Inspirational Quotes on Ministry

“The earnest worker soon learns his own weakness. If you seek humility, try hard work; if you would know your nothingness, attempt some great thing for Jesus.”

“It is not loving to impose our own grid onto others. We need to understand their situation and their needs accurately, and this comes from listening to them, not coming in with our own assumptions.”

“When religion becomes so involved in a future good "over yonder" that it forgets the present evils over here it is as dry as dust religion and needs to be condemned.”

“One good deed is more worth than a thousand brilliant theories. Let us not wait for large opportunities, or for a different kind of work, but do just the things we "find to do" day by day.”

“Go, labour on while it is day, The world's dark night is hastening on. Speed, speed thy work, cast sloth away-- It is not thus that souls are won.”

“One of the students was a doctor, a German woman, and I used to watch her scouring garbage pails as though she were preparing a room for surgery.”

“It was well to be Martha and serve, but better to be Lazarus and commune.”

“A fruitful ministry will not abandon the gospel by overcontextualizing to its place and culture, nor will it privatize the gospel by undercontextualizing to his place and culture.”

“Let our liberty be practically exhibited by serving the Lord with gratitude and delight.”

“I seldom come out of the pulpit but my conscience smiteth me that I have been no more serious and fervent. It accuseth me not so much for want of ornaments and elegancy, nor for letting fall an unhandsome word; but it asketh me, 'How couldst thou speak of life and death with such a heart? How couldst thou preach of heaven and hell in such a careless, sleepy manner? Dost thou believe what thou sayest? Art thou in earnest, or in jest? How canst thou tell people that sin is such a thing, and that so much misery is upon them and before them, and be no more affected with it? Shouldst thou not weep over such a people, and should not thy tears interrupt thy words? Shouldst thou not cry aloud, and show them their transgressions; and entreat and beseech them as for life and death? Truly this is the peal that conscience doth ring in my ears, and yet my drowsy soul will not be awakened. Oh, what a thing is an insensible, hardened heart! O Lord, save us from the plague of infidelity and hardheartedness ourselves, or else how shall we be fit instruments of saving others from it? Oh, do that on our souls which thou wouldst use us to do on the souls of others!”

“All the practical tips in the world won't sustain us in the hardships of ministry or produce the kind of gospel ministry that will change our towns.”

“In the same way we can have our soul, with the full use of its faculties; and yet the soul is not now our life-spring. We are no longer living in it, we are no longer drawing from it and living by it; we use it. When the body becomes our life, we live like beasts. When the soul becomes our life, we live as rebels and fugitives from God— gifted, cultured, [and] educated, no doubt, but alienated from the life of God. But when we come to live our life in the Spirit, and by the Spirit, though we still use our soul faculties just as we do our physical faculties, they are now the servants of the Spirit; and when we have reached that point God can really use us.”

“The goal of priestly ministry is to do good to the souls of men.”

“The commencement of all labor consisted in the preparation of his own soul.”

“In the sympathy of Christ we find a sustaining power.”

“[O]ur English divines are sounder in it than any in the world, generally: I think because they are more practical, and have had more wounded, tender consciences under cure, and less empty speculation and dispute (336-7).”

“The gospel isn't just the message we take to small places; it's our motivation for going to them in the first place and our means of fruitful ministry once we get there.”

“She is doing this for Me." Real satisfaction is brought to the heart of God only when we are really, as people would think, "wasting" ourselves upon him. It seems as though we are giving too much and getting nothing—and that is the secret of pleasing God.”

“If we buy into the church culture of celebrity, we drift away from following Jesus faithfully.”

“A divided heart can never bring complete satisfaction. The man of mingled interests will seldom make a success of anything. If he would succeed in business he must give the major portion of his time and the best of his thought to his business.... The very same is true of the man who would be used of God, only to a far greater degree. The work alone must claim his whole attention. He has no room for other things.”