first blog...

         My name is Dan Beitzel and I love Jesus Christ with all of my heart. The first blog i will post will be a short paper i wrote on the passion to pastor and preach the Gospel. This was a small project for my Pastoral Duties class for Liberty University.

         "I feel compelled to give my life to pastoral ministry not solely on the basis of my own inward examination, (although this is crucial) but on the divine passion and urgency I feel to preach the word of God with accuracy and to shepherd the Lords sheep into higher passions for obedience, which leads to righteousness and sanctification; to cherish and protect the bride of Jesus Christ with my whole life and to present her to the bridegroom without blemish in all purity, love and holiness. My deep desire is to preach a gospel that is full of grace, love and truth which, as Spurgeon says, “conforms the generation to the Bible, not the Bible to the generation.” There must be an emphasis on repentance, the power of constant prayer both private and publicly, fasting, and other disciplines which sets us on a path to be used by the Almighty.  I must urge the brethren to have a warfare mentality, to be actively equipping themselves for the unseen battles against flesh and devils, daily and constantly. I desire to lead on the front lines of ware fare for Jesus Christ, never neglecting to apply my pastoral duties to the poor and weary, and to saturate my mind diligently to the study of scripture, being renewed in the knowledge after the image of its creator – Colossians 3:10, so no false prophecy may have its part in me.

          As far as qualifications for an overseer in 1 Timothy 3, can any man say he has arrived at the completion of these virtues and qualifications? How I ache for the Holy Spirit to continue the supernatural work of sanctification in the process of holding fast to these qualifications. We must have a deep satisfaction in Jesus to be able to put all other vanities aside and to break the many strong holds of sin to live freely and pure for the Kingdom of God. If our joy is rooted supremely in Christ alone we will yearn to operate in our spiritual gifts for the service of Jesus, and live upright and blameless lives for the advancement of the Gospel. In conclusion, I can read all the books I want and have a perfect theology. I can be a textbook pastor through and through, but without prayer I am powerless. I truly believe in order  to have an obedience to the qualifications of overseer there must be a deep, unshaken satisfaction in Jesus, which no carnal desire can compare, and a prayer life that is full of fervor and fire, being sharpened in the prayer closet and released with massive impact on the brethren in public labor."

Blessings,

Dan