Six Pastors Who Influenced My Life

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the people who’ve influenced me.

Specifically pastors.

Pastors who’ve risked fame and friends in favor of speaking truth.

Ever wonder what life would be like WITHOUT people who weren’t afraid to cut across the grain?

Luckily, there are pastors who refused to sleep with the enemy.

Some of these pastors have changed my life. Here are six.

Exposed my ten years as a false convert for what they were–a delusion–and put me on the search for the meaning of a true, biblical conversion.

Picked up where Comfort left off through a series of sermons on authentic faith that pushed me to ground my salvation in the biblical work of Christ and not some weak confession motivated by selfish desires.

Taught me the importance of distributing my time equally among Christians and non-Christians and how to talk to those non-Christians.

Demonstrated how to revel in the beauty and joy of submitting to, exalting in and serving for Christ.

Showed me [in a biography of his life] during the early, ambivalent stage of my Christian walk that raising God-fearing children was a vastly more important legacy to leave than becoming one of the most significant novelists of my time.

Got in my face when my emotional infidelity with my wife surfaced. He boldy drew the line in the sand and challenged me to decide which side I was going to stand on–the sacred life of serving Christ or the libertine life of serving self.

Now it’s your turn. Share a short story about a pastor in your life who’s influenced you.

And if you’re a non-believer, tell us about a person–maybe a father, professor or manager–who gave you life-altering advice.

Let’s honor those people who’ve swam up stream for the sake of truth. I look forward to your thoughts.

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One thought on “Six Pastors Who Influenced My Life

  1. Ita

    Hi Damien,

    I was illuminated some time ago while in discourse with a Jehovah’s Witness. The same problem a major segment of the church has is upheld by that sect. The sin of unbelief.

    You, like many other misguided ‘Israelites’, really believe that God is limited to our doctrinal misconceptions. And that with God, all things are NOT possible. That he cannot do the absolutely astounding as a norm. That he cannot pick someone like a Jason Westerfield, or Kenneth Hagin, or Alexander Dowie, or Bob Jones, and guide them in ways that are not akin to our unfortunate church-in-Egypt experience from the very onset. (Kenneth Hagin escaped it actually and so did Dowie.) Like with Moses, or Jesus, or Jeanne Guyon, or Finney, Wesley or Jonathan Edwards, all attacked primarily for coming across different from the norm, we repeat the same sins of building sepulchres for the dead and killing the living.

    Take it from one who grew up in the church, who has been born again more than 2 decades, who is primarily called to teach and therefore has grown up spiritually on a diet of objective, investigative bible study with a rabid desire to accept only truth and an awareness of the very real copycat devices of satan: KICK UNBELIEF. REPENT (ie change your thinking). OUR GOD CAN DO ANYTHING. And till He tells you clearly that a child of His is wrong; and you can prove it is goes against God’s nature to carry out any of the acts they claim to have experienced, do not weaken the Body of Christ. Better hear than answer over there at the Judgment Seat on charges of being a stumbling block. Let satan do his thing. Why assist the enemy?

    A Brother from Africa

    Reply

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