“But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you.” 1 Peter 5:10
There lies within each of us a powerful potential to impact God’s Kingdom through anointed service. We are God’s “work in progress” which encompasses our assignment of purpose. This ministry is placed in the womb of our spirit that it might experience a time of clandestine intensification within the protective environment of obscurity. At the point that it becomes conclusively prepared and has moved through the full term of its dormant development, it becomes categorically clear that the ministry must be birthed out.
It is important to understand that the birthing process for ministry consists of a period of intense painful labor through the actual release into a viable posture for God to use. For ministry to be birthed out of you, it must go through the uncomfortable movement from the internal world of private contemplation into the external world of public occupation. This matriculation into the visible echelons of ministry is very difficult but very necessary. “Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery (or burden) of man is great upon him.” Ecclesiastes 8:6
The Birthing of Ministry
Ministry must:
- Be conceived by God in your spirit.
- Be formed in the womb of life’s experiences.
- Be developed by proper spiritual nourishment.
- Come “full-term” before birthing.
- Come through labor and stress for proper birthing.
- Be cared for with immediate attention upon birth.
- Be nurtured into a strong, impacting ministry for the Kingdom.
Time and judgment, along with a God-ordained period of struggle, sets the stage for ministry development and production. In other words, the somewhat frustrating need of purpose fulfillment inside of you, coupled with several well placed storms in your life, enhances the maturation process for your ministry.
Like the caterpillar that must fight through the excruciating setting of the cocoon in order to develop the strong muscular wings of a butterfly, we must also endure our agonizing atmosphere, if we are to see real ministry produced. We can “fly,” but not at first without struggle.
Many individuals with whom I have spoken over the years, have wanted God to eliminate the hurt and pain of their development and to lift them out of their personal struggles. But without this process, their ministries would not be anointed. It is the constant wrestling and toiling that allocates the necessary fortitude and resilience for a powerful work in God. In essence, we should look for and welcome the struggle. Consider what the Apostle Paul told young Pastor Timothy:
"For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry." 2 Timothy 4:3-5
Paul is letting his student know that in spite of his tenuous, unstable environment, he must go forth. He then seems to suggest that it is this platform that will provide, not only the work of his ministry, but its opportunity for growth. Timothy is instructed to let his current atmosphere “full-proof” his ministry.
An excerpt from, The Ministry in You, by Bishop Lyle Dukes, pgs. 33-36
