An all-round ministry - Spurgeon - V - Chapter 3

Required reading
An all-round ministry by CH Spurgeon (Available from Amazon or free here) - Read Chapter 3 (Individuality, and its opposite).

My summary
Today Spurgeon wants 'to show that each one of us is a man by himself, and then that no one is alone by himself'.

Firstly Spurgeon encourages us to remember our individuality by:
(i) knowing the necessity of an earnest sense of our individual interest in the gospel which we preach;
(ii) never forgetting our personal commission to preach the gospel;
(iii) feeling a great respect for our own sphere of labour;
(iv) our personal adaptation;
(v) our personal responsibility.

Secondly Spurgeon teaches us to embrace the opposite of our individuality by remembering that:
(i) we are not the only workers in the world;
(ii) we are only instruments for the accomplishment of the Divine purposes;
(iii) we have the Spirit of God in us;
(iv) all the work we are doing is Jesus Christ's work.

What grabbed me
Spurgeon had some very helpful advice on the tendency to judge another minister's church: 'If our individual responsibility be rightly felt, we shall refrain from judging others. We are all too ready to ascend the judgment-seat. One man judges his fellow, and condemns him because he has had so few additions to his church. I should myself be sorry if I saw few conversions, and I should severely censure myself; but I should be very, very wrong if I were to utter an indiscriminate censure upon others. Our brother's congregation may be smaller than ours; the people's hearts may have been long steeled by a cold, dead, stereotyped ministry, and it may be that there is a good deal of work to be done before they will become interested in the gospel, much less affected by it...On the other hand, I have noticed—and I think rather more frequently—that brethren who have few converts judge those who have many. Now, that also would come to an end if each man knew his own place, and had joy in his own work, and was not envious of another. You say, "Oh, but these numerous conversions cannot all be genuine!" Why not? Why should their number create suspicion?...Quantity need not deteriorate quality. I have an idea sometimes,—I do not know whether it is correct,—that where there are very few converts added to the church, there may be some unbelief...I may not judge, but I sometimes think that, when brethren bring the converts in so very slowly, they have a little trembling about the power of saving grace to bear so many. It would not be difficult to be censorious on either side, but we shall not be so if we look well to the charge committed to us, and feel our own need of Divine help.'

Those who have large churches should not condemn those serving faithfully in small churches. 

And those who have small churches should not condemn those serving faithfully in large churches.

Next week's reading
Commence Chapter 4 by reading up to the paragraph beginning 'These are the mischiefs.  Now for the Remedy'.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.