I read a sermon by a fellow pastor some time ago. He was announcing to his congregation that he was resigning his pastorate. He said, “I’m just burned out. I have been burning the candle at both ends. I am exhausted, so I am going to take a leave of absence for a year from the ministry. I’m going down to a hospital as an assistant chaplain, and after a year of rest—away from all of the pressures—I hope to find another church and become a pastor again. But right now, I’m just burned out.”
I think that spiritual burnout is a very real problem, but it is not the problem that we face in our church. The problem we face is not spiritual burnout. It is spiritual cool-off. We’ve lost a lot of our desire and our enthusiasm and our zea...
Pat Neff, one-time governor of Texas and later president of Baylor University, once said, “All my life I’ve heard preachers tell me to lay up treasures in heaven, but none of them ever told me how to do it. I had to figure it out on my own.
“The only way to get our treasures into heaven is to put them in something that is going there. Cattle, land, houses, stocks and bonds, all have no life and are not going to heaven. Only men and women, boys and girls, are going there.”
If you want to lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, then you’ve got to invest in people. Give yourselves to feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, and caring for the needy in every way. Oh yes, and share the good news that Jesus saves. That way they can enjoy eternity with you. Where are you investing your treasure (your time and resources) today?