Perspective: the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point; particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view; true understanding of the relative importance of things; a sense of proportion.

I named this blog Perspectives, because I think it might just be what God is growing in me. Slowly but surely, giving me a correct understanding of myself, and by His sweet grace, shifting my perspective away from the slavery of self onto the beauty of Jesus. I hope to have a “true understanding of the relative importance of things”—a right perspective...to find that place of freedom. These posts will hopefully all point back to gaining a truer and better perspective.

Monday, February 27, 2012

courage and success...

the following is from a blog post by Don Carson on The State of the Church in Great Britain This part was really, really good....

(5) But there is a bigger issue. We must not equate courage with success, or even youth with success. We must avoid ever leaving the impression that these equations are valid. I have spent too much time in places like Japan, or in parts of the Muslim world, where courage is not measured on the world stage, where a single convert is reckoned a mighty trophy of grace. I am grateful beyond words for the multiplication of churches in Acts 29, but I am no less grateful for Baptist ministers like my Dad, men who labored very hard and saw very little fruit for decades in French Canada, many of whom went to prison (their sentences totaled eight years between 1950 and 1952). I find no ground for concluding that the missionaries in Japan in the 20th century were less godly, less courageous, less faithful, than the missionaries in (what became) South Korea, with its congregations of tens of thousands. At the final Great Assize, God will take into account not only all that was and is, but also what might have been under different circumstances (Matt 11:20ff). Just as the widow who gave her mite may be reckoned to have given more than many multi-millionaires, so, I suspect, some ministers in Japan, or Yorkshire, will receive greater praise on that last day than those who served faithfully in a corner of the world where there was more fruit. Moreover, the measure of faithful service is sometimes explicitly tied in Scripture not to the quantity of fruit, measured in numbers, but to such virtues as self-control, measured by the use of one's tongue (James 3:1-6).

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