The Call to Ministry

  “’There is no call to ministry that is not first a call to Christ. 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 saving grace. Until you have done that the issue you face is not really your call to the ministry. It is your call to Christ.’ Your question of calling is not merely subsequent to the call to Christ. It is essentially tied to it…Does your sense of call orbit around your abilities, vision, or performance? The gospel call says more about the glory and grace of God than it does about us. When God calls a man to ministry, the man will do well to remember that both his salvation and his service come from God…[Our call] says little about us, but much about the Caller.”

RealOne Rhapsody, The Best Streaming Audio in My Opinion

I've tried Musicmatch On Demand and RealOne Rhapsody to listen to different kinds of music as background sound for my computer work lately. I've had a one-year membership to Musicmatch On Demand, which is awesome; but I recently signed up for a and found that RealOne has more of the artists that I listen to: More instrumental and classical music and more Christian artists. Basically with both of these services, for a monthly fee less than a cd, you can get unlimited access to listen to specific tracks that you want from almost any somewhat-mainstream cd you can think of. I've discovered tons of artists and songs that I love that I never would have known of otherwise. Both of the services offer the ability to purchase the tracks that you love so that you can burn them onto a cd or load them on your iPod or mp3 player. Sorry for the off-topic post, but I just thought that I'd post my thoughts for anybody who was interested in on-demand streaming access to music tracks.

The Minister Must Walk with God

“Our power in drawing men to Christ springs chiefly from the fullness of our communion with Him…our position [in ministry] is such that we cannot remain neutral. Our life cannot be one of harmless obscurity. We must either repel or attract—save or ruin souls! How loud, then, the call, how strong the motive to spirituality of soul and circumspectness of life! How solemn the warning against worldly-mindedness and vanity, against levity and frivolity, against negligence, sloth, and cold formality!”