Jesus is the Word of God
Had to chuckle at this from Jonny Long's Grace4Life webiste:
In case you can't quite make it out, it's
Which is your favourite?
Any to add?
.
Lest anyone feel left out by my last post on ordination vows, this was today's reading from Spurgeon's Evening and Morning - we all have a holy calling!
"Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called."—1 Corinthians 7:20.
Some persons have the foolish notion that the only way in which they can live for God is by becoming ministers, missionaries, or Bible women. Alas! how many would be shut out from any opportunity of magnifying the Most High if this were the case. Beloved, it is not office, it is earnestness; it is not position, it is grace which will enable us to glorify God. God is most surely glorified in that cobbler's stall, where the godly worker, as he plies the awl, sings of the Saviour's love, ay, glorified far more than in many a prebendal stall where official religiousness performs its scanty duties. The name of Jesus is glorified by the poor unlearned carter as he drives his horse, and blesses his God, or speaks to his fellow labourer by the roadside, as much as by the popular divine who, throughout the country, like Boanerges, is thundering out the gospel. God is glorified by our serving Him in our proper vocations. Take care, dear reader, that you do not forsake the path of duty by leaving your occupation, and take care you do not dishonour your profession while in it. Think little of yourselves, but do not think too little of your callings. Every lawful trade may be sanctified by the gospel to noblest ends. Turn to the Bible, and you will find the most menial forms of labour connected either with most daring deeds of faith, or with persons whose lives have been illustrious for holiness. Therefore be not discontented with your calling. Whatever God has made your position, or your work, abide in that, unless you are quite sure that he calls you to something else. Let your first care be to glorify God to the utmost of your power where you are. Fill your present sphere to His praise, and if He needs you in another He will show it you. This evening lay aside vexatious ambition, and embrace peaceful content.
Many, unhelpfully, reserve the word 'calling' for a particular burden felt for ordained ministry. This is not the sense of the word in the bible. 1 Corinthians begins with the one calling which embraces us all:
God... has called you into fellowship with His Son Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Cor 1:9)
Chapter 7 embellishes upon this - some were called when single, some when married, some when slaves, some when free, some when circumcised, some when uncircumcised. Our call was not to these positions. Rather, in these positions we are called to Christ. And Paul is keen that we live out our calling in the position we find ourselves.
So remember - whether paid by the church or by your firm, whether working in the home or at school, you are called. Called to fellowship with Christ. Called to live out this fellowship in the place where you are. The church pastor could prove a total failure in living out this calling. The Christian dentist could witness to hundreds in their "secular" job. There's one calling - a call to fellowship with Jesus. So "Let your first care be to glorify God to the utmost of your power where you are. Fill your present sphere to His praise."
.
Right now you can read live blogging of GAFCON and the EMA. I give you live blogging of the Chichester diocese ordination retreat 2008!
On Sunday I'm being ordained into the presbyterate. In the Anglican church we're ordained first as Deacons and then, usually the following year, as Presbyters (or "Priests"). I've been reflecting on my ordination vows - which are weighty indeed. Here is an extract from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (this is right at the heart of the Church of England's doctrinal basis which consists of the Book of Common Prayer, the Thirty Nine Articles and the Ordinal).
The bishop says this:
"Now again we exhort you, in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye have in remembrance, into how high a Dignity, and to how weighty an Office and Charge ye are called: that is to say, to be Messengers, Watchmen, and Stewards of the Lord; to teach, and to premonish, to feed and provide for the Lord's family; to seek for Christ's sheep that are dispersed abroad, and for his children who are in the midst of this naughty world, that they may be saved through Christ for ever.
"Have always therefore printed in your remembrance, how great a treasure is committed to your charge. For they are the sheep of Christ, which he bought with his death, and for whom he shed his blood. The Church and Congregation whom you must serve, is his Spouse, and his Body. And if it shall happen that the same Church, or any Member thereof, do take any hurt or hindrance by reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue. Wherefore consider with yourselves the end of the Ministry towards the children of God, towards the Spouse and Body of Christ; and see that ye never cease your labour, your care and diligence, until ye have done all that lieth in you, according to your bounden duty, to bring all such as are or shall be committed to your charge, unto that agreement in the faith and knowledge of God, and to that ripeness and perfectness of age in Christ, that there be no place left among you, either for error in religion, or for viciousness in life.
