Monday, October 14, 2013

Passion for souls

"Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest". John 4:34-35
Some of you may have great ambitions to do great things for God or to do wonderful exploits for the Kingdom of God. To have a reputation as one of the "greats" like the Apostles and Prophets. A desire of every true believer is to be used by The Lord on some level. We want to do great things for God because we figure that it would bring him glory and honor through these wonderful works. To an extent it does, but I want to look at this from another angle and say that God doesn't need you to perform miracles for him, people do. 

People need things from God, not the other way around. God's desire is to dwell with his creation so it's only proper to meet the needs of the people he loves. That's the reason souls are saved and miracles are released, It's simply because of the unconditional and unchanging love of Jesus Christ.



A burden and love for souls has to be the second greatest driving force next to Loving God in any ministry. Without this burden for souls your ambitions for doing great exploits and works for God is at extreme risk. Pride, doctrinal error, and a whole host of various sins will be birthed out of bad motives. All of our motives must be grounded on the right foundation. It's is my belief that with any great work there must be someone that has a heart and burden for the saving of souls exemplified by Jesus in the opening verse. That is where the need is, and where there is a desperate need miracles will happen. There is a great misconception about the word "minister" floating around. The word means servant, so my question is, who are the servants serving? Without a doubt we serve God but how do we do that? Let me remind you of this one kingdom principle. 


Mark 10:43-45 "..but whosoever will be great among you, shall be your minister: And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all. For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."
I am convinced that the greater your ministry, greater service, greater the love, greater labour, and suffering is required of you. The mindset of this world is that the greater the ministry the greater the celebrity and popularity and in consequence the less work and love you have to show others by reason of your elevated social status. Such pride should not be found in any of God's Churches.

There was a discussion about healings in the church at our recent prayer service, our Pastor asked the question, "why do you think the church does not see healing on a consistent basis?" Many of the saints gave great answers. Some said that there needed to be more unity, some said that unreconciled relationships is the cause, some said that the church has put God as a plan "B" and doctors as plan "A", and others said that luke warmness as well as entertainment has stolen our attention away from God. All of those answers were great. My answer to why the church as a whole does not see consistent healing miracles is that it "could" be possible that we don't need it because God often works in areas of need. We have become so blessed that we are almost independent when it come to our needs, we can take care of them ourselves "almost". But that kind of cultural mindset can be detrimental to a God centered Kingdom. Surely we need to acknowledge him in ALL of our ways. Yet there are some things God will not do for us, we should strive to be temperate in all things to achieve a balance so that we do no quench the Spirit of God by trying to outwork him or by becoming so slothful in life that we refuse to perform any work. 

So I pose this question to you. What would happen if soul winning become just as important as eating? What if we craved after winning souls like we do our next meal? God did not call us to be lords over his heritage nor to be side show gospel entertainers. God has called us to be laborers in his vineyard. Great things happen when we take on a great burden for the work of God in total submission and obedience unto him. God bless.

Authored by:
MIT. John W. Jenkins
Last Days Ministries Apostolic Church  

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