When he returned, after receiving the kingdom, he ordered that these slaves, to whom he had given the money, be called to him so that he might know what business they had done.
Luke19:15
It’s amazing how sometimes a little side comment can be made that you simply cannot shake. It’s becomes like this gnat around your ear that keeps coming back to buzz your head no matter how many times you swat it away with your hand.
There were a couple that hit me yesterday. Neither were said in ill will or with snideful intentions… they were just said.
One is a question that has been asked me several times… and it always throws me off guard and I never seem to answer it right because of that. The question goes something like, do you miss the ministry or are you going to get back into ministry.
Here’s the thing… I never left the ministry.
But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.
Acts 20:24
My ministry is to teach the Word of God and testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God… I have never abandoned the ministry that the Lord has given me. My ministry is to worship and minister to the Lord, to love, respect, and submit to my husband, to love and teach my children… and to obey my Father in whatever else He wills.
There is a passage of Scripture that my Jesus gave me many years ago… and quite often He rings my heart with it…
Then a scribe came and said to Him, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
Matthew 8:19-20
I have often wondered why the Lord would keep bringing me back over and over to this passage… when ever I would ask Him the why’s and how’s and when’s of whatever I was facing at the particular time this is what He would ALWAYS say to me… I can remember thinking to Him, BUT WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? And basically, to the best that I can currently figure out, He is saying to me: I did not call you to get too comfortable anywhere on this earth little lady, because you are to go and stay where you are most needed at the appointed time, you follow Me.
To follow Christ is to follow the wind…
The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.
John 3:8
We might make our plans and concoct our ideas but surrender to the Lord means living life with thrown up hands and a “Well… alrighty then. Let’s go” attitude. It means not understanding why He is allowing certain things to continue or certain things to stop. It means not getting why people who you think should see, don’t and those who do see, can’t seem to do anything to change it.
Now the second off hand remark was about when something starts being a business instead of a ministry…
Why is it so stinking hard for believer’s in this western culture of ours to get that if you are a believer then EVERY THING ABOUT YOU SHOULD BE MINISTRY. I don’t care if you are checking people out at McDonald’s, cleaning the bathrooms in a local truck stop, or the head pastor preaching before a mega church.
I don’t care if you own the rescue center or the five and dime on the corner… your business should be ministry and your ministry should be your business.
And in His temple everything says, “Glory!”
Psalm 29:9
Everything says “Glory!”
Everything.
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might
Ecclesiastes 9:10
Whatever the Lord has moved me to do, I will do it with all my might. I will serve Him and I will take what He has given me and do all that He allows me to do to make it profitable, both in the eyes of man and in His.
When he returned, after receiving the kingdom, he ordered that these slaves, to whom he had given the money, be called to him so that he might know what business they had done.
Luke19:15
I don’t believe God called His people to just break even in this life. I believe He has called us to sow and grow whatever He has made us stewards over…
Another came, saying, ‘Master, here is your mina, which I kept put away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man; you take up what you did not lay down and reap what you did not sow.’ He *said to him, ‘By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave. Did you know that I am an exacting man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow? Then why did you not put my money in the bank, and having come, I would have collected it with interest?’ Then he said to the bystanders, ‘Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has the ten minas.’
Luke 19:20-24