To Encourage You

Colossians 1:23 “the gospel . . . of which I, Paul, became a minister.”

In the verse above, the word “became,” in the Greek language in which it was originally written, means “to cause to be” or “to be made.”  You see, Paul’s plans for his life originally had nothing to do with the ministry of the gospel. By contrast, as a Pharisee, he earlier had seen his mission in life was to exterminate Christianity from the face of the earth. He was passionate about this. He was a persecutor. He was standing there and gave his approval to the Jews who stoned Stephen. But then everything changed. Now he was made a minister of the very message he had originally tried to quash.  But who was he “made a minister” by?  Who gave him this new mission in life?  Obviously, it was God, the God Who had saved Paul’s life for all eternity. 

So, what about you and me?  If we are believers, what’s our mission? Do we have one?  Did God give us a job to do as well?  The answer is found in 2 Corinthians 5:20. Here Paul doesn’t use the word “I” with respect to his ministry.  He uses the word “we” when he writes: “we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”  If you are a believer, you are included in that word “we.”  God has given us a job to do, that of sharing the message of reconciliation with God which has been made possible through the death of His Son.  In one way or other, each one of us has this job to do. It may involve ministering the message to our own children. It could be to those whom we work alongside that we are called to minister. It could be those in our neighborhood, our extended family, or someone sitting next to us on a plane.  Someway and somehow, the God Who has saved us has called us to share the message of His saving grace.

So, how are you doing in this area?  Have you told anyone about Him of late? Do you want to? Are you praying about it?  If not, you surely should be, for this is one thing that God expects of us.  He doesn’t want the most wonderful message we know to stop with us. He wants us to share it with the many people He has placed in our sphere of influence. For each of us, that sphere is unique.  It’s up to each one of us to “make the most of every opportunity” (Ephesians 5:16), i.e., the opportunities that God is giving us.  God has made each and every one of us that know Him a minister of the gospel through which we believed.  That’s God’s will for us. That’s what He expects of us.

May God help us to be a minister the gospel as He gives us the opportunities, for the God who called us to this works in us “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). Of course, there are “Sauls” out there who will oppose us and seek to shut us up. But who knows if one of those “Sauls” won’t someday become one of those who, like him, will be wonderfully changed into a “Paul,” a minister of the gospel themselves?