Minister to Me

Ezekiel 44:16, “They shall enter My sanctuary; they shall come near to My table to minister to Me and keep My charge.”

The other day I encountered a homeless guy in the parking lot of an Exxon station. He had a sign that said “Just trying to survive.” He also had a shopping cart, and was digging through the garbage pulling out aluminum cans. Moved with compassion I cleaned the change out of my car, and gave him all the money I had.

I said, “Hey Survivor, Jesus love you.”

He said, “Don’t pray for me, pray for my buddy sick in that patch of woods down the street. I’ve been to 3 stores looking for him some Alka Seltser extreme cold…”

After some more chit chat I drove away. My mind wandered to wishing I had money enough to keep sleeping bags, cots, and coats in my truck. I thought how cool would it me to be able to go to the store, buy a charcoal grill, and go cook those guys a hot meal. All thoughts… no action.

But later that night the encounter directed my dreams. I dreamt that I was talking to God. Well… not talking, but more bitching. I complained that He called me to be a minister, and yet my only ministry is really a blog… or so I thought. I asked Him, “who have you sent me too? Is it the homeless?” I blabbed on about how my vocation as a loan officer looks nothing like the vocation of a minister…” I asked for the thousandth time, “Why the financial struggle, isn’t there a ministry “profession” out there for me that has sufficient resources?”

It was then the Father asked me, “Who did I call you to minister to?”

I answered, “I have no idea, all I know is that You said, ‘Where I have called you to there will be no support.’” (Which I have always believed it would be an indigent group not capable of supporting a minister.)

God replied quite emphatically, “I have called you to minister to ME!”

I do not expect a soul to understand the fullness of this statement, but I could kick myself for having gone 48 years without even considering it. Yes when I gave that homeless man some money I was as the world would call it, “ministering to him.” But the reality is I was responding to the Holy Spirit, and therefore truly ministering to Him. To put it another way, the Christ in me was reaching out for the Christ in him.

I keep looking for a job, a vocation, a profession as a minister to some people group; but God in one statement wiped that thought process from my mind. Ministry to God is not any of those things. Ministry to God happens anywhere, it is happening now as His presence fills my spirit, and my soul cries out Glory to God. It happens with the homeless man, not because I have met some temporary need, but because God has held him his entire life through the most hostile of circumstances and that that homeless man would still have compassion for his fellow man. Do you see the difference? Do you see the beauty that I see?

I get with new clarity what Christ meant when He spoke in John 5:19, “… the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing…” Christ did not come to minister to us, Christ came to minister to the Father. John 8:28 offers the same insight when Jesus said, “… I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” Or his references to only doing the Father’s will… because He came to minister to God, not to us. We fix, we do, we plan, we organize when “we are ministering to men.”

We love when “we are ministering to God.”

Let this relieve the pressure to spiritually perform for others. Let this give proper priority to your plans to fix a person or segment of society. Minister to ME, God says. Let that be the focus of our soul.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2bQtqIkrRk

Ministry

James 3:1, "Let not many of you become teachers (ministers), my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment."

What is a minister? If you look up the term you will find things like clergy, someone who administers sacraments, politically it is someone appointed by a sovereign authority. Ministers can be teachers, pastors, evangelists, prophets, or apostles.

If you listen to my pastor's wife Laura, full time ministry is, "about 'doing life together.'  But this life is messy!  It involves hurt and grief and growth and tears... counsel friends who are struggling in their marriage, encouraging them to continue walking through the “tunnel of chaos” to be all that God intends for them to be... take your friends to chemotherapy, you cry with them and rejoice with them at each twist of the cancer roller coaster... It means you experience anger when faced with the devastating consequences of sin in a young life…again..."

Ministry is really just loving the unlovable and lovable. It is loving anyone and everyone right where they are. Ministry is meeting someone in whatever place they are, jumping in, and hopefully allowing them to see Christ in you so that they can discover or allow Christ into themselves. It is about observing Jesus in everyone you meet, and allowing them to observe Jesus in you.

When walking in love, Ministry, Oswald Chambers says, "Does God really mean us to take no account of the evil? "Love . . . taketh no account of the evil." Love is not ignorant of the existence of the evil, but it does not take it in as a calculating factor. Apart from God, we do reckon with evil; we calculate with it in view and work all our reasonings from that standpoint." So if a person is wrapped up in an evil lifestyle, love does not deny the existence of that evil, but neither is that same love mitigated or void because of it.

Ministry certainly includes preaching to the masses. It is accomplished in part by praying, praying, and more praying whether directly for the individual, or in the private prayer closet. For me, ministry includes writing. Writing in the form of reporting on the human experience. To commit to words people's walk and struggles with God. But what I do in writing, I see from experience is a very effective way of ministering to the individual. To jump in, to observe, and then to shine the light on God's perspective in the muck and mire of life. To look from inside the kingdom of God and be a light. Not a blind guide leading a blind, but an illumination of the path. Someone's problems are not there to be fixed by the minister. They are to be reported in proper perspective so that the individual can see clearly to rescue themselves. So that they can be encourage to keep going with God's path seems an uphill battle.

Jesus did not condemn the adulteress. He did not tell her how to fix her problem. Jesus stood with her while the people around cast their judgments. He did not console her and say look at these mean people. He stood with her until they were all gone. Then, once the crisis was over, He told her, go and sin no more. Get it? He jumped in and stood with her in the consequences. He didn't rescue, he illuminated the path. "Those who are without sin cast the first stone."

That is the beautiful expression of what I see ministry to be.