Ministries
Resources
Octavius Winslow, 1856 (edited for
today's reader by Larry E. Wilson, 2010)
Bible Verse
"I appeal to you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf" (Romans 15:30).
Devotional
Many weighty and solemn considerations powerfully plead for the prayers of the church of God on behalf of her ministers and pastors.
First, pray for them because of the importance of their work. A greater work than theirs was never entrusted to mortal hands. No angel bears a commission of higher authority, or wings his way to discharge a duty of such extraordinary greatness and responsibility.
They are ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are ambassadors from the court of heaven. They are preachers of the glorious gospel of the blessed God. They are stewards of the mysteries of the kingdom.
Properly to fill this high office—to give to the household their portion of food in due season; to go down into the mine of God's Word and bring forth its hidden treasures for the benefit of every understanding; to set forth the glory of Emmanuel, the fitness of his work, and the fullness of his grace; to be a scribe well instructed, rightly dividing the Word of truth; to be wise and skillful to win souls—oh, who needs the sustaining prayers of the church so much as they?
Second, pray for them because of the painful sense of their insufficiency. Who are ministers of Christ? Are they angels? Are they superhuman beings? Are they inspired? No, they are men in all respects like others. They have the same kind of weaknesses. They are subject to the same kind of assaults. They are strangers to nothing that is human. As the heart knows its own bitterness, so they alone are truly aware of the existence and incessant operation of those many and clinging weaknesses of which they partake in sympathy with others. And yet God has entrusted to them a work which would crush an angel's powers, if left to his self-sustaining energy.
Third, pray for them because of the many trials of the ministry and the pastorate. These are peculiar to the office that he fills. They are inseparable from it. In addition to those of which he partakes alike with other Christians—personal, domestic, and relative—there are also trials to which they must necessarily be utter strangers. And as the people of their charge do not know them, so they cannot relieve them. With all the sweetness of affection, tenderness of sympathy, and delicacy of attention which you give to your pastor, there is yet a lack which only Jesus can supply, and which—through the channel of your prayers—he will supply.
In addition to his own burdens, he bears the burdens of others. How impossible for an affectionate, sympathizing pastor to separate himself from the circumstances of his flock, whatever those circumstances may be. So close and so sympathetic is the bond of union—if they suffer, he mourns; if they are afflicted, he weeps; if they are dishonored, he is reproached; if they rejoice, he is glad—he is one with his church. How movingly the apostle expresses this, "And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?" (2 Cor. 11:28–29). To see a Christian pastor, in addition to his own personal grief, borne often in uncomplaining loneliness and silence, yet bowed down under accumulated sorrows not his own—others looking to him for sympathy, for comfort, and for counsel—is a spectacle which might well arouse the slumbering spirit of prayer on behalf of every Christian minister.
We do not marvel to hear the chief of the apostles thus pleading, "Brethren, pray for us" (1 Thess. 5:25). Commit yourself to pray regularly for missionaries and ministers, especially your own pastor.
Speed thy servants, Savior, speed them;
thou art Lord of winds and waves;
they were bound, but thou hast freed them;
now they go to free the slaves:
be thou with them,
'tis thine arm alone that saves.
Friends, and home, and all forsaking,
Lord they go at thy command,
as their stay thy promise taking,
while they traverse sea and land:
O be with them;
lead them safely by the hand.
When they reach the land of strangers,
and the prospect dark appears,
nothing seen but toils and dangers,
nothing felt but doubts and fears,
be thou with them,
hear their sighs and count their tears.
Where no fruit appears to cheer them,
and they seem to toil in vain,
then in mercy, Lord, draw near them,
then their sinking hopes sustain:
thus supported,
let their zeal revive again.
In the midst of opposition
let them trust, O Lord, in thee;
when success attends their mission,
let thy servants humbler be:
never leave them
till thy face in heav'n they see.
(Thomas Kelly, 1820)
Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.
Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.
© 2025 The Orthodox Presbyterian Church
