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‘Getting Your Ducks In Order’ To Minister

In our culture there seems to be three common issues that people’s lives revolve around while they are separate from God. Problems that consume their lives, as they continue to pursue a solution by manipulating external circumstances. These are the pursuit of security, the pursuit of personal value and the pursuit of a pleasant life. When a person repents and begins to follow Christ, these pursuits are confronted by the Spirit of Christ and solved unexpectedly.

When God designed us in the first place, he created us with the need to feel protected and free from harm. He made that need very great, in fact that need can be only met by the eternal, it’s insatiable otherwise. When we are left independent from God, we are attempting to satisfy an insatiable desire. What can only be satisfied by the Eternal, we attempt to satisfy through external, circumstantial methods like careers, investment portfolios and retirement programs. There is never enough, yet that’s all we have to work with, so we throw ourselves into it and try not to evaluate the empty results. But when we repent and abandon the old life, he gives us a ‘bill of credit’, in that if we focus entirely on the Kingdom and his goals he will provide all we need, it’s a done deal.

The same is true concerning our personal value. We know the truth about ourselves, and it gnaws at our soul, and in turn we don’t feel good about ourselves. The emptiness of value in us is insatiable as well, yet we set out to impress ourselves and others through what we can accomplish or accumulate, but to no avail. Yet, when we repent and abandon the old life, he speaks to us of our intrinsic value. The fountain that wells up within, concerning how valuable we are to him is enormous and brings the peace that only he can give.

The third pursuit is a strong one for Americans; the pursuit of a pleasant life. In fact it’s so important to us it was written into the Constitution;

“...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

It’s a Constitutional right, in America. Yet, God has something else to say about it. In the beginning, as with the other issues, we were designed to enjoy life. But because of our choices we have consequences. Consequences that bring suffering upon us. Not suffering simply because of punishment, but because of training. Training that is working to make us like our Lord Jesus. We must suffer through the training, to become like Him and so enjoy like we were meant to enjoy life. That won’t be in this age, but in the age to come. Yet, we have a taste of what is to come, and it motivates us through the suffering of training; looking for the joy that is set before us.

These three pursuits naturally absorb entire lives, the lives of the masses. They are insatiable for the unrepentant, enslaving and debilitating. But Christ has come to set the captives free, and once free we are able to concentrate on the self-sacrifice of the ministry that others might know him. Upon repentance, we are able to shelve the things that the world pursues with all their heart, and so are able to give us fully, all the time to the work of the Lord.

But if these pursuits are not deliberately dealt with, we will fall into the old habit patterns and will not set foot in the Ministry as we are called to do. The time and effort given naturally to attaining security, value and pleasantness must be turned to the Ministry of Reconciliation. He is able to accomplish this in our lives, if we desire to abandon those pursuits with all our hearts.