Day 405 | Wednesday, 28 April 2021

Day 405 - Audio Version

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​Day 405 | Wednesday, 28 April 2021

 A recent conversation about ministry and doing God’s work prompted me to thinking.  I was asked by a friend who is in another profession, how he could tell he was doing God’s work.  We talked about ministry and how everyone, not just professional clergy, is involved in ministry.  We have all been given a gift form God and we are to use that gift, working together to build up the community of faith.  Ministry takes on many forms and is always directed at serving others and sharing God’s love.

 One place we find a list of gifts is in Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-13 CEB     
                                         
“4: 1 Therefore, as a prisoner for the Lord, I encourage you to live as people worthy of the call you received from God. 2 Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love, 3 and make an effort to preserve the unity of the Spirit with the peace that ties you together. 4 You are one body and one spirit, just as God also called you in one hope. 5 There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 and one God and Father of all, who is over all, through all, and in all.
7 God has given his grace to each one of us measured out by the gift that is given by Christ.   
11 He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers. 12 His purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ 13 until we all reach the unity of faith and knowledge of God’s Son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.
 
A Prayer for the Ministry of Jesus:
“God of life: We thank you this day for giving great powers of healing to your divine son and for filling his heart with compassion for the sick and the sorrowing. 

We praise you for his wisdom in insisting that the sick do as much as they can for themselves and for his pity on those who could not help themselves and had no one to care for them or about them.”

“We give you thanks for his keen insight, which enabled him to detect even a glimmer of faith in persons in need of healing and for putting to work whatever faith they had in their fight to get well.”

“We thank you for this impartiality in healing Jew and Greek, man, woman and child and for his disregard for everything, even the proper observance of the Sabbath, when it might interfere with or delay relief from suffering.”

“We praise you for his generosity, which prevented him from ever accepting even a gift for his healing ministry and for his touching surprise at the 10th leper, who actually came back to say “Thank you!””

“We give you thanks for his courage that moved him to engage in combat even the ultimate enemy, death and for restoring a son to a stricken, widowed mother, a daughter to a distraught father and a beloved brother to two grieving sisters.”

“We acknowledge, Father, that you placed his healing ministry at the service of his mission, and that it is not for us to speculate on where medicine ended, and miracle began.”
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“We would rather praise you for your great love, which you revealed through his caring for the sick and the dying; and we would be enabled, by your grace, to contribute whatever we can to the healing of those about us - in his blessed name. Amen”
 
Today: How are you using the gift God gave you for ministry?