Calendar . Volume 09 | Issue 01

Volume 09, Issue 01

by Warren Wiersbe

“It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus.”
– Robert Murray M’Cheyne

This saintly Scotsman was born in Edinburgh in 1813 and died in Dundee in 1843 at the age of twenty-nine. He pastored St. Peter’s Church in Dundee from 1836 to 1838 when poor health forced him to resign. This grieved his people who deeply loved him. During a trip to Scotland, my wife and I visited St. Peter’s Church and I held M’Cheyne’s Bible in my own hands. It was a holy hour, believe me.

There are many talented Christians who seem to have little spiritual fruit in their ministries, while people of lesser ability and training seem to live in a perpetual harvest. Why? Possibly because the fruitless ones lack “great likeness to Jesus.” Jesus made it clear that we can do nothing without Him and that we must abide in Him if we expect to bear fruit (John 15:1-8). Evangelist D. L. Moody came from a poor family, dropped out of school to go to work and had no special training, and yet God used his ministry in a remarkable way and still is. How prone we are to depend on our skill, education, personality and experience–all of which God can use–and forget to seek to grow more like our Savior.