“ And then he took a little candle and handed it to me. And he says, ‘I want you to put the candle on the inside of it, and I want you to see how the light refracts through the brokenness,” Newton recounted.
”While I was looking at this broken piece of pottery put together by duct tape,” he continued, “there was a sticker on the bottom of this broken piece of pottery that said clearance.”
“ And [the counselor] said, ‘Ed, what are you feeling right now?’ And I said, ‘Man, I feel like that tag of clearance is me,’” Newton said.
Newton went on to say that the counselor shared two ways people in ministry tend to respond to rejection. “You quit,” he said, or “you live your whole life to prove people wrong.”
“And both of those are wrong,” Newton added. He went on to share that he pursued a college education to prove wrong a guidance counselor who told him he was “not college material.” Later, he strove to be a great basketball player after a college coach told him he couldn’t jump. And he carried the same mindset into ministry.
“But if you ain’t careful, you’ll live your whole life this way—motivated by the wrong reason,” Newton said. “I wanna give you a statement today: You cannot live your life to prove your critics wrong, but you better live your life to prove your Creator was right when he appointed you.”
“ God was right when he chose you, appointed you, anointed you, consecrated you, separated you,” said Newton. “He saw you in your mother’s womb before you existed.”
“ All you pastors and all you leaders that face your critics,” Newton went on to say, “ when somebody just lights up the chat bar on you, and then you gotta see them, what do you do with all of that?”
Newton reminded ministry leaders of Jesus’ baptism, specifically the words that came from the heavens after Jesus came out of the water: “ This is my Son in whom I’m well pleased.”
“Before Jesus ever did any miracles, before Jesus ever did any signs of wonders…before Jesus ever went to a cross, before Jesus ever went to an empty tomb and occupied it and in three days walked out as the undefeated, undisputed heavyweight champion,” Newton said, “before he did all of that, the Father goes, ‘Pleased.’”
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“ He did not work for the approval of God,” Newton said. “He worked from the approval of God.”
, Pastor Ed Newton encouraged church leaders to listen to the voice of God more than the voice of their critics.){kind=link}