Jack McBride’s Reviews > Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry > Status Update

"If you are ever going to be an ambassador in the hands of a God of glorious & powerful grace, you must die. You must die to your plans for your own life. You must die to your self-focused dreams of success. You must die to your demands of comfort & ease. You must die to your individual definition of the good life...You must die to the pursuit of your own glory in order to take up the cause of the glory of Another."

"There is nothing that will put you in your place, nothing that will correct your distorted view of yourself, nothing that will yank you out of your functional arrogance, or nothing that will take the winds out of the sails of your self-righteousness like standing, without defense, before the awesome glory of God."

On 2 Cor. 5:15; "[Paul] is arguing that the DNA of sin is selfishness. Sin inserts me into the middle of my universe, the one place reserved for God and God alone. Sin reduces my field of concern down to my wants, my needs, and my feelings. Sin really does make it all about me...as long as sin is inside of me there will be temptation to exhange God's glory for my own."

"I have now come to understand that I need others in my life...since, as one who has remaining sin still inside of him, it is right to say that the greatest danger in my life exists inside of me and not outside of me, then wouldn't it also be the height if naivety or arrogance to think that I would be okay left to myself?"

"...no one gives grace better than a person who knows he desperately needs it himself."

Lord, make this true of me.

"Since the [seminary] student has come to think of himself as more mature than he actually is because of the knowledge he has gained, he doesn't approach God's Word with a tenderness and neediness of heart. His study of the Word brings him again and again to his desk, but it seldom brings him to his knees."

Quite the heart check for me...

"When I daily admit how needy I am, daily meditate on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and daily feed on the restorative wisdom of his Word, I am propelled to share with others the grace that I am daily receiving at hands of my Savior. There simply is no set of exegetical, homiletical, or leadership skills that can compensate for the absence of this [devotion] in the life of a pastor."