Remember your leaders

Be strong, and let your heart take courage,

All you who wait for the Lord. Psalm 31:24

 

Read Hebrews 13:7—9

This faith I share is not in the least abstract. It is not philosophy. It is not simply the church’s doctrine. It takes form in lives lived. I am expected to look at my leaders in the church and there see my own faith modelled. I should be able to adopt it from them. There I expect to see Christlikeness. In lived form, in real time. I’m expected to see something of Jesus, who is the same for all time. So I will pray for my leaders. And I will look at them humbly and expectantly, and pray that I’ll know Christ in their language, Christ leading them in their thinking, Christ in their influence, Christ in their pastoring and in their teaching, in their lifestyle and in their secret hearts.

 

Lord God, you have placed me in a church which you wish to be fruitful, living and active in the Spirit, with a sweet aroma of Christ about all of us. I pray with thanks for the leaders. Thank you for those who have deepened me in the things of God. For those from whose lives I can read that you are the living God, that you live in love, and that the life of God is a life of communion. Touch with grace those leaders who are worn out or discouraged, those not in the right ministry, those who lack support, and those whose greatest encouragement will come when the church imitates their faith.