Encouragement – Page 3 – Michelle Lesley

I’m so glad somebody thought up the idea of Pastor Appreciation Month and made it a thing. If you’ve never been a pastor (or been married to one), it’s difficult to adequately convey just how simultaneously challenging, joyful, devastating, frustrating, and fulfilling it can be. If you have a good pastor, who rightly divides God’s Word and is a man of godly character, you are very blessed. And that goes for your minister of music, associate pastor, youth pastor, etc., too. Be sure you show all of them (there’s nothing worse than being left out while everybody else is being appreciated) your appreciation for their hard work, and your encouragement, support, and love not just during Pastor Appreciation Month, but all year through. Here are ten ways you can do just that.

1. Pray for your pastors.
Time and again, when pastors are surveyed about what their church members can do to bless them the most, the number one answer is, “Pray for me.” Your pastors need you to pray for them personally, in their work, for their marriages and families, and for the health of your church. Pastor Appreciation Month is a perfect time to make a commitment to pray for your pastors on a regular basis. (And don’t forget to periodically tell them you’re praying for them!) Need some suggestions on how to pray? Check out my article Top 10 Ways to Pray for Your Pastor.

2. Words of encouragement
Pastors get a lot of complaints, criticism, and words of discouragement. Brighten your pastor’s day by telling him something specific you learned during the sermon. Tell your minister of music you really enjoyed the choir anthem this morning. Repeat to your youth pastor something positive your child has said about him or the youth group. Drop your pastor a note, e-mail, or social media message of support. Make a point of looking for ways – all year long – that you can offer “a word fitly spoken.”

3. Babysit
If your pastor and his wife have young children, offer to babysit so they can have a date night or go Christmas shopping for the kids.

4. Gift cards
Perhaps along with the offer to babysit, you could give your pastor and his wife a gift card to a local restaurant. Gift cards to his favorite specialty store (outdoorsman stores, music stores, etc.), a Christian retailer, or one of his favorite online stores (or a more general site like Amazon if you’re not sure of his preferences) make great tokens of appreciation, too.

5. Honorary offerings
Is there a certain missionary or mission project that’s near and dear to your pastor’s heart? A crisis pregnancy center? A church plant he’d like to support? What about donating Bibles in his honor to an evangelistic organization? Put out the word to the congregation, take up a special offering (or simply give as an individual), and make a donation in your pastor’s name.

6. Make sure his needs are met.
Your pastors shouldn’t be living like televangelists, but they shouldn’t be struggling to survive, either. Surprisingly, many people have unbiblical opinions about pastors’ salaries, from the notion that anyone in any kind of ministry should be doing it for free, to the downright evil concept of keeping the pastor near the poverty level to make sure he stays humble (yes, really). The Bible says pastors have a right to make their living from preaching the gospel, and that a workman is worthy of his hire. Check with your church’s finance and/or personnel committee. Is your pastor making an appropriate salary? Are his housing and insurance needs being met? Is he receiving adequate vacation and sick days? If not, see what you can do to help rectify the situation.

7. Conferences
There are lots of fantabulous Christian conferences out there that your pastor would probably love to attend, but it’s not in the church budget and he can’t afford it, personally. Find out his favorite or choose a great one (make sure you vet the speakers first to make sure they’re doctrinally sound), take up a special offering, and send him there, all expenses paid (conference admission and fees, travel, meals, lodging, and some extra “walking around money” for purchasing books, gifts, souvenirs, etc.).

8. Volunteer
One of the things that can be stressful for pastors is empty positions that need godly people to fill them. Volunteer to teach that Sunday School class, play the piano at the nursing home, help chaperone the youth trip, work in the nursery, get trained and run the sound board. Find out where you’re needed at your church and jump in and serve.

9. Help out around the house.
Pastors have those “fix it” needs around the house just like everybody else does. Are you good at repairing cars, fixing roofs, mowing grass, maintaining air conditioning units, cooking meals, or another special skill? Save your pastor some time, money, and effort by putting your experience to work for him at his home.

