Pastors, personal holiness begins in the quietude of your study or office or bedside. Holiness begins in your meditation on the written word and supplication to the risen Word. But it is made an example outside the office door.

Jesus Christ alone is the hope, treasure, joy, and purpose of pastoral ministry. Not church growth, not church planting, not church success, not church business, not church programs, not church activities, not church popularity. Let everything be a means to this end: the treasuring of Christ and the enjoying of his glory.

When the sunlight of Christ, the radiance of God’s glory, broke into the dungeon of my soul, I finally knew what I’d been trying to ask for all along: the all-satisfaction of Christ in his gospel. I have heard from many others since I began writing about gospel centrality, so I know I’m not alone in this experience. I was asking for help, for

The justified pastor—the man justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone to God’s glory alone, who happens to be a pastor—when taken on his good day or bad day, ministry high or ministry low, will be received with gladness and welcome. Clothed in the righteousness of him in whom you trust, how can you be turned away? You will not

There is one mediator between God and man (1 Tim. 2:5), and it is not the pastor or his church programs.

The content of our message can absolutely include what the message is not but if the shape of our message is what it is not (or what we hate or who we’re against, etc.), we triumphantly and enthusiastically shoot ourselves in the foot over and over again. It will be a frustrating—and ultimately failing—endeavor, attempting to maintain forward

Which is why we must wear this armor constantly. We should never take it off. We should wear it to bed as pajamas. We should make sure we’ve got it on first thing in the morning by turning to the gospel as immediately as possible. This is wartime. Don’t take the armor off. You don’t try putting on your seatbelt when you see the Mack truck bearing

When Nehemiah saw the destruction of the Jerusalem gates, he broke down and wept. The devastation had occurred 140 years before that! When was the last time we were that broken about the spiritual devastation of our city? If we would be desperate for God’s glory in our community, we must see it with the compassion of the Good Shepherd.

Preachers approach God’s Word as its recipient, its servant, and its deliverer, not its author, manager, or marketer. Because our triune God is holy, infinite, almighty, and wise, we preach like he is. Preaching assumes authority from God and from his infallible word. So we don’t preach like ninnies, as if every sentence ends with a question mark.