It has come to be a dreadfully common belief in the Christian Church that the only man who has a “call” is the man who devotes all his time to what is called “the ministry,” whereas all Christian service is ministry, and every Christian has a call to some kind of ministry or another.
Interpretation
Everyone is called to serve, not just those in formal ministry.
In this quote, Charles Spurgeon emphasizes that the notion of a 'call' within the Christian Church is often mistakenly limited to those who work in formal ministry roles. He argues that all Christians have a responsibility to engage in service and that this capacity for ministry is inherent to every believer, thus broadening the concept of ministry to include all forms of service to others.
In practice
In a church sermon discussing the roles of believers, this quote can inspire congregants to find ways to serve.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
We need to discover all over again that worship is natural to the Christian, as it was to the godly Israelites who wrote the psalms, and that the habit of celebrating the greatness and graciousness of God yields an endless flow of thankfulness, joy, and zeal.
Faith is above all a personal, intimate encounter with Jesus, and to experience [His] closeness, [His] friendship, [His] Love; only in this way does one learn to know [Him] ever more, and to love and follow [Him] ever more. May this happen to each one of us.
What I did was take the Jesus of the Gospels, the Son of God, the Son of the Virgin Mary, and sought to make Him utterly believable, a vital breathing character.
Faith is a living, daring, confidence in God's grace.
It is imperative that the Christian, at the beginning of his pursuit to understand what true worship is, gets it clear that the object of our worship is to be God and God alone.
If you have no joy in your religion, there's a leak in your Christianity somewhere.
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