PASTORAL
MINISTRY: DEPENDENCE ON GOD; CHURCH: FINANCES

We can learn important lessons by considering God’s disciplines in dealing with Elijah. As Elijah fled to the wilderness following his first confrontation with King Ahab, God said to him, “Elijah, go to the brook Cherith, and I will feed you there.” God sent big, black buzzards—ravens, scavenger birds—each morning and evening with Elijah’s meals. What humiliation! All his life Elijah had been self-sufficient. Now he waited on scavenger birds to deliver him his daily bread.…

Elijah was like so many faithful preachers of the Word who are too true and too uncompromising for their congregations.

“We don’t have to take that,” the people protest. And they stop contributing to the church. More than one pastor knows the meaning of economic strangulation. Preach the truth, and the brook dries up! But the Lord knows how to deal with each of us in our humiliations. He takes us from truth to truth.

1 Kings 17:3–6; Philippians 4:11–12; 1 Thessalonians 2:2–4

Men Who Met God, 96.