Francis Schaeffer
Champery, Switzerland
1951

"As I have thought perhaps more quietly than in previous days, it has seemed to me that in the past there has been a fallacy in my thinking. That fallacy is simply this: that insofar as we are so abundantly right (as we are concerning the Biblical position), therefore it would certainly follow of a necessity that God's rich blessing would rest upon us as individuals and as a movement. I no longer believe this is so. For increasingly the realization has welled up in my own soul that although this principle of separation is of tremendous importance, nevertheless there are other principles in the Word of God which must be kept with equal fidelity if God's full blessing is to be upon us...

What all this means I am not sure, except that it brings me increasingly to my knees - to ask that the Holy Spirit may have His way in my life; that I may not think just of justification and then the glories of Heaven, with merely a battle for separation between, but that I may also think of all the wonders of the present aspect of my Salvation, and that they may be real to me in my life and ministry. What a wonderful LORD we have, and how glorious it is to indeed have God as our Father, be united with Christ, and be indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Oh, would to God that our ministry could be under His full direction, and in His power without reservation."

If God is your Father then you too have been called into the ministry.

"In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry."
2 Timothy 4