I enjoyed a passing point made by Derek Tidball recently at Keswick.  Here’s the text:

“Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart.”  (2Cor.4:1)

Derek pointed out that we live in a culture saturated by meritocratic thinking.  You have to have a certificate to be able to everything.  The same is often true in church world.  People expect you to be able to do this and do that like the best of names.  The pressure is on if you are involved in ministry, and the pressure is to live up to the standards of expectation imposed by the church.  All too easily we can fall into the trap of thinking that we are in ministry because of our merit – our education, our training, our skills, our abilities, etc.

But when we realize that we are in ministry through God’s mercy, that changes everything.  Suddenly ministry becomes about response.  It becomes about our wonder at His mercy toward us.  It becomes a real sense of privilege, rather than pure pressure and evangelical purgatory (as some church situations can feel for some in so-called “service”).

Response.  Wonder.  Privilege.  Hard to think of three better words to describe the experience of ministry.  As long as we look to our own merit, we are living out an anti-gospel ministry.  When our gaze is on Him and His mercy, suddenly it all looks very different.