“Ministry is Relational” 

“Ministry is relational.” 

A good friend said this to me not long ago, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. 

The Holy Spirit doesn’t want me to forget it. I don’t want to forget it. It’s a truth I needed to hear. 

Sometimes I simply fail to look up. I make lists and rush about to finish everything and fail to see who around me needs ministering too. But the focus and product of a successful ministry is never going to be a what. It is always going to be a who. Goals and checklists that aren’t built around reaching and ministering to others are empty of any value in the eyes of our Savior, who was constantly focused on His ministry to us. 

And sometimes I’ll use the command to be separate as an excuse to go about my own business, with my own family, at my own house, free from outside influence. But spiritual separatism is completely different from selfish isolationism. The command of Biblical separation was given so that others would see our separation to the Lord, and therefore from the things of the world, and notice a difference in the followers of Christ. If we are truly separated to Christ, and we are giving our lives completely to him, then we will have no other choice than to desire to minister to others. Isolationism won’t be an option. 

The issues in our world and in the media today make it easy to want to crawl in a hole and hide. To shift our focus from ministering to others to protecting ourselves. To forget those around us in an effort to look out for our own. 

The scripture reveals a lot of truth about the way we should relate to others.

Jesus tells us in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

1 John 3:18 says, “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.”

Jesus makes it clear that love for others is what sets us apart, not completed checklists. And Jesus demonstrated this kind of love over and over again as he constantly and purposely went out into the world and sought out people to minister to in deed and in truth. 

How can we love one another if we completely isolate ourselves from the world? And how can we minister to others if we never look up to see them? 

Let’s determine to pray for opportunities to minister to other people, and let’s determine to see those opportunities when God presents them. Let’s not let the “whats” that fill our day distract us from the “whos” God places in our paths. Let’s determine to allow the Holy Spirit to not only work in our hearts, but to work through us to love others in deed and in truth too.