Tuesday,
April 19, 2005
"Ministry Results" "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts" (2 Corinthians 3:2,3). I recall a story that Dr. Howard Hendricks tells about a dedicated elderly Sunday School teacher in Michigan who had impacted many hundreds of children during her long life of service for Jesus, although each class she taught was relatively small. But these children grew up to expand her ministry many times over, many of them through full-time ministry. The real results of ministry are the people we impact for Christ and their impact upon others. Last night we had a great visit with longtime friends. Jeff first visited the church I pastored in North Central PA as a seeker. Someone had given him a Bible which prompted his spiritual interest. He was a single man at the time, a forestry graduate from Penn State. He accepted the Lord and became actively involved in our church for many years before moving to New York where he met Lois who became his wife and they now are blessed with two children. As a family they are faithfully living for Christ! Paul had established the church in Corinth and spent 18 months as pastor, "teaching them the word of God" (Acts 18:11), before moving on and leaving the church under the care of others. We have more material written by Paul to the Corinthian believers than to any other church. But there's a single phrase in the text I would like to highlight today. It will bring great encouragement for any who face the inevitable discouragement of ministry for Christ. Paul, who wrote the letter along with Timothy, speaks of these dear Corinthian believers as "the result of our ministry." What is the result of your ministry? There's no record that Paul ever led any type of building project at all, or that he had massively attended meetings. He did not have a best-selling book published (during his own lifetime) or otherwise had any experiences normally associated with "success" in the modern sense. Most of his recorded ministry is to small groups or one on one. Yet at the end of his life Paul had a host of people all throughout Palestine, Asia Minor and southern Europe whose lives he had impacted for Christ. These were the results of his ministry. Today you may have a tendency to look at a specific situation in your life which can lead to discouragement. Someone's rejected you, someone else is criticizing you; another, like Demas, has gone back into the world's ways. But I hope you have the perspective, like the apostle Paul, to rejoice at the results in your ministry of those who are continuing steadfast in faithful, fruitful service for Christ! I hope there are many. Be encouraged today, Stephen C. Weber Note from Brooksyne: I can certainly appreciate the impact of the Sunday School teacher Stephen referred to in his beginning illustration. Though I attended Bible College to further train for vocational ministry, I know the enthusiastic and diligent teaching of my Sunday School teachers in my Elementary and High School years was the beginning of the calling God placed upon my life. I am a result of my Sunday School teachers faithful ministry as they lovingly taught the truths of God's Word and I've been doing the same thing for over 32 years with children. What a genuine and indescribable feeling comes from knowing that we have a part in another's spiritual birth and growth. We all can make an eternal difference for the kingdom of God! Here's a more lengthy perspective I wrote many years ago on ministry results. Here's a photo of Lois and Jeff's two children, along with Ester on Donegal Creek, a small trout stream near our home. I sure enjoy trying to get good sunset photos. Here's a shot I took last night of sunset over Donegal Creek. |
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