"Forasmuch then as your Office is both of so great excellency, and of so great difficulty, ye see with how great care and study ye ought to apply yourselves, as well to show yourselves dutiful and thankful unto that Lord, who hath placed you in so high a dignity; as also to beware that neither you yourselves offend, nor be occasion that others offend. Howbeit, ye cannot have a mind and will thereto of yourselves; for that will and ability is given of God alone: therefore ye ought, and have need, to pray earnestly for his Holy Spirit. And seeing that ye cannot by any other means compass the doing of so weighty a work, pertaining to the salvation of man, but with doctrine and exhortation taken out of the Holy Scriptures, and with a life agreeable to the same; consider how studious ye ought to be in reading and learning the Scriptures, and in framing the manners both of yourselves, and of them that specially pertain unto you, according to the rule of the same Scriptures; and for this self-same cause, how ye ought to forsake and set aside, as much as ye may, all worldly cares and studies.
"We have good hope that ye have well weighed these things with yourselves, long before this time; and that ye have clearly determined, by God's grace, to give yourselves wholly to this Office, whereunto it hath pleased God to call you: so that, as much as lieth in you, ye will apply yourselves wholly to this one thing, and draw all your cares and studies this way; and that ye will continually pray to God the Father, by the mediation of our only Saviour Jesus Christ, for the heavenly assistance of the Holy Ghost; that, by daily reading and weighing the Scriptures, ye may wax riper and stronger in your Ministry; and that ye may so endeavour yourselves, from time to time, to sanctify the lives of you and yours, and to fashion them after the Rule and Doctrine of Christ, that ye may be wholesome and godly examples and patterns for the people to follow."
And here are some of the vows we will take regarding the Bible - this time taken from the Common Worship ordination service which we'll be using...
Bishop: Do you accept the Holy Scriptures as revealing all things necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ?
Ordinands: I do so accept them.
Bishop: Will you be diligent in prayer, in reading Holy Scripture, and in all studies that will deepen your faith and fit you to bear witness to the truth of the gospel?
Ordinands: By the help of God, I will.
Bishop: Will you lead Christ’s people in proclaiming his glorious gospel, so that the good news of salvation may be heard in every place?
Ordinands: By the help of God, I will.
Bishop: Will you faithfully minister the doctrine and sacraments of Christ as the Church of England has received them, so that the people committed to your charge may be defended against error and flourish in the faith?
Ordinands: By the help of God, I will.
It's pause for thought to consider that those bishops about to meet at the Lambeth Conference have at least three times publicly signed up to this understanding of ministry and the bible. They've made vows just like this before God and man - once as Deacon, once as Priest, once as Bishop. Anglicans may not always live true to their calling - but this missional, gospel-centred, word-based ministry is the essence of true Anglicanism.
.
Today I listened to this talk by Robert Reymond addressed to men in the ministry. If you are a minister of the word, listen and be humbled. If you know a minister of the word, listen and learn how to pray for them.
The talk finishes after 47 minutes, the Q&A afterwards isn't particularaly illuminating, but that 3/4 of an hour is holy fire! Now I know I've spoken against completely identifying holiness with 'the quiet time' and there's a bit of that here, but do yourself a favour and listen in.
.
Some wonderful quotes which he used:
Robert Murray McCheyne on the congregation's greatest need:
My people's greatest need is my own personal holiness.
.
A prayer of Luther's:
Lord God, You have appointed me as a Bishop and Pastor in Your Church, but you see how unsuited I am to meet so great and difficult a task. If I had lacked Your help, I would have ruined everything long ago. Therefore, I call upon You: I wish to devote my mouth and my heart to you; I shall teach the people. I myself will learn and ponder diligently upon You Word. Use me as Your instrument -- but do not forsake me, for if ever I should be on my own, I would easily wreck it all.
.
John Newton on the terrible dangers of pride:
While human nature remains in its present state there will be almost the same connection between popularity and pride, as between fire and gunpowder: they cannot meet without an explosion, at least not unless the gunpowder is kept very damp.
I've been very blessed by stumbling across the sermons of Victor Shepherd on the web.
Here's a thought of his prompted by Revelation 5:5:
Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed."
Here's what Shepherd says:
I think that what a pastor must have above everything else is a conviction concerning Christ's victory; a conviction so deep in him that it goes all the way down to his DNA, and he exhales it upon his people both explicitly and implicitly even as it seeps out of every pore. A pastor has to be convinced unshakeably of Christ's victory if he's profoundly to support and sustain his people.
.