Ministry changes a selfish person into a loving, compassionate servant of the Lord

Greetings to you, dear friends! Grace and peace to you from Father God and our Lord Jesus Christ! We discussed earlier that the main purpose of any ministry is to bring to people the good news of the Gospel of the Kingdom and to lead people to God Who is the Source of life and power. If you are not involved in ministry then there are some areas of your life where you won’t see any changes no matter how fervent you pray. This is because ministry is one of the instruments God uses to change us. How does ministry affect our lives? One sure way ministry affects our life is that: Ministry changes a selfish person into a loving, compassionate servant of the Lord. It is not a secret that we are all born selfish. Someone might argue and say that does not apply to him or that he is not selfish. If you say that then you are lying! We are all selfish, except the transforming grace of God! What does it mean to be selfish? · A selfish person is one who lives only for himself. He only cares about his world and does not notice what is happening to others around him. A selfish person is only concerned about his life and his comforts. · A selfish person is focused on solving only his own problems; the problems of others do not exist for him. · A selfish person uses God and people to solve his problems and to meet his needs. He does not care about the problems God and other people might have; he has no time or desire to help. He thinks like this: «God can solve His own problems; I don’t need to get involved. I just want my problems solved». Can you imagine what would happen to all of us if everybody in our world thought and lived like that? Praise God that He has shown us a completely different lifestyle in Christ Jesus! Quite often selfishness finds its way into our families and our relationships with other people. For example, some people make friends only with those they can use for some gain. I hope that when you became a child of God, you got rid of that type of approach to friendship. When we learn to minister to others and serve people, we are delivered from selfishness through that. Our motivation for making friends is love and the desire to bless and enrich the lives of our friends rather than seeking some personal. God asked: «Cain, where is your brother?» Cain answered God and said: «Am I my brother’s keeper? » You know what that mean? It means Cain is not concern about what happened to his brother. He had just killed his brother and was still demonstrating total indifference. Cain was only interested in how to get what he wanted. A selfish person is not concerned with other people’s needs and feelings. He is ready to get what he wants no matter the cost, even the cost of another person’s life. A selfish person thinks that the only thing that really matter in this life is he and his needs. You know why Cain killed his brother? He did it out of sheer selfishness. Selfish person’s heart is filled with malice towards others. Malice, cruelty, deceit, manipulation and other similar things are the fruit of selfishness. A selfish person is willing to use anything and anybody to reach his goals. If it takes manipulation, he will manipulate. If it takes slander, he will slander. He likes to put down others and climb up using them as steps; he does not care about helping anybody or lifting them up (increasing their value). All a selfish person care about is getting his own way and he has many ways to accomplish that. I believe we are familiar with those ways because before we encountered God we were all typical egotists. «I, me, my….» – is the egotist’s „unholy trinity”. Egotistic people cannot serve others; and even if they do, it is because they have some personal interest or agenda. A selfish person does not know what true biblical ministry is. However, there is a remedy to egoistic way of life. The only way for us to get rid of our selfishness is through ministry. Why? Because through ministry God teaches us to think of others first and only then think of ourselves. Through ministry God teaches us to think how we can be a blessing to others. Ministry helps us to become a keeper and a watchman over our brothers and sisters and drive us to help the people around us. Through of ministry I subdue my ‘self life’ or my selfishness and I begin to help others to resolve their problems and to meet their needs. So, through ministry God kills the selfishness that is inherent in us. The more we serve God and other people, the faster selfishness disappears from our lives. Ministry helps us to grow a servant’s heart and to eliminate selfishness from our lives. When you serve God and people, it fills your life with meaning and happiness! I wish you God’s abundant blessings this day! Pastor Rufus Ajiboye