Episode #306 Are You Ministering to God or Just for God? – Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Hey, friends. As believers, Christ followers, our lives are full of ministry. We minister to and serve our families and our friends, our neighbors, and our communities. We serve at church and in outreaches and parachurch ministries and meeting community needs. We are ministering all over the place and that ministry is an expression of our worship and our relationship with God. We get to do all things as expressions of worship to him, giving glory and honor to God in light of how we live and serve others. But today I wanna talk about a different perspective of ministry, and that is ministering to God himself.

The concept of priests is introduced for us in the Old Testament, but we see it referenced in the New Testament as well. Specifically in 2 Peter 2:9. It talks about who we are as Christ followers, and that includes us being a royal priesthood. So you and me as Christ followers are priests who minister on behalf of the Lord, but also to the Lord.

And in the Old Testament, the priests functioned in a variety of ways. They were able to go closer toward God than the general congregation. They had different spaces in