I haven’t really done any official ministry for two years now.
In the early part of this time, I hated it. I resented it. I wanted to do what God made me to do and I felt robbed of the opportunity to fulfill my God-given mandates. Like a brat, I pouted.
Now that I’m in this for this long, I’ve have to say I have quite a change of heart. It’s to the point where I really enjoy not doing ministry.
God really used these years to shape and to humble me.
Behind my earnest desires to serve God were hidden motives of selfish ambition and selfishness. I felt like God exposed that last year. That was a great time of repentance.
After that, God has been slowly purifying the passions of my heart to root out as much religiousness as possible. It’s pretty funny because while this is happening, I feel like my home church Epicentre has been investing a lot of energy and money into the Sunday worship experience.
While energy is being poured into that, I feel the Spirit tugging my heart going in a different direction. The contrast helps me go further and further away. It’s not that souping up our worship experience is bad, it’s that God is using a contrasting experience to helpi me narrow down and refine the requirements of being a Jesus follower.
I’m seeing that it doesn’t involve Sundays, great instruments, sound systems, offering, programs, or classes.
The task of following Jesus wholeheartedly is such a simple and at the same time a complex one that it requires so much stripping in order to see clearly both the simplicity and complexity of doing so.
Continuing to not to ministry and being less impressed with Sunday worship is helping me to do that. It’s helping me see that following Jesus is so enjoyable and so simple and is doable irregardless of my circumstances.
This season, I’m reading Luke in depth and I feel so inspired. I work at a normal job and all I want to do is be more like Jesus and to be Jesus to people.
It doesn’t require me to be in a certain position, title, or movement. Being Jesus to people is my simple joy. In in being Jesus, I can feel His presence, and feeling and being close to his presence is the stuff of life.
