Called to the Ministry Quotes

A bunch quotes I appreciated from Called to the Ministry, beginning with my four favorites:"Every gift you have received, then, is a calling of theSpirit...Indeed, you ought not even to be content with the gifts thatyou have, but covet more. God's giving and calling are dynamicallyrelated...Your desire to serve God more fully might be the foretaste ofricher gifts equipping you for that service. It is quite possible tooverestimate the gifts you have; it is quite impossible toover-supplicate the gifts you need.""Seizing God-given opportunity counts for much in the fulfillment ofyour calling...What opportunities do you perceive? The first doors arein the room where you are. The Lord has given you a certain set ofpresent circumstances...Here you must begin; indeed here you must bewilling to remain until other doors of opportunity are perceived andopened. The surest way to miss future opportunities is to ignorepresent ones.""If this survey of the function of the minister has not given you pause [this is from page 60 of the book], please abandon all thought of becoming a minister. If it has, be encouraged. To the degree that you are overwhelmed you show a willingness to take the ministry seriously.""To miss your calling, follow this three-point program: assume that it begins in the future, decide that you don't know what it is, and sit down to wait for the Lord's call. No, he has already called you--to be a Christian. Fulfill that call with all your heart and you will learn in his time what ministry is yours.""No Spiritual Inventory Test can measure your gifts and capacities in Christ's service. Such a test may help you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think; it may reveal unsuspected abilities and strengths. But Christ's own test is not the S.I.T.; it is administered only in action. We might call it the Service in Fellowship Test. As you labor with other Christians, hidden gifts are brought to light and new gifts are received.""You learn to know yourself only as you learn to know Christ. Self-knowledge cannot be an end in itself. Paul never cries with Socrates, 'Know thyself!' Rather he says, 'That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed unto his death; if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.' 'For to me to live is Christ' is the text of Paul's life.""Yet the calling of Christ's kingdom not only separates a man from the world, it also sends him to the world...The 'Come!' of Christ separates us from the world to his name; the 'Go!' of Christ sends us to the world in his name.""The purpose of your life must be the purpose of Christ's death.""...the calling of an individual in the church of Christ is determined by the gifts Christ has given him, by the 'measure' of the Spirit he has received...Your personal calling as a Christian is the outworking of the measure of the gift of God's grace that has been given to you...the Lord deals to each man a measure of faith. These gifts must be exercised, and in their exercise the calling of the Christian is determined.""Good stewardship requires a man to 'stir up' the gift of God that is in him (2 Tim 1:6), as Paul charged Timothy.""You cannot bring your gifts to mature function apart from the mutual ministries of Christ's church. Therefore no Christian can determine his calling in isolation from the throbbing organism in which he is called.""...God gives richer graces as his steward is faithful. You do not now have all the gifts you will have when the full demands of the ministry fall upon you...All that we have, God has given; all that we need, God will give.""Calling to the ministry and love of the Bible go together.""Don't demand an answer today. You cannot program a computer to calculate your potential for Christ's ministry. You must live out the answer...The call to stewardship is found in stewardship. To the servant who is faithful in the little the Lord entrusts much. The fruit bearing branch is pruned for greater fruitfulness."