Methods & Motives: Quality Skills for Effective Ministry

That good intentions never justify forbidden actions is seen again and again in reading the Holy Scriptures. David's intentions were good when he sought to bring up the Ark (IChron.13), but the Philistine method he adopted was displeasing to Jehovah. Saul' s disobedience in sparing the sheep and oxen of Agag could not be balanced by the fact that he kept the best to sacrifice to the Lord. His method could not be justified by his motive. Jehovah's Word was, and still is, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams". The end never justifies the means in the school of God. The new cart could never take the place of the shoulders of redeemed men. We must not allow things that minister to, and please the flesh to take the place of the Word of the Lord, the only sure guide (Psalm119: 105). Nor should we allow our tastes to influence us in our judgment. Saul was a representative man set aside by Jehovah for his disobedience, as unfit to lead His people.
Many who seek to lead the people of God today are disqualifying themselves for that work by Philistine methods and worldly tastes. Instead of being guided by light from the sanctuary, they are carried away with the current of the world's ways, adopting its system, and looking for large and quick results. Thus they miss the reward of waiting upon God, a renewed strength for godly movement, without which there cannot be a going on: "from faith to faith" (Rom.1:17); "from strength to strength" (Ps. 84:7); "from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18). God's people never were, nor ever can be, delivered or helped by Egyptian methods. Moses tried it and failed. Before he could lead the people of God, he had to know the leading of God. Raw haste and undisciplined zeal caused him to act before God's time when he slew the Egyptian. Therefore when he supposed that his brethren would have understood he was to be their deliverer, they did not (Acts 7:25). Learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and mighty in words and in deeds, his first forty years in Egypt ended with his killing the Egyptian and hiding him in the sand. Habits form character; Moses had taken on the features of an Egyptian himself. (See Ex. 2-19). The Hebrew's motives were all right, but his Egyptian methods were all wrong.
Many are seeking to deliver God's people today on the same principle. Their motives, too, may be all right, but as to their methods and movements, surely they were never so taught in God's school. When Moses had learned to keep the flock, then God said to him, "Come now, therefore, and I will send thee" (Ex. 3:10). In this work, God only uses vessels of His own molding; and while He does use the faculties we possess, developed, it may be, in the Egyptian world, yet He never borrows anything from the Egyptian system. The great apostle Paul testifies about himself and his methods-"…When I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." 1 Corinthians 2:1-4.
At the Cross God completely judged the world system and introduced that order which is completely new and of which Christ is the center. Therefore, let all whose motive is the deliverance and blessing of God's beloved people, use the methods He has put at their disposal, remembering that "all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever". Amen!
1Jn.2: 15-17. Also read: Philippians 3:7-10. 1 Corinthians 1:26-31.