10. Set the example of a healthy church member.
What could be more encouraging to a pastor than biblically healthy church members? Study your Bible. Be faithful in your church attendance. Pray for your pastor and the church. Serve where you’re needed. Don’t complain or criticize your pastor and others over petty matters. Avoid controversies and personality conflicts, and be a peacemaker. Walk in humility and selflessness, and give glory to God. Show appreciation for your pastors by setting a godly example for other church members and encouraging them to do the same.

💥Bonus!💥 Get on social media, e-mail, or the phone and share this article around so your pastors don’t have to!

What are some other good ways we can show appreciation for,
and encourage, our pastors?

Encouragement, Share Your Testimony

Testimony Tuesday: Stories from Several Sisters

May 9, 2017May 16, 2019 Michelle Lesley

On today’s Testimony Tuesday,
several sisters in Christ share their stories.

From Facebook:

Cheryl’s Story
Words are powerful, and when they are well intended, but off-base, they can cause massive damage.

About 25 years ago we lost two of our three babies to a genetic disease. When the second of the two was still with us, (they died 4 years apart), a well-intentioned person came to encourage us, and told us, “If you have enough faith, your baby will live”.

Those words were a hook that dragged me through years and years of torment. “If I have enough faith, then…” My baby died, so it became MY FAULT because I didn’t have sufficient faith. It also made God someone who couldn’t be pleased. How much faith DOES one need to get a miracle, and how do you get it?? It was a huge can of worms.

Two decades later, I broke down into a major depression that nearly ended my life, but God led me to safe counsel, and I was truly, finally healed from carrying that horrible guilt and grief all those years.

Words are powerful. Use wisdom because sometimes Satan uses well-intentioned words as bait that have lies wrapped in them.

Anonymous
I was going to a charismatic church and the pastor started promoting and giving Rick Warren’s book Purpose Driven Life out to all the new Christians. I was very concerned since I don’t agree with Warren’s teaching so I made an appointment to meet with the pastor and his wife (who is a co-pastor). They didn’t agree with my concerns at all and even mentioned during the conversation that they like Joel Osteen! I knew then that it was time for me to leave that church. I started attending a Baptist church and have left the Word of Faith doctrine completely. Feeling very blessed to be where I am now!

Comments from blog articles:

From The Mailbag: I “feel led” in a different direction from my husband:

Deby’s Story
Submission has gotten a bad rap in our society. It is not being a doormat or being mentally or a physically abused submission. It is submitting as if to Christ. My husband was not a believer and now he is. It was hard for me not to nag him about things, I had to trust God and put my husband in God’s hands and his will. Sure I made some mistakes along the way but eventually in God’s timing not mine, he called my husband to the faith.

Catherine’s Story
When I was first married, I was the unsaved and my dearest husband was the Believer. You have no idea what that man of mine had to put up with in the first 2 years of our marriage before the Lord got a hold of my heart and I was made to look at my own depravity, sinful desires, and all-around foolishness. I am a fortunate woman that my husband stuck around for that conversion, and I know that too was part of a Sovereign Lord’s plan and one that I cannot thank Him enough for. After 32 years of marriage, I have not “arrived”. I look back on those first couple years and I’m humbled by what the study of God’s Word and the sanctification that the Spirit works in a person’s life has done to change me so completely.

Ladies, God is still at work in the hearts and lives of His people, including yours! Would you like to share a testimony of how God saved you, how He has blessed you, convicted you, taught you something from His word, brought you out from under false doctrine, placed you in a good church or done something otherwise awesome in your life? Private/direct message me on social media, e-mail me (MichelleLesley1@yahoo.com), or comment below. Try to be brief (3-4 paragraphs or less) if possible. I’ll select a few to share on the blog another time. Let’s encourage one another with God’s work in our lives!

Encouragement, Share Your Testimony

Testimony Tuesday: Barbara’s Story

March 21, 2017July 25, 2026 Michelle Lesley

Barbara’s Testimony

I can only start with, “God help me, I’m so very weak.”

Last March I trembled my way to pre-op for open heart surgery. With promises from my husband I’d be okay, I kissed him hurriedly goodbye. I opened my eyes, two open heart surgeries and seventeen days later. Still nearer to death than life. My darling husband smiling down at me.

