Greetings to you, dear friends! Grace and peace to you from the Father God and our Lord Jesus Christ! Yesterday we discussed the fact that God has left us two most important commandments – to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves. If we do not walk in love we won’t have God’s life in us and won’t enter His fullness.It says in the Epistle to Romans that the one who loves fulfils the law:
«Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, „You shall not commit adultery,” „You shall not murder,” „You shall not steal,” „You shall not bear false witness,” „You shall not covet,” and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, „You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilment of the law» (Romans, 13: 8-10).
Walking in love is the determining factor of how happy we will be on this earth. Any one of us can become a happy person, who is satisfied with life, if only we will live in accordance to the law of love. In other words, my attitude towards God and the people around me determines whether I will be happy or not. If you want to be happy, then my advice to you is to love God and your neighbour without deceit! Have you noticed that our love towards God expresses itself or reflects on our attitude towards other people and on our desire to help them? We seek God, read His Word, spend time with Him in prayer, and spend time with other believers to praise Him collectively and to draw from His wisdom through other brothers and sisters. By doing all these things we want to prove and demonstrate our love towards Him. In return God, changes us and fills our hearts with Himself – with His love. When we accept God’s love, we are made able to give this love to others. God pours out His love into us, changes us, our world views and our values. God changes our character, and because of that we have learned how not to be easily offended by what other people do, since God has delivered us from offence. We have stopped being nit-picking and we do not pay attention anymore to insignificant things that use to bother us before. We do not get upset as quickly as before. God gives us love, perfects our character and thus releases our gifts, talents and abilities so that we could give to others what we have received from Him.Ministry is the giving of ourselves for the good of other people!We read about this in the Scripture:« As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the domination forever and ever. Amen » (1 Peter, 4:10-11).
This verse of the Scripture is calling us to minister to one another. But, more than that, we are also instructed as to how we can minister to one another: «As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another…» .So how can we minister the others?Every one of us can minister to others by using the gift we have received from God.Someone may ask: „Do I really have a gift from God?” sure, you do! Everyone has been gifted by God! God says that you have ALREADY received a gift from Him. You have some gifts, talents and abilities that others really need. When you start thinking about ministry, only then will your true potential in God be revealed. Your gifts, talents, abilities and knowledge won’t be lying dormant like a dead weight.That is why God tells us to learn what ministry gift we have, and then find some people that need this gift and start sharing the gift with them through ministry. However, it is essential to have right motives for ministry: we minister not to get something from people, but to show our love for God by loving the people He loves.Serve God and He will bless you abundantly! We will continue tomorrow! God bless you! Pastor Rufus Ajiboye
