A life of ministry comes through dependence

A common phrase on the World Race world is “Life is Ministry, Ministry is life”, and although I would’ve said that I knew that before the World Race started, it has taken on a whole new meaning. (This blog also tags on to several of the ideas mentioned in the faith blog, but with deeper context)

At home, I fully believed and told the youth kids that the gospel is shared in how you live your life and this is so true. However, this could easily be an excuse that I would use to never live with the actual purpose of telling people about Jesus. Don’t get me wrong, people should know what Jesus is like by how we live as much as what we say, BUT it is also so important to live with intentionality, speaking the truth of Jesus and seeking out opportunities to do so, not hoping that they just fall into our laps. Learning to walk in boldness in this area has been one of the greatest things in showing me what a life of ministry looks like. It has taken me time to understand that a life of ministry doesn’t mean you just do ministry things often, but rather it is the why of your life. It is a realization of the greater purpose. Rather than trying to make sure I serve God within my life, I want to ask God what He wants me to do within the life HE has laid out for me. God has a great and specific mission. He wants His kingdom to grow and for each and every person to choose into a relationship with Him. I am not saying that He doesn’t care about the physical things of this life, because he does. How could He not? He is the creator of everything. For example, He cares about your job and how much you enjoy it, but what he desires is for you to glorify Him within it and to shine His light for all to see. The phrase “Life is ministry” is a change of priority.

The World Race is a weird experience. We live everyday with forty other people that were strangers just a few months ago. We also strive each day to push the whole group closer to Christ in word and action, which is so amazing. We do this as we travel all around the world and get pushed physically, spiritually, and mentally. All of this goes on while we have no consistent Church building to attend, no Wednesday night small group meet ups, and very little English preaching. What makes it feel so weird is not actually weird at all. In a space where so many of the normal Church-goer things that I can easily associate with equating to a “good relationship” with God are gone, I’ve grown so much closer to Him than I ever have before. Don’t get me wrong, you can meet God anywhere, especially within a Church building full of Worship and other people who know Him. That is even where I first met the Lord and the power of that moment in my life will always be so awesome. The big change in perspective that the race has shown me is the reality that with Christ in me, I AM the temple. This is something that I have known from some time, but the race has put me in a position where I had to learn to actually trust and believe that. God is way too big to only be moving one or two days a week when believers meet up in a certain place.

This change of view has led to a lot of differences in my actions. It has drawn me to be more intentional in my day to day, because I am not walking out in the “real world” our “outside of the Church”, but rather on Holy Ground with the temple of the living God inside of me. These scriptures required faith to become reality inside of me. Life with Christ makes us new and reworks everything about us, but our new and holy self is something that we have to choose to step into each day, by faith and trust in what He says. This change has also led to a life with much less of a “normal” church structure. Worship breaks out at any time. Praying for people is common, expected, and a priority in everything that goes on. Bible studies are frequent and without time limit. The Lord dictates what I do and how I think more than any news source. All the while, I’m not determining how my Christianity is doing based on these actions. These actions are great things, but they can all happen without a relationship with God. The difference comes when we focus only on our loving relationship with the Father. Faith without works is dead, but works can be artificial. Instead, we need to focus only on loving the Father with everything we have and works will flow out of us naturally. It is possible to not love the Lord and still have Christian works, but you can’t love the Lord and not have Christian works. The big breakthrough in my world race experience is seeing how “Christian works” or “fruits” don’t look the exact same every time, occur in the exact same places, or even involve the same people every time. I’m not at all saying that we need to ditch our Church homes and communities. These things are beautiful and Biblical. What I am saying is that God is so powerful and we should walk every moment of every day abiding in Him and worrying about wether or not we’re walking in the Kingdom, not about how many Sunday services we have attended in a row.

The encouraging thing is that these lessons don’t have to be learned in different countries around the world (although that can be a great way to learn). They can be learned right now within the structure and consistency of the church that you attend, BUT they cannot be learned without a dependence on the Lord. A real, genuine dependence. Not just saying “I need God”, but rather a life full of actions and thoughts that show that God is the only one who can come through for you. Every day that you or I choose to believe that we can live in our own strength is a day that we deem trust in God not worth it. Dependence on God is not something saved for the moments when life is scary, but rather an understanding that we actually can’t do this life on our own and that power is found ONLY in God. A good example is the rich young ruler who came to Jesus and said “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”. Jesus’ response was for Him to sell all that he has and distribute it to the poor. The issue here was not the money itself. Jesus doesn’t ask everyone who follows Him to sell all that they have. The issue was the rich young ruler’s dependence on His money. Jesus is love, and Jesus desires love from us. Love requires trust. Love requires dependence. The rich young ruler wasn’t too rich to follow Jesus, He was too dependent in something else to follow Jesus.

 It can feel like a relief to realize that Christ won’t always ask everyone to ditch all of their money to follow Him, as He did the ruler (but I’m guessing He is asking us to give more than we currently do, to say the least), but He is asking every follower the same question. What are you depending on? Any answer outside of God and His Word is an incorrect answer. For you, it may not be money, but the cost is always steep. For you, it may be the stability of schedule and a trustworthy job. It may be the affirmation received by friends and social media. It may be performance and value determined by achievement. It may be a five year plan or what you think you know is coming in the next days and weeks. The list goes on forever, and is unique to every person. God doesn’t care what it is specifically that you depend on more than Him, He just wants you to drop it and trust Him. When the going gets tough, what do you and I really depend on? When I’m backed in a corner, who do I think is on their way to rescue me? Imagine that when Jesus called peter to walk out on the water, instead of stepping out, peter responded by asking for life raft. Or imagine when God told Joshua and the Israelites to march around Jericho, Joshua suggested trying to break down the wall instead. These examples sound silly, but are they not how we so often live? Can we look our Lord and Savior in the face and say with honesty that there is nothing we depend on more than His provision?

For me, the answer was and occasionally still is no. Thankfully, the race stripped away so many of the things that I didn’t even realize were robbing God of the dependence He deserves. The race removed control. I haven’t driven a car, decided my own rules, or planned out my week in eight months. These things showed me how glaringly obvious my lack of dependence on the Lord was. I haven’t cashed a paycheck in eight months and it is so hard not to believe the lie that a lack of income means that I’m doing something wrong. In a world where what is in the bank account determines how secure we should feel, the idea of dropping all trust in money to be our provider is so difficult, but so necessary. He begs us to depend on Him because He is so ready to come through every single time. Every single time. It may not look like what you think. Actually, it usually doesn’t, but thankfully He knows what we need better than we do. Proverbs tells us that we should NOT trust our own understanding (our view of our situations) but rather to acknowledge the Lord in everything we do, trusting Him to establish our path.

The Lord is desperately pursuing you, but He will only go as far as you let Him. He loves us too much to force our dependence. He wants the relationship we share with Him to be real and deep, rooted in firm trust. Just take the step and I promise He will be there to catch you, every time. Trust Him.