This is pure garbage.
took me a year to learn this:
“Ministry” is demonstrating love to others the way God has demonstrated love for you.
Laying yourself, your life down to serve, to benefit, to build, to add value to someone else’s life… freely.
Showing people that they are worth our time, they are worth our attention, they are worth our care.
They can see in your eyes, it’s real, raw, not some hyped up fluffy love with common cliches. It’s a love that gives regardless of what is deserved or expected. It’s a love that expects nothing in return. It’s a love that does not change based on the response, that isn’t offended by first impressions, reputations, or accusations.
That’s why I’ve never liked the term “full-time ministry”. We all are full-time re-presenters of God’s audacious, unchanging , furious love.
Your love for people is paralleled by your understanding of God’s love toward you.
The ministry is to love as He loved.
That is the distinguishing mark of the believer.
“By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” - John 13:35
I started on this journey just a little over a year ago, I started asking one thing, “God, teach me to love.”
If you really know that you’re the temple of the Holy Spirit, you can stop saying “come Holy Spirit” and start saying, “Thank you that you’re here Holy Spirit, I acknowledge you and I know you’ll never leave me or forsake me; you don’t come and go.”
I can sincerely respect you as a person, and hate everything that you believe. I can honor you as a child of God and see nothing but Christ in you, and still despise your doctrines.
When will we get this through our heads? What we believe is not who we are. What we believe may determine our experience, and it will certainly determine how we behave, but what we believe does not determine who we are. Who we are has already been settled totally regardless of the beliefs we choose to hold onto. We are children of God. We are reconciled to God because of Jesus. We are accepted and cherished before the Lord. Yet, there are millions of people who believe they are the opposite. Does that change the fact that they are made in the image of God? Of course not! Look at it this way. Say a child molester believes that assaulting children is what will fulfill him? Should I respect that belief? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Because it hurts people, including the person believing it.
I’ll give you an example: John Piper. I can look at videos of that man, and see nothing but goodness. It is so obvious that he loves God with his whole being. He is genuinely an amazing, God-fearing man. But what he believes and teaches others…I despise. He teaches people that everything that happens is God’s will (including disasters, rape, murder, sin, disease, death). Now, how could I love God and not HATE that everything His Son died for is being attributed to His own will for mankind? How could I love God and not HATE that His heart is being made out to be malicious and inflictive of pain? I hate what John Piper teaches people. And every time I hear someone I know and love say they listen to him, I grimace and probably look a little pissed off. But, that does not change how I view John Piper as a man and as a child of God. What he does, I hate. But who he is…is beautiful and whole and holy and wonderful, just like God made him to be.
How could I love the Church and not hate what binds her in chains? Even if it is Her own doing?
I can love and respect you, and hate what you believe, all the while being your friend and never acting vindictive or mean to you. Because who you are is separate from what you believe. I choose to see Jesus in people regardless of the garbage they choose to believe that they’ve been spoon fed in dead churches. BECAUSE I love you, I hate what you believe. It really is just that simple.
read this:
There exists within the heart of every man, woman and child that has ever been born a subconscious awareness that they were born to be conquerors. The world we are born into does everything that it can to suppress it — to push it down and silence the inward burning for greatness to arise. Systemized religions do all they can to dumb it down and instead create mindless drones with no vision or passion for life. Systemized education systems are designed in such a way to produce employees who will work for the rich instead of refining and sharpening the minds of its students to create world changing products and services that will serve the masses.
The harsh reality is that most people around the world are aware of this internal fire, yet they often resort to watching television shows that temporarily excite it instead of learning to cultivate it and harness its true power and potential.
This creative power inside of us contains within itself the ability to shake nations, vanquish disease and poverty, invent new technologies, and eradicate hatred and destructive forces from the face of the earth.
Hollywood knows about this force - it is the very reason that movies such as Gladiator, Braveheart, The Matrix, and others are so incredibly successful.
Video game companies know about it. Adventure and action games generate billions of dollars of revenue every year for CEOs around the world who have hired others to create games that appeal to this burning desire within us to be world-changers…to be someone who matters…someone who makes a difference to our communities and our planet. What is it about the notion of being a dragon slayer that appeals to so many? What is it that causes so many young people to spend what little money they have to purchase games that put them in life-threatening situations?
Fiction authors write about this constantly. They write stories that all directly appeal to the drive for excitement…the adrenaline that hits your system as you read about a warrior charging into battle despite impossible odds, the passion for justice that is lit within you when you hear that someone is victimized in a story and the protagonist stands up for what is right and true.
It is the thrill of victory, the gleam of the sword as it silences the taunt of its enemy, the excitement of conquering what all others have written off as impossible, the scattered army banding together to overcome a much tougher, more organized foe. All of this points to the reality of the existence of this inward burn for excellence and greatness in all of us.
All of those above have learned to capitalize on the very real desire within you to embrace and wield greatness. All of those above have realized the existence of this passion, this drive for success, this gift of zeal for a life that is actually worth living.
What has stopped you from realizing it, too?
What is it that has you consumed with the petty things that the world has thrown at you?
What are the relationships in your life that have hindered you from truly embracing the potential that deep down you know is there?
What have you sacrificed on the altar of people-pleasing at the expense of your own dreams and passions?
Do you even know why you have done so?
Most importantly…
What are you going to do about it?-Ryan Rhoades
We love … because He first loved
- How you see people has direct correlation with how you think God sees you.
- Your passion for people is a reflection of your understanding of God’s passion for you.
- Loving your enemies before they become your friends is the fruit of understanding how much God loved you before you knew Him [while you were still a sinner].
If you’re still trying to find a reason to love someone, it’s because to some degree, you think God’s trying to find a reason to love you.
God doesn’t find reasons to love, He IS love.
And likewise for us, we have BECOME love.
We’ve become re-presenters of the person of Love.
The reason why John is known as the ‘apostle of love’ was because he constantly talked about himself as the one “whom Jesus loved”.
It wasn’t pride, as if Jesus didn’t love anyone else. It was understanding that that’s the key to demonstrating love to the world. Your love for people comes from understanding God’s love for you.
Loving people is easy and becomes natural when you finally understand how He has loved you.
“We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19)
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