2 Corinthians 1
24 Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand.
1 Corinthians 3
5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man?
As ministers, we have our job cut out for us. We trade the word and the message from God to earn faith towards God in those we are sent to. We are helpers of people's faith, by us they believe in God.
We are sent for men and women to be confirmed and established in faith towards God knowing that without faith, it is absolutely impossible to please God. Hebrews 11:6. Unbelief, worry and doubt in God displease Him.
The propagation of the knowledge of God's love and of His grace is meant to trigger faith in the hearer. Faith comes by hearing.
When our words communicate grace, people are able to see what's behind the curtain of the physical senses and relate properly with them, living here on the earth in consistency with those unseen realities.
God has sent us to get people to full persuasion that He who had made those promises is also able to perform them. Romans 4:20/21
We have been sent to speak the good news of Christ in His teachings and deeds, confirmed by His work on the cross and followed up by His High Priesthood position today, by which He is able to save them to the uttermost, who come to God through Him, seeing He lives on forever, making Intercession for them. Hebrews 7:25
The process of ministry is described so well in Romans 10:11-15. It begins with God's promise to save whosoever calls upon Him. But then, nobody would call on someone they had not believed. Calling on God or depending on Him for intervention is an act of faith based on what is believed. The quality of such a call or dependence is determined by the quality of knowledge the caller has and has believed.
But no one would believe what he hasn't heard. You have to hear first before you can believe. If we don't know that God exists or we have no report from Him, we won't have the opportunity to believe. If we make it up without hearing, we form dumb idols for ourselves and build on superstitions that don't have effect even if called upon. Isaiah said, who has believed our reports. Faith requires reports to believe.
That's why Jesus warned us to take heed how and what we hear, because when we have heard, there's a pressure put upon our faith faculty to believe and we can only give back what we have heard.
Yet, no one can hear any report except there be a reporter. It is when someone speaks that another hears. We don't expect people to believe what we have in our minds above what we say with out mouths. Someone must say it clearly to grant us the opportunity to hear, to believe and to act based on the information.
Yet, when it comes to God's word that produces the God kind of faith, messengers have to be sent. How shall they speak, except they are sent?
We are sent and that's why we are called ministers of God. We are sent to speak the truth of Christ in God. We are sent to speak of what God has done, what He is doing, what He can do and what He has laid in store for us in eternity.
He who comes to God must have been told that He is and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.
We are to make the world see that, with God all things are possible. We are to help the people see the Kingdom of God where everything works supernaturally.
We are sent to build boldness and conviction in what God can do and in His unseen reality. We are sent not to deny the physical laws of nature but to let the world know that they don't stop God from doing whatever He would do on in the physical. We must let the world know that He that's from above is above all. We are not sent to make man believe in his weaknesses and imperfections again, but to help him believe in God's ability to create His will even through the weaknesses and the imperfections of mankind.
We are sent to make the world know that the physical world is a temporal arrangement but that an eternal arrangement has been made for us through Christ Jesus. Such a conviction is meant to help us make right assessments and choices concerning the things of this world.
We are not sent to tell the world that God is handicapped in helping them even today. If God isn't above the physical and the natural, what's the assurance that He can save from eternal destruction?
We aren't sent to preach faith in the physical and natural laws, such a job has been given to the academia, but to us we are sent to help people's faith in what the eyes and the other physical senses can't reach.
We are sent to help people explore their human capacity to believe and to apply that towards God who had wired us like that for the purpose of reaching Him by it.
If this is what we have been sent to do, then we have to be careful that we don't join them who overthrow the faith of people towards God. Read 2 Timothy 2:17-18 within its context.
We should not join them who teach that God does nothing for mankind anymore except to take them to heaven. We should not join those who still ask these days if God can furnish a table in the wilderness, limiting the Holy One of Israel. Psalm 78:19&41
Rather we must be good ministers of God, nourished up in the word of faith and of good doctrine 1 Tim 4:6
We must never permit corrupt communication to proceed out of our mouths but those that are capable of ministering grace to the hearer and not defeat and hopelessness in God. Our words must inspire understanding of God's will and the things He has provided and ready to do to cause faith in people.
We need not cook up fictions to drive home divine truth, we have enough promises and principles in God's word and in Christ to drive our narratives of faith. And to those who had walked with God, experiences of walking with the Holy Spirit daily furnishes testimonies of daily visitation and intervention.
Let's look again at the things we preach and teach and make sure that they are such that can trigger the kind of faith that calls upon God for His eternal salvation and His intervention in the troubles of this life. These are the possibilities available in God to everyone who believes in Him.
God is still alive, strong and He is still delivering people from their sins and troubles...and He won't deny Himself, He remains faithful and true! We must represent Him well and so help people's faith in Him. This is our job as ministers of God...
Let's do it!
Good morning servants of God!
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