What is true Christian service.....what does it entail....what does it look like? I've seen all to clearly in the last couple of days that I really don't know the answer to these questions as well as I thought I did.
How easy it is to start out on the venture of ministry with the right motives and heart attitudes....your soul swelling with love for your savior and your fellow believers. Then with even more ease the nasty beast of self sneaks into the way clogging the channels and disrupting the very purpose for which you were striving. Frustration erupts making you miserable. You panic realizing that you are completely out of control. Something - probably very small - happens that breaks you and gives you clear vision of your actions - your motives - your very heart.
Ministry done solely for God's glory is done with the whole heart despite the result. It is death to self - to every part of self. You are willing to give up any honor or recognition, for it is not about you but about Jesus in you. When your co-laborers let you down, you respond with peace, with joy, and with love. You have an inner awareness that God is the ONE you are serving, and that if He chooses to use fallen people (ahem, such as you) and fallen circumstances, then by all means, you should welcome the let down. It is in the the disappointments and let downs that God's miraculous work can be most clearly seen.
You may ask where all of these thoughts come from - Well they come from someone who crashed this weekend. The smallest of hurts sent me over the edge, and as I fell, I realized that I had been serving for the last several weeks with the wrong veiw of myself (it was far too big), and the wrong veiw of God's power (far too small). My best friend, as always, was there to set me straight....to hurt me with the truth and then strengthen me with the wisdom of God's word. He is truly the most loving partner in ministry and in life!!! Meditating on Phillippians has been most healing and revealing.
I am sore....I am broken....but I am His and He is still working in me. I can't wait to see what He's going to do with the youth ministry team and kids themselves now that Kelly has died and Jesus is alone flowing through her!!!
1 comment:
It's so refreshing to hear something so revealing.
Whatever things were of any value to me before I knew Jesus... I count them as trash-- nothing of value compared to knowing Him -- the one who saved me. For Him, I would gladly suffer the loss of all things: including recognition or reward. How can I gain MORE of HIM!? It's not by a righteousness of my own doing, that's for sure!
It's trusting Him. Faith in Jesus and the completed work that He did.
Associating all of myself with all of him- suffering, death and at last, that amazing resurrection life! I want it!! All of it!! and I keep pressing forward to attain as much as I can of Him.
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