I will be speaking at a Pastor’s Conference in Seattle this coming Monday through Thursday. calvaryfellowship.org/events

It has me thinking once again about the nature of ministry. One of the most important things to remember is that all ministry is God’s ministry. It isn’t ours. We often use the phraseology “my ministry” in conversation, but it ought to be abandoned. If for no other reason than the well being of our own hearts. God’s ministry. That is the right phraseology. It is all His. It is never ours and was never meant to be ours.

Making ministry ours is destructive. It is destructive in that we were not designed to carry the weight of it. That responsibility is the Lord’s. So much stress and burnout is a direct result of the failure to grasp this truth about ministry. Our responsibility is to partner with the Lord in what He is doing (1 Cor. 3:9).

“Ministry, then, is not so much asking Christ to join us in our ministry as we offer HIm to others; ministry is participating with Christ in HIs ongoing ministry as He offers HImself to others through us.”1

We must realize the basis for the partnership is relationship and not need. God does not need us. He is entirely self-sufficient. This truth is part of what makes God God. Everything else in existence depends, He alone is self-sufficient. The thought that He may need us in some way is blasphemous. Equally as errant is the idea that we serve God in order to pay Him back for all He has done for us. How can you pay back one who is Himself the All in All? What is God lacking that man can give to Him? The Lord does not invite us into ministry because of need or debt, but rather because of love. He loves us and so He shares with us something very dear to Him, the work of the Gospel and the building of the Church.

Partner with Jesus in mission and enjoy the ride as He builds His Church and Hell loses! (Matthew 16:18)

1. Stephen Seamands, Ministry In The Image of God: The Trinitarian Shape of Christian Service, 20.