Jesus Driven Ministry - Quotes (2)

Some more quotes for Ajith Fernando - from his chapter: 'Saturated in the Word'

If we are to live holy lives, we need to be saturated with the Word. Jesus prayed, “sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth’ (John 17:17) p90

‘Oh give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri [a man of one book]. (John Wesley) p91

My ground is the Bible. Yea, I am a Bible bigot. I follow it in all things, both great and small’. (John Wesley) p92

‘It is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until you come to talk in Scriptural language and your spirit is flavoured with the words of the Lord, so that your blood is Bibline..’ (CH Spurgeon) p92

If we give up on Biblical principles for quick results or what seems to be an easier way out of problems, we lose the security of being anchored to the Word. This loss of security is, I believe, a primary cause for burnout in the ministry. We become restless – and start to act out of that restlessness. Our spirits can’t handle the strain of such a course for too long. We will lack the strenght for long term ministry.’ p94

In the ministry the people we serve are very fickle, and their actions inflict deep pain upon on us. These blows that come in ministry can be very hard on our emotions. To experience such responses after we have sacrificed so much for others can be so hurtful. This is why the ministry is never a good primary source for our security. Burnout is very high in the helping professions. p95

‘This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success’ (Joshua 1:8). The two basic teachings of this verse are that 1) a leader must spend a lot of time in the Word and think about it all the time, and 2) the obedience that results from such exposure to the Word is the key to the leader’s success. This is why I have no hesitation to tell young ministers that if they do not spend unhurried time in the Word (and in prayer) daily, they have no future in terms of effectiveness in ministry. p101

‘When a minister stops studying, he simply stops’ p104

I heard about a minister who left the ministry and went into other work burned out and discouraged. He had even left his library behind in his last church. When his successor at this church came and went through the library, he found that most of the ex-pastor’s earlier books were on the Bible and theology while most of the books he had aquired more recently were books on practical topics. The ex-pastor was a typical product of our pragmatic age. Possibly his pragmatism did not give him the resouces to remain fresh in ministry over a long period. How sad it is that many Christian leaders who used to spend long hours with the Scriptures in their early years as Christians do not do so anymore. And how dangerous it is for themselves and for those they lead. p104

Let us pray and work until once again evangelical Christians will be known as ‘Bible Christians’, the term John Wesley liked to use to describe the early Methodists. P106)