laboring for His approval,
Mark Hale
