Grace and peace of our Lord, Jesus Christ be with you!Welcome to the column of our «Daily word for spiritual strength»! We continue to discuss the importance of ministry and the way it transforms a person himself and the quality of his life. Those who serve God and people will constantly renew and mature in wisdom. We looked at the example from 1 st Peter’s letter to discover two types of ministry – by word and by deeds.
« If any man speaks, let it be as it were oracles of God. If any man serves, let it be as of the strength which God supplies ». (1st Peter 4:11).
Many people have the gift of communication; they can present their thoughts clearly and precisely. However, there are many children of God with a different kind of gift and talents; these are those who are not good speakers or teachers. How then can such people express their ministry in Christ? They can practice things like hospitality, financing church projects that help to spread the Gospel, charity and so on. If you belong to this category of people, you can do certain things to help other people. You can use your time, energy, resources and wisdom to meet other people’s needs. Thus, you will serve the body of Christ with your talents. So our ministry can either be express through the gift speaking or the gift of practical service.If we speak, let us speak the word of God, if we express our opinion or feelings, let us do it as a representative of God who has received the word from Him. We are not to speak our own opinion or ideas, but rather to speak as an oracle of God. Also when, we serve practically we should do it by the power given to us from God.Furthermore, God invites us «that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ» (1st Peter 4:10-11) through your ministry, and it doesn’t matter if you serve by word or by deeds.The goal of any Christian ministry is to glorify God and draw people to Him.So God wants to transform each of us and ministry is one of the few ways He does that. However, it’s important to remember that ministry is about to sharing with others that which God has given us with the aim of meeting other people’s needs. Ministry is one of the ways to reach out to people so that they can encounter the love of God face to face and experience the mercy of our Heavenly Father. The fruit of ministry is the fact that more and more people will come to God. As a result of that God will be glorified and will be transformed more and more into the likeness of Christ.If you desire to be transformed you should seek and find opportunities to serve your neighbour. Find out what you have been endowed with by God and how you can help people around you through that. Then, build up a system of how to attract those who need the talents you have received from God. Doing so you will let the other people taste God’s love through you and make sure the Lord is gracious. « If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious » (1st Peter 2:3).
God attracts people through His love and that love has been poured in our hearts through by Holy Spirit, so that we can now share that love with other people through our ministry. « And hope doesn’t disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us ». (Romans 5:5).
Notice that by serving people we are not trying to take God’s place in their lives. Vice verse, via our ministry we desire to draw people to the only Person who is able to sincerely help them, and that is to God.That’s why the purpose of our ministry is drawing people to God, so that God can be glorified in their lives. God is the only one, who can help, comfort, heal and restore the destiny of people. We are just tools and channels He uses. Our task is to let God channel His love through our ministry to other people.God, help each of us to find our talents and use them to serve people as if we served Christ!God’s peace be with you! Rufus AJiboye, pastor