I couldn’t move. I was so very weak, hallucinating from the drugs they had used to keep me sedated all that time. I was confused and scared. Nothing made sense.

Eleven months later I’ve been through a grinding process of rehab. Eleven weeks in the hospital, finger amputations (tops, tips, half my thumb, toes), lung failure, kidney failure (kidneys are better!) but NO SURGEON could fix my spiritual heart.

I strove, oh I have and do, to live this life as a godly wife, even when some “charismatic ” friends said it was foolish and not really what the Bible said. My sister arguing with me that serving gets you nowhere, if men are too weak or lazy just step in (as if I’m not weak or lazy!)

But there he was, Dave, smiling down at me, so happy I was still with him. I couldn’t move from my bed, I was attached to dozens of lines, but he only left me to go to the hotel to sleep. For weeks he was with me constantly. He made sure I was okay. For the last year he has served me, while I’ve been crazy humbled.

Every day, he helps me dress, get washed, gets me to therapy. Every day, he makes me tea (the best!) and toast. He makes sure I have lunch and checks in on me often. He cooks dinners (say “Hello Fresh”) and then gets me tucked in at night. He listens to Steve Lawson* with me in the morning. He prays with and for me.

[*Note from Michelle: At the time this article was originally written, Steve Lawson was a doctrinally sound, trustworthy pastor and theologian. He has since committed disqualifying sin and is no longer in ministry. This mention of his name should not be construed as my current endorsement of Steve Lawson.]

Why did I type all this? Because, though I was the server, he was a server too. We were a team in that regard. Then it shifted. I was no longer a participant in our marriage in any physical way. AT. ALL.

And he just didn’t care. Oh yes, my pride made me cry a lot. My fear made me cry a lot. But he just said, “Barb, you’ve served me for 27 years. I got this now.” He did. He puts together my 65 pills a day, he rubs my destroyed feet, he holds me when I’m just too tired and I feel I can’t go on. He always has been a godly husband to me, but Jesus has shone through, shining into the lives of tens of other (mostly women) who watch his grave, grace-filled care of me and ask us, “Why?”. And we get to share the gospel.

It’ll be a year soon and I struggle NOW more than ever putting my life in his hands, shutting my tongue, speaking kindly, knowing that my life must have room for tragedy, but that God is working it all out for those that love Him and are called according to His purpose. I don’t know any more about the length of my life now than I ever did. God has surprised me with extended life since my first breath! So, I pray I remember these simple but freeing truths. Freedom from sin, free to trust, free to simply be.

Encouragement, Share Your Testimony

Testimony Tuesday: Berna Deene’s Story

February 7, 2017March 20, 2017 Michelle Lesley

Berna Deene’s Testimony

(Berna Deene shared this with her family and friends on social media
and is sharing it with us today)

“Let the redeemed of the LORD SAY SO,
whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy!”
[Psalm 107:2]
“Come and hear, all ye that fear God,
and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. ”
[Psalm 66:16]

My dearest family and friends,

I know you see what is on my timeline, I know because periodically you will hit the like button. I am asking each and every one of you to share this with your family and friends.

I spent the majority of my life dead spiritually. I wouldn’t admit there was a God, I didn’t like God and wanted nothing to do with Him other than a prayer now and then asking for help when I got myself in trouble. I never believed He heard me and as it turns out, it says in the Bible that He does not listen to the prayers of (unrepentant ) sinners. (Proverbs 15:29 “The LORD is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.” And again in John 9:31 “We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will”)

My life was long, longer than I wanted. I was ready for it to end. I had seen everything, done everything, was afraid of everything even though most thought me quite gregarious and bold. I was so sick of living, so sick of this world, running myself ragged trying to fix the world while blind to the fact that it was not in my control to do so. I was listening to a song on my computer one day…..Laura Story singing Blessings….and as she sang “this is not our home” I knew! I knew Jesus was with me. He had come for me. He calmed me….THEN, THEN, GOD, started drawing me, He called me (and I don’t mean I heard Him yell “Berna Deene”) but He called me just the same. He put me on my face and knees in my living room all by myself and I cried out to Him. I ask Him to forgive me.

