What a Remarkable Pastor

“The pastor at the new church I go to preaches with his Bible in his hand,” my friend gushed forth the words as though this were the most remarkable thing. “At the church I used to go to,” she explained. “the pastor didn’t do that.” He preached other things, she told me. What joy I felt knowing my friend had crossed the great divide between a church with false teaching to a church proclaiming God’s Truth, but what a sadness I felt also. Because what seemed so remarkable to my friend should not have been remarkable in the least. But why?

Because churches in America are running rampant with false, and deadly, teaching, with countless pastors turning to anything and everything but the Bible. And even those using the Bible are oftentimes tossing all sorts of false teaching into the mix anyway. What joy I felt hearing how my beloved friend had parked herself in the pew at a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching church, and the incredible changes in her are just beautiful as she dives deep into God’s Word, seeks Him, gets to know Him, and immerses herself in a church body that stands for the Bible in a day and age when so many people are doing everything but. But how sad I feel knowing how many people are teaching falsely, and how many people are being deceived by false teaching.

photo courtesy of pixabay.com This photo is not of the pastor mentioned in this writing.

Not so very long ago, I had urgently pressed my friend to switch churches out of incredible concern about the church she came out of. At first, she resisted. She told me she wanted to be in that church because she was comfortable. I told her following God is not about comfort, but obedience. I thank God my friend had the wisdom and strength, which I am quite certain came from God, to courageously leave behind the comfortable and move herself to a church where the pastor preaches with the Bible in his hand and from my understanding teaches God’s Truth. False teaching can be comfortable and pleasurable because it perpetuates the lies of the devil. God’s Truth can be convicting, chastening, hard, and uncomfortable, but when we choose to dive deep into it and to commit ourselves to practice it, we reap the eternal rewards of believing in and following the Lord who is everlasting.

Are you willing to leave the comfortable and familiar behind to follow the Lord? If you are not in a Bible-believing, Bible-teaching church, and if you are not studying the Bible on your own and putting it into practice, are you willing to make the change? Ask God for wisdom, strength, and courage, and take the step my friend did. Commit yourself to the Lord and to learning about – and practicing – His ways. 

2Ti 4:3  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 

2Ti 4:4  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 

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