Wow, Paul with a haymaker to my face. I read the passage that is below and was convicted. The first question I have is “do I live in such a way that no one's walk is hindered by my life?” I am sure there are people that I hinder. I cannot believe Paul would throw this out there, but he did. It is definitely something I need to strive for.
“We serve God whether people honor us or despise us.” I had someone once challenge a group us by saying that sometimes we love the ministry more than we love God. The ministry validates us because people affirm us in ministry. Would I be willing to minister for God without any validation? I would hope so. This is definitely cause for a motive check. Why am I in ministry? Is it because I feel like I have something to offer, or is it because God has called me to be a minister? My prayer is that the latter is true.
Do I live close to death, or is death far from me? I was challenged today by a book I was reading on discipleship. The author said that living for Christ is like you dying in plane crash in the middle of Kansas. A farmer finds your body and decides to bury you. He gets the hole dug but then it gets too dark for him to finish. Jesus comes along that night and asks you if you want to live. If you say yes, you live only for him. If you say no, then you stay dead. You choose to live for God, so your old self is dead in Kansas somewhere and the new self is living completely for God. Living close to death because you are living for Christ in every moment. This is because you know at some point you will die and you desire to be ready for that moment. You desire to make the most of your time on this earth to give it to God and live wholeheartedly for him with joy. Understanding that through Christ you have everything, but apart from him you have nothing. What an amazing passage. What vision for who we are supposed to be, for how we are supposed to live. Our God is amazing!
2 Corinthians 6:3-10
3 We try to live in such a way that no one will be hindered from finding the Lord by the way we act, and so no one can find fault with our ministry. 4 In everything we do we try to show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind. 5 We have been beaten, been put in jail, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food. 6 We have proved ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, our sincere love, and the power of the Holy Spirit. 7 We have faithfully preached the truth. God's power has been working in us. We have righteousness as our weapon, both to attack and to defend ourselves. 8 We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether they slander us or praise us. We are honest, but they call us impostors. 9 We are well known, but we are treated as unknown. We live close to death, but here we are, still alive. We have been beaten within an inch of our lives. 10 Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything.