I was a rebellious drug addicted rock and roll feminist. I believed in pro choice and pro gay marriages, I believed when you died you died. Period. I believed and lived like there was no tomorrow and indeed most the time I was hoping there would not be. He forgave me All of that. He opened my blind eyes, He replaced a heart of stone which I was born with, and gave me a throbbing heart of flesh which beats every moment and cries out “my God, my God, thank You for being my God.” He changed my mind when He changed my heart. I went from pro choice to knowing it was no choice. It is God’s choice. I went from believing everyone had a right to love whom they wanted, when they wanted and who did it hurt. It hurts them. And it makes God very very angry.

You see, in Genesis, right at the beginning as He created EVERYTHING, He set the way. Man, woman, child, beast. Marriage was between one man and one woman. Man was the head over the woman and meant to protect, provide and if necessary lay down his life for her. Woman was to be of support and submit to her husband just as we all, men, women and children are to submit to the LORD. She was to bear the children, teach and raise them to love, worship and obey God. But Eve listened to evil in the garden, deceived she decided on her own to eat the forbidden fruit, then offered it to Adam who ate it also even though he knew God said it was not allowed. From then on each and every one of us have been born dead spiritually and it isn’t until we are born again that we can reconnect with our Creator.

Why am I writing this? I have had loved ones die, that I know are not in heaven. I was not born again at the time of their dying so I could not be a witness to them about Jesus, born of a virgin, leading a totally sinless life, hanging on the cross with the sins of His sheep heavy on Him, dying to save me, and lo and behold resurrecting in 3 days just as He said He would! There are no coincidences in life my friends. The LORD GOD, knows all, sees all, and will judge all. Jesus is coming back. He said, if you repent and believe He will in no way turn you away.

Repent doesn’t just mean I’m sorry, It means to turn around from your sins, and leave them behind, Remorsefully bow at the foot of the cross where HE shed His blood to cleanse us. Doesn’t mean we don’t falter, slip, are perfect. No way. He was the only perfect one. But if you think you are born again, and your life hasn’t changed completely, drastically, and you don’t hate what you used to love, like drugs, lying, cheating, stealing, porn, abortion, cussing, gossiping, then you need to think again.

If you are not now Christ centered, waking in the morning and thinking of God, praising and praying and obeying His Word, think about Him through out the day and in bed as you lay down at night…you need to re-evaluate yourself. If you aren’t reading the Bible, the Word of God every day, if you don’t go and read where you can find out what HE expects and commands of us, how can you say you love HIM and you are His? If your soul isn’t grieving for the lost, the unsaved, the unrepentant, if you are not sharing your faith and Jesus, please reconsider if your new birth was in fact the born again that Jesus Himself spoke of.. None of us are guaranteed the next minute let alone tomorrow. Do not put off seeking HIM. Time is so much shorter than you think. I love you and I want to see you in heaven. I remain …..in praise, prayer and need of prayer.

Your sister Berna Deene

Encouragement, Share Your Testimony

Testimony Tuesday: Lisa’s Story

January 17, 2017March 20, 2017 Michelle Lesley

My Testimony to the Saving Grace of Jesus Christ

by Lisa Brown

My prayer is that God would use this as a witness to His Truth and that He will be glorified.

When I was 12, during an invitation, I walked the aisle up to the pastor. The Sunday before, an 11-year-old boy had been saved and I didn’t like that he was only 11 and I was 12 and I hadn’t “done that yet”. I do remember knowing “Jesus died on the cross for me”. I didn’t understand what that meant, but since I had heard this all my life, I believed it. I don’t remember what I said or what the pastor said. I remember being told that I was saved and was baptized a few Sundays later. Nothing about me changed.

For the next 23 years I did whatever I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it without regard to whether or not it was pleasing to God, nor did I care. It didn’t matter to me how I lived my life as long as God forgave me at the end and I didn’t go to Hell. As I was in and out of churches, the false belief that I was saved was reinforced by the sermons I heard. I could name a time and place I had “made a decision for Christ”. I didn’t really understand what salvation was but I didn’t know that at the time. I didn’t see myself as having sinned against a holy God. As far as I was concerned I had prayed the prayer and that was all I needed to do.

