II Corinthians 4:5 “For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.”
It is true that Preachers love the Lord’s people in the Church where they are called to Pastor. When the Lord calls a Preacher to Pastor a particular Church, He gives that Preacher a unique love for the Church and the Church love for the Pastor. This Pastoral love is one of the ways a man knows that he is called to serve a particular Church. However, even this Pastoral love is not the main force behind his service. Ministers are “servants for Jesus’ sake”; that is, they serve because of their love and worshipful adoration for the Lord, always remembering the Lord’s “great love wherewith he loved us” (Ephesians 2:4) and the great sacrifice He made for us and the “hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (Titus 1:2). Whatever sacrifices a Preacher must make to serve the Lord, those sacrifices seem as nothing when compared to our Lord’s Great Sacrifice to save us from our sins (Matthew 1:21). Paul said it this way, “For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.” (II Corinthians 4:11)! One of my favorite hymns, poetically explains this pinnacle love this way, “I love my savior, God, Because He first loved me, Because He shed His precious blood to set my spirit free. Touched by His dying love, I melted into grief, With my whole heart I love the God that loved and bled, Who left the shining realms above And suffered in my stead. Who can forbear to love A God so good and kind? Sure He is worthy to be loved By me and all man-kind.”