7 Quotes by Christopher Ash

As someone who has spent the last decade training young men and women for Christian service, I have been keen to help them see that the best kinds of ministry are, more often than not, long term and low key. I have tried to prepare them for a marathon, not a short, energetic sprint. In other words, to help them have a lifetime of sustainable sacrifice, rather than an energetic but brief ministry that quickly fades in exhaustion.

If we buy into the church culture of celebrity, we drift away from following Jesus faithfully.

When you and I surrendered to Jesus as Lord, we did not offer Him the services of a divine, or even semi-divine creature to strengthen His kingdom; we offer Him the fragile, temporary, mortal, frail life that He has first given to us. That is all we have to offer.'For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust' (Ps. 103:14)

There is always more we can do in ministry, but God is not asking 'Can you do more?'. He is asking 'Do you love me?' Some of those extras are not always as vital as we think them to be.

Marriage and family can easily become just a respectable form of selfishness. If we marry mainly to meet our own needs, then our marriages will be just that: good-looking masks for selfishness.

There is always more we can do in ministry, but God is not asking ‘Can you do more?‘. He is asking ‘Do you love me?’ Some of those extras are not always as vital as we think them to be.

We must not allow ourselves to slip into a false spirituality that treats our bodily existence as if it can be separated from our so-called “spiritual” life – as if our spiritual life carries on quite independently from what is happening to our bodies.