2 Corinthians 4--We do not lose heart

When you seek to do ministry--any kind of ministry--other people’s sin becomes your problem. Are you ministering to a rebellious kid? He or she will rebel against you. Are you ministering to an angry person? They will get angry at you. Are you ministering to someone who is discouraged? Being around them will be discouraging for you. If someone is opposed to the gospel, they will oppose you to the point you identify yourself with the gospel. It can be easy to lose heart doing ministry.

Paul says we need not lose heart. Why? The first reason is that we have our ministry through God’s mercy. Paul says that we don’t preach ourselves. Whether it is children, adults, behind the scenes, or whatever, ministry isn’t about us. Our ministry is to preach Christ and him crucified by word and deed. That means than any ministry we have is a gift to us from God’s mercy. Therefore, we don’t have to lose heart because any success is a gift of his mercy, not our talent. Therefore, when we communicate, we can be plain in setting forth the truth. We do not need to try and be clever or indirect. We are simply passing along a message from God that we received from his mercy and we get to communicate by his mercy.

Secondly, the struggle that comes we experience in our ministry is a demonstration (to complement the message) of God’s power. We give ourselves over to death, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal bodies. When we say “no” to our flesh and humbly serve, the death of Jesus is at work in us to produce the life of Jesus through us. It is like the dynamic of the cross and resurrection combusting in our soul to produce ministry power to impact others. “Death is at work in us, but life is at work in you” (12).

The Third reason we do not lose heart is that the struggles we face in ministering to others is like a persistent 401k that is accruing dividends in our soul from our sacrifices. Though we may not taste the fruits of them here, we can know that we are building up a Spiritual inheritance that cannot be seen. It is tempting to measure ourselves on what is seen, but God looks to the internal and eternal—not the external and temporary. What are you looking at?

Posted by Marc