Looking in the mirror

Paul's method was to provide evidence from Scripture. This is an effective strategy.  

It had been a long day for the assistant at the cosmetic counter. Having been on her feet all day, she was looking forward to going home. Just before the doors closed, a man came running up to her frantically and said, “Tomorrow’s my wife’s birthday and I don’t have anything for her. What do you recommend?” The shop assistant brought out a nice bottle of perfume worth about £100. He gasped and said, “That’s way too expensive!” So she held up a bottle that cost £50. He said, “That’s still too expensive. What do you have that’s less expensive?” She searched some more and found something for £25. The husband replied, “That’s still too expensive! What else do you have?” She then brought out the cheapest thing she had at the counter, a tiny £10 bottle of perfume. He was now exasperated and said, “You don’t understand. I want you to show me something really, really, cheap!” She quickly reached under the counter, pulled out a mirror, told him to look into it and said, “Try this!”

The Word of God is like a mirror - we can see ourselves in it. James wrote: Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. James1v23to24.

When it comes to paying attention to the Bible we can be like the man who took his portrait photos back to the photographer and said, "I want my money back, these pictures don't do me justice." The photographer looked at the pictures and said, "You don't need justice, you need mercy."

From John Reed's commentary on Romans 3:9-20

An invincible hope

Wikipedia tells of the heroic rescue by Ernest Shackleton in 1916. 

Elephant Island is most famous as the desolate refuge of Ernest Shackleton and his crew in 1916. Following the loss of their ship Endurance in Weddell Sea ice, the 28 exhausted men reached Elephant Island after a harrowing ordeal on drifting ice floes. They established a camp at a place they called Point Wild where they were able to regain some strength.

Realizing that there was no chance of rescue, Shackleton decided to sail to South Georgia where he knew there was a whaling station. In one of the most incredible feats in the history of sailing and navigation, Shackleton sailed with five other men on an 800-mile (1,287 km) voyage in the open lifeboat James Caird on Easter Monday, April 24, 1916, arriving at South Georgia almost two weeks later. His second-in-command, Frank Wild, was left in charge of the men on Elephant Island, waiting for Shackleton's return with a rescue ship. In his memoir Wild recalled “We gave them three hearty cheers and watched the boat getting smaller and smaller in the distance. Then seeing some of the party in tears, I immediately set them all to work.”

Many of the crew were already ill and frostbitten, and they were now also in danger of starvation. After four and a half months, one of the men spotted a ship on August 30, 1916. The ship, led by Shackleton, was the borrowed tug Yelcho, from Punta Arenas,Chile, commanded by Luis Pardo, which rescued all the men who had set out on the original expedition. It was the fourth attempt to rescue the men. The first three attempts were turned back due to a heavy ice pack surrounding the island.

In his commentary on the book of Hebrews, chapter 4, J Reed uses this story as an example, noting: 
Christians have a saving and a creative work to do: to reach the lost with the gospel and to make provision for the people of God. Shackleton was motivated to move mountains for his marooned colleagues by three things at least:

(a) Love for his men
(b) A sense of duty. They were his men and he felt an obligation to them
(c) An invincible hope. He never doubted but for a moment that he would bring off the rescue.

I love that line about 'an invincible hope.' 

Supporting the Call

I believe it is very important for the church to confirm a man's calling. Unfortunately many are deluded as to their calling. It is by no means unknown for a man or woman to feel called to tasks that they are not suited to or equipped for. The prayerful judgement of the church is a safeguard against vainglorious feelings and egotistical desires.
The church needs to take its responsibility in this regard very seriously. Care needs to be taken and prayer made for sound judgement. Christians should beware of having a plank in the eye. Jesus wasn't thought highly of in his home town and uttered those sad and dispiriting words: "A prophet is not without honour save in his own country."
Much is always made of the response of J.R. Ryland when William Carey raised the question of whether it was the duty of all Christians to spread the Gospel throughout the world at a minister's meeting of Particular Baptists. He is said to have retorted: "Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid and mine." The impression is sometimes given that Carey ignored the put down and was on the next boat to India.
This is far from the truth. Instead he worked to overcome opposition to missionary enterprise and eventually the Particular Baptist Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Amongst the Heathen (subsequently known as the Baptist Missionary Society and since 2000 as BMS World Mission) was founded in October 1792, including Carey, Andrew Fuller, John Ryland, and John Sutcliff as charter members. They then concerned themselves with practical matters such as raising funds, as well as deciding where they would direct their efforts. A medical missionary, Dr. John Thomas, had been in Calcutta and was currently in England raising funds; they agreed to support him and that Carey would accompany him to India.
Carey only went to India after his call was confirmed by the association of churches to which he belonged.

J. Reed in his online commentary on Romans.