A New Metric
I read this quote this morning from Oswald Chambers -
“The lasting value of our public service for God is measured by the depth of the intimacy of our private time of fellowship and oneness with Him.”
Too often those of us who are teachers and leaders are guilty of measuring the value of our public ministry by so many other metrics – the number of people, the size of our buildings, how big our budget is, the number of email we receive after a message, etc. I wonder if at the end of my ministry – maybe the end of my life – if the words in my private devotional journals will have been near as many as the words I spoke as a leader and teacher. Would there be depth in those private words? Would they reveal a deep intimate relationship with Jesus? Would they reflect a oneness? A sense of fellowship? Jesus said that if we “abide with him and he abides with us that we would bear much fruit – apart from that kind of intimacy, we really do nothing of value.” Maybe it is time to add a new metric to our ministry life – how much time did I spend and how deep were those times I spent in private, alone, with Jesus.