Five Ministry Helps
1 03 20161. God works through His Word. His Word works slowly, methodically, and often-undetected for long periods of time. However, the result is a work that outlasts us here on earth. Some of the greatest attacks on our schedule will be the attacks made on our time preparing to preach the Word. Satan attacks that which he believes is the most powerful opponent to his agenda. Guard your study time and keep preaching the Word. Your ministry in the Word (even yesterday) has eternal impact!
2. Ministry opportunities will always outnumber the laborers to do the ministry. The overwhelming amount of work to do in the ministry should not surprise us. A part of us wants to just do it all and try to be the super-laborer that makes up for the lack of laborers. God’s solution to lack of laborers has always remained the same: we should train and equip believers (II Timothy 2:2; Ephesians 4) and pray for more laborers (Luke 10:2). Who are you intentionally training and when is the last time you spent a significant amount of time praying for laborers?
3. Clearly stated invitations to accept Christ coupled with a heart-felt plea still work! Many young men in the ministry are passionately defiant to a public invitation for people to accept Christ or make a decision because they have seen distasteful invitations used by preachers. Though many have abused the public invitation, we shouldn’t cast the concept aside completely. Christ regularly invited people to respond to His preaching and to act upon the truths He shared. Rather than laying the practice aside, let’s diligently seek to preach and conduct invitations that are absent of coercion and emotional manipulation. Preach the Word and give people an opportunity to respond. You may have people sitting in front of you who want to respond to God’s work in their heart but just don’t know how. A public invitation is not a method to generate numbers but a method in which we can help people become doers of the Word and not just hearers (James 1).
4. Some of our greatest hurt in ministry will come from those closest to us. People we lead to the Lord, disciple, and invest in can often be the ones who seem to cause our deepest pain. They make decisions and say things that cut to the very quick of our heart and leave us breathless in pain. Our flesh walks away from those situations with a desire to build up walls of protection that prevent us from ever being hurt again. Those walls often take the form of isolation and distance from people. The problem with that response is that the farther we are removed from people, the less ministry we are able to have. I pray regularly that God would protect our hearts from responding the wrong way to the hurts in the ministry. Though every fiber of our being wants to curl up in our offices and lick our wounds, we must continue forward in ministry with a focus on God’s unchanging faithfulness.
5. A ministry-servant’s generosity and sacrifice is not overlooked by God. The most giving people I know are on the front lines of ministry. They regularly see and hear of needs in people’s lives and give countless hours of energy and money to help. Few people will ever know what you have given and done, but God does (Hebrews 6:10). I’m often tempted to think, “Who is thinking of and trying to provide for my needs that are being created by my meeting the needs of others?” I want to know that there is a group of people who know all my needs and stand with outstretched arms ready to meet any need that I face. Though God may use people to meet our needs, He always has been and always will be the benevolent Giver who knows and cares for us. Though you may not see countless people waiting in the wings to meet your needs, there is a God in Heaven who knows all you are doing and will always provide exactly what you need when you need it. Keep giving and sacrificing, and watch God meet your needs.