When I was 35, God caused me to see how sinful I was (I will spare you the details). For the first time I realized that my prayer as a kid did not save me. For the first time, I hated who I was and how I had been living my life. For the first time, I realized that how I was living my life hadn’t just hurt me, my friends and my family, but I had grieved God. For the first time I understood that salvation was not just about getting out of Hell. I finally understood what “Jesus died on the cross for me” meant. I finally understood how wretched I was and why Jesus had to die for me. It was at this time, that I truly wanted God to forgive me and save me and I knew then that I belonged to Him.

The Holy Spirit has taught me so much in the past 16 years and has grown me steadily at times and by great leaps and bounds at other times. The first 5 years He showed me how I was to live my life as a Christian. I wasn’t very good at it. I had no one to mentor/disciple me. But, as time went by, God taught me more and more through reading Scripture and my desire to obey Him grew. The next 9 years He showed me that because I desire to obey Him I would lose some close relationships and other friendships but that He is never going to leave me. He strengthened the godly friendships and brought strong Christians into my life, including moving me from one church to another so that I would be taught and understand the truth of His Sovereignty. He has also taught me even more to not depend on myself or other people but to completely depend on Him. He has taught me not to be afraid to ask Him to break me.

About 2 years ago God gave me a greater understanding that my relationship with Him is not about how obedient I am. Much of what I had believed since being saved was that I had to “be good” or God would not be pleased with me and not hear my prayers. I knew I was saved but thought that my day to day relationship with God was based on how good I was. I hadn’t prayed enough. I hadn’t read my Bible enough. I hadn’t shared the Gospel enough. I hadn’t given enough. I continually felt that God was not pleased with me most of the time and I needed to do better so God would hear my prayers. I thought that I was forgiven of my past sin but had to answer to God later for all these sins I was committing now and continually having to repent of.

When I was challenged by a friend to dig deeper into God’s Word I realized that when God forgave me, He not only forgave me of my past sins, but for ALL my sin. God is pleased with me because of Jesus, and not because I am meeting some standard. That correction in my thinking was a great burden lifted. Now, I live my life for God because he saved me and not because I don’t want God to regret that He saved me. What freedom! God’s grace to me is beyond my understanding and I can never be grateful enough for it and I can never love God the way He deserves to be loved, but I can obey His commands out of gratefulness and love and no longer out of fear of disapproval.

God continues to teach me and draw me closer to Him. He has put a love in my heart for fellow believers. This is a big deal because there were times that I didn’t think I was capable of loving anyone other than my children. He has brought a precious Christian friend into my life that truly cares about my relationship with God. She has mentored and discipled me and continually pushes me toward God with both her words and her example. I have grown more passionate for Scripture and my time alone with God. I am learning every day and falling in love with Jesus more and more.

I want the world to know God as righteous and holy and treat Him with respect and reverence; not in a casual manner as a buddy, or as merely a gift giver. I want everyone to understand that God is not only good when we get the things we desire, but that He is inherently good. I want my friends to be aware of the dangers of false teaching, so I warn them. I want others to understand who God is and the truth of His Word so I share the Gospel. I want others to truly understand how man’s standard for goodness compares to God’s so that they can see their own sin. I want the whole world to hear about God’s salvation, but my heart goes out mostly to those that sit in churches week after week like I did as a false convert.

Please pray for Lisa: Prayers would be appreciated. I have been diagnosed with breast cancer. This is the 2nd time. The first was 19 years ago. I had surgery last week and am now recovering. Doing this all with a broken foot. God is merciful and worthy of all my praise. I just want Christ to be glorified.

Update from Lisa (1/21/16): “Thank you to those that have been praying. I just learned yesterday that the cancer is not in my lymph nodes so I do not have to have chemo. And I have plenty of family and friends to help me while I recover from the cancer surgery with a broken foot. God is merciful!”