CQOD: 05/19/07 -- Adams: amateur minister?

Christian Quotation of the Day

May 19, 2007

Feast of Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, 988

Meditation:
    For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
    -- 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (ESV)

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Quotation:
    Can the love of Christ move a Christian to fruitful, effective, full-time, unpaid service to those who belong to Him? I have no hesitation in answering, Yes, it can, and it must. St. Paul wrote, “The very spring of our actions is the love of Christ. We look at it this way: if one died for all men, then in a sense, they all died; and his purpose in dying for them is that their lives should now be no longer lived for themselves but for Him who died and rose again for them.” There is the motive. Can anyone doubt that St. Paul’s ministry was fruitful—in wisdom, in Christ-like character, in testimony to the power of the Spirit of Christ—or effective—in conversions, in churches planted, in men raised up to carry on the work? Yet St. Paul spent long hours working with his hands to support himself. He served Christ, therefore, as an “amateur.” Dare we say he was not really a “full time” worker? Or was he not really “unpaid”?
    ... Robert MacColl Adams (1913-1985), “Amateur Ministry”

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Quiet time reflection:
    Today would be Robert MacColl Adams' ninety-fourth birthday. Since this tiny ministry is largely his work, I invite you to take a moment to reflect, as he did many times, on the work of the Holy Spirit in our time. Evidence of the Holy Spirit is present in the words, thoughts, and actions of His saints, throughout the world and throughout the church age.
    In our time and our culture, the saints continue to speak, with different words but the same message. They are saying, let go of the preconceptions of religion, and seek Christ alone. In Him, we are to discover all that is authentic. Jesus wants us to find out what God means when He says, "I will have mercy, not sacrifice." (Hosea 6:6a) The full answer is known in the Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
    The Holy Spirit animates all authentic ministry, professional or otherwise, down to the meanest and basest service, like the washing of feet. Suffering, weakness, and death are all sanctified in Jesus. Likewise, ministry is the calling of every priest in the Kingdom. And that is all of us. Some stimulating perspectives on that fact are presented in the balance of the article from which the above excerpt is taken.
    To see the full text of "Amateur Ministry," as well as three other works, "Consecration of the House," "Of Rice and Men," and "Receiving One Another," go to the special archive on CQOD, located at

        http://cqod.gospelcom.net/cqodrma0.htm

    Grace and peace,
    RMA

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See Believer's Desktop Companion 2007
    http://www.cqod.com/cqoddtcb.html

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