MINISTRY AND LIFE Part 5Matt 7:3-5; Luke 11:39-40; 6:39
(Pay attention to your life first!)
When Jesus appeared to His disciples after His ressurection, Thomas was not there. When Thomas arrived and those who had seen Jesus told him what they saw, he said 'Unless I shall see the print of the nails in His hands, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe.' John 20:25. However after few days, Jesus showed up again when Thomas was there and after the general salutation, He called out to Thomas and responded to the desires of Thomas as if He was there when He spoke. I thought that Jesus would have rebuked him for his seemingly faithless action instead I saw Jesus taking His time to show evidence and proofs to Thomas.
This incident did not really make much sense to me until I got to Acts 1:8 and I saw that the empowerment of the HolySpirit in the life of the believer is for him to be an effective witness. How would Thomas have witnessed to what He did not see. I think Thomas was saying that 'I dare not lie, if I must be a correct witness, then I must be given the privilege to see what others saw. I cannot be in their class of witnessing if I am just witnessing what they told me and not what I saw.'
When Thomas saw those proofs, he worshipped in fear and trembling. He could have joined others to witness earlier however his witness would not have been with a reverence to the One he was witnessing about. The power of witnessing Christ is in our reverence for Him as we witness and this reverence is born out of Divine Revelation of Christ.
How pathetic is it nowadays that many of us ministers launch out in the Name of Christ without any encounter with or revelation of the Christ we claim to represent. Our lives have not been affected and influenced by the person and presence of Christ yet we want to go about ministering to others about Christ. Can the blind really lead the blind?
Little wonder, we see many christian gathering and organisation falling into the ditch of avoidable scandals and errors because the leader (minister) is blind yet releasing to the people who he does not have. He speaks to men in the abundant of what he has heard from others and read from others without any real encounter with Christ from those words. Such men have the word of God but do not have the revelation of the God of the Word. The revelation of the word and the God of the Word will transform the life of anyone who receives by reason of the light. Revelation exposes our own wretchedness and releases grace for transformation before we are empowered to proceed to be used of God to minister to others. Check out the life of Isaiah (Chap 6), Peter (Luke 5) and all those that God uses, we will realise that those men have a direct, personal and progressive encounter with God which first changed their lives before reflecting in their ministries.
How long would love to remove the mote in others' eyes while the beam in your own eyes is still intact? I wish you can respond to God positively this hour and ask Him for a personal encounter with Him and direct revelation of Him.
Prayers: Lord, please grant me a personal, private, progressive and precise revelation of Thee and you grant me grace of encounters with Thee. I'm tired of running only on others revelation, please grant me a right view of you personally
