Was reading the following on another thread "There is nothing that gives a preacher more confidence than to hear this word (the word "Amen!") during a message. After all, confidence is what it means."
Reading that, I couldn't helping thinking how that by that standard, the respective ministries of God through Israel's Prophets; of the Lord; of the Spirit through the Twelve, and of the Lord through the Apostle Paul, had been miserable failures.
For it is exactly that kind of a "confidence in the flesh" that not only ends up many a Pastor one more a "once was" statistic, but also, why some are so insistent not just that their view alone is right; but that anyone who does not "amen" it can expect to be shabbily treated by such "ministers of righteousness."
Ministry is a thankless job to the extent of the prize one's focus is on.
Note the order and thus, intended focus in the following wording.
1Cor 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Again, note the focus...
2Cor 3:5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
Not towards brow beating others over the head with it, but in the spirit of the Spirit.
2Cor 3:2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: 3:3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
One could cite many passages like those.
Its interesting, this caring and yet, not caring, dynamic - this "commending ourselves to every man's conscience" true, but "in the sight of God" 2 Cor. 4:2.
Reading that, I couldn't helping thinking how that by that standard, the respective ministries of God through Israel's Prophets; of the Lord; of the Spirit through the Twelve, and of the Lord through the Apostle Paul, had been miserable failures.
For it is exactly that kind of a "confidence in the flesh" that not only ends up many a Pastor one more a "once was" statistic, but also, why some are so insistent not just that their view alone is right; but that anyone who does not "amen" it can expect to be shabbily treated by such "ministers of righteousness."
Ministry is a thankless job to the extent of the prize one's focus is on.
Note the order and thus, intended focus in the following wording.
1Cor 15:58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
Again, note the focus...
2Cor 3:5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
Not towards brow beating others over the head with it, but in the spirit of the Spirit.
2Cor 3:2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: 3:3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
One could cite many passages like those.
Its interesting, this caring and yet, not caring, dynamic - this "commending ourselves to every man's conscience" true, but "in the sight of God" 2 Cor. 4:2.
