December 11

"Obey those who have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as those who must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you. Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.” Hebrews 13:17, 18.

Oh you flocks of the Lord, you churches of Christ, you saints of the Most High, pray, pray for your ministers! No one more deeply needs, no one more affectingly asks your prayers than he. For you he toils in the study, wrestles in the closet, and labors in the pulpit. For your best welfare he consecrates his youthful vigor, his mature experience, his declining years. To you he has been the channel of untold blessing. Often has the Lord spoken through him to your oppressed heart, thoughts of peace and words of love. He has often been instrumental of removing doubt from your mind, of clearing up points of truth that were hard to be understood, and of building you up on your most holy faith. Often, too, has he been the means of endearing Christ to you, leading you to Him as a Counselor, as a Brother, as a Friend, and as a Redeemer; thus unveiling His glory to your eye, and His preciousness to your heart. Perhaps he first told you of Jesus! From his lips you heard the life-giving sound of the gospel; by him you were wounded, by him you were healed, and by his hands you were received within the pale of the Christian church. Is it an unreasonable request that he should ask especial remembrance in the petitions which you breathe to God for "all saints"? Think how often you have filled his mind with thoughtfulness, his heart with anxiety, his eyes with tears, his mouth with holy, fervent pleadings at the throne of grace. Then, will you not continue to pray for your pastor? Gratitude demands it.

Remember him not in your petitions on ordinary occasions merely, but let there be especial seasons of prayer set apart for him alone. Particularly if you know him to be passing through a season of trial, or sorrow, or mental anxiety—take him constantly and especially to the Lord. You need not know the cause of that sorrow. Proper feelings dictating, you will not wish to know. It will be enough for you that, with delicacy of perception, you have seen the shade of sadness on his brow; the look of anxiety in his eye; the expression of deep thoughtfulness upon his countenance; you will instantly take him in your heart to the Lord. And oh! who can unfold the extent of the blessing, which your prayers may thus be the channel of conveying to his soul? You may deem yourself, my reader, but an insignificant member of the flock. The grace which the Lord has given you may constrain you to think meanly of yourself, and to retire into the shade; but mean and feeble though you may be in your own eyes, yet you have power with God in prayer.

See you yon little cloud sailing athwart that blue sky? it has absorbed its precious treasures from some hidden spring, and, guided by God's invisible hand, is going to unbosom itself upon some parched and thirsty spot, refreshing, gladdening, and fructifying it. The little rivulet, that flows noiseless and unseen from that shaded spot, has thus transmitted from its sequestered glen an influence felt far beyond it, and to an extent it never conceived, and never can know! Such, dear reader, may be the character, and such the results, of your intercessions in behalf of your pastor. Silver and gold you may have none to offer him; he asks not this at your hands. But your prayers you may give, and your prayers he does ask. He beseeches you, earnestly and affectingly, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that you strive in your prayers to God for him! And oh! the hallowing, cheering influence which those prayers may shed upon his mind—eternity alone can reveal! The return of blessing to yourself will be incalculable and immense. The moisture absorbed from the earth, returns again to the earth in grateful and refreshing showers. And thus every prayer which you in fervency and in faith breathe to heaven for your pastor, will, through him, return again in "showers of blessing" upon your own soul.