Edmund Clowney Quotes
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Man is made, not simply in the image of God, as though the divine image were reproduced in man, but rather, man is made as the image of God. He is like God.
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Worship is a meeting at the center so that our lives are centered in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this center, the living God. Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks, at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction, every siren. Without worship we live manipulated and manipulating lives. We move in either frightened panic or deluded lethargy as we are, in turn, alarmed by specters and soothed by placebos. If there is no center, there is no circumference.
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Most often the presence of such gifts of the Spirit creates a desire for their exercise. By them a man is drawn to the Word, to Christ, to men. For this reason a deep and sincere desire to enter the ministry is the commonest evidence of the Lord's calling. It is no sure criterion, however, for the gifts and desire are not always joined.
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The city of man requires idolatry. All must bow before the symbol of its total claim. Religion is tolerated when it supports the claims of the state, party, the institutional hierarchy. But those who say, "We must obey God rather than men" are always condemned as traitors or exiled as aliens. Yet the calling of Christ's kingdom no only separates a man from the world, it also sends him to the world. In this time of the kingdom we are pilgrims, for the mountain of Christ's rule is the heavenly Zion; but in the task of the kingdom we are ambassadors, for we have been sent by the King to proclaim his terms of peace to his rebellious realm.
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On the other had, a desire to serve Christ in the ministry may become intense before there is evidence of the necessary gifts...If you yearn to serve Christ in the gospel ministry, that desire is surely a calling to prayer for the Spirit; likely it is also a foretaste and earnest of greater gifts in store.
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Christians in community must again show the world, not merely family values, but the bond of the love of Christ.
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People who do not worship are swept into a vast restlessness, epidemic in the world, with no steady direction and no sustaining purpose.
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From the twelve apostles to the Auca missionaries of our generation, the history of the Christian church is the history of “wasted” lives. The Christian may tabulate all the assets of his personality and take inventory of his preferences, but he casts all these at the feet of Christ. He is not seeking fulfillment but expendability. He counts not his life dear to himself, for he holds it in trust for Christ. His goal is beyond the grave; the crown of his high calling is in the hand of his risen Lord.
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He does not only declare that God saves by grace, not works; he brings Christ forward, and placards him. Preaching points to Christ crucified for our sins, and risen for our life.
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Seminary is for men who are seriously considering the ministry; it is a place where a man may test his gifts and calling in the service of the Word...Uncertainty about a call to the ministry may indicate with certainty a call to theological training. Even when God does not call a man to pastoral work, he often leads through seminary study to other ministries of teaching and to informed leadership in the work of the church.
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Private soul-searching is not enough to determine your call to the ministry. The judgment of the people of God must be sought; long before the time when it must be given formally it should be sought informally.
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When we worship God as we ought that's when the nations listen.
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There is a calamitous difference between a people who have been immersed in paganism for centuries and a post-Christian society. While the culture of the latter may carry a deep tradition influenced by Christian values, its posture of rebellion will give it a direction that is more explicitly and consciously anti-Christian.
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The one who knows and fears the Lord of Hosts need fear no other.
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You dare not lift your hands to place God’s name in blessing on his people until you have first clasped them in penitent petition for his grace.
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Sometimes Christians speak of each decision of their lives as though they were launching a moon-shot where a single miscalculation would send the capsule into a trackless void. Even space scientist do better than that, correcting the flight of their space-probes by radioed signals. God does much better. He knows that we are often incapable of distinguishing trivial decisions from momentous ones, and that we are foolish and imperceptive. He knows---- and keeps us in his hand.
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We worship so that we live in response to and from this centre, the living God.
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The holiness of the church means that life, as well as truth, marks Christ’s church; the behavior of Christians in the world must be remarkable enough to cause grudging admiration, astonished curiosity or threatening hostility.
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The stairway to the ministry is not a grand staircase but a back stairwell that leads down to the servants’ quarters.
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As Christian feel the changing winds of political climate, the blasts against their values in the media, the exclusion of the Christian faith from educational institutions, they begin to sense the dangers of complacency and of pietistical world flight.
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Never before has the world been so desperately asking for answers to crucial questions, and never before has the world been so frantically committed to the idea that no answers are possible.
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Trials should not surprise us, or cause us to doubt God's faithfulness. Rather, we should actually be glad for them. God sends trials to strengthen our trust in him so that our faith will not fail. Our trials keep us trusting; they burn away our self confidence and drive us to our Savior.
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Worship is a meeting at the centre so that our lives are centred in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this centre, the living God.
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The call of the Word of God to the gospel ministry comes to ALL those who have the gifts for such a ministry.