Building the Church God Wants

Perhaps no myth is so prevalent in the church as the idea that the ministry is a difficult profession, wearying to the soul and exhausting to the body. That is not how Jesus saw it. He called his yoke comfortable, and his burden light! The operative word is no doubt "his". The yoke that is easy is "his". The burden that is light is "his". There is nothing in the work Christ gives a pastor to do that could ravage him or her emotionally, mentally, physically, or spiritually. The things that destroy us do not come from the Lord’s appointment; they arise from the cargoes we either pack ourselves or allow others to stow on us.

When we do what God has called us to do, we have full access to His enabling grace and strength. When we take up extraneous burdens, we are on our own. To carry those loads, we have nothing more to draw upon than personal wisdom and ability. People who labour with such scant resources will surely find their work toilsome, sapping their vitality, wrecking their health, deadening their spirits.

Of course, the gospel does demand from its workers extraordinary sacrifices. The Master’s service can bring nakedness, cold, hunger, violence, even death. Yet those sufferings are external to Christian ministry. They are a price we are willing to pay to glorify the name of our God. They may hurt us, but the gospel cannot, for in the task of God itself there is nothing to ulcerate a man’s stomach. Preaching Christ cannot block your arteries, or shatter your nerves, or bankrupt your finances! Those disasters are the consequences of things we do outside the divine purpose, carrying burdens God never gave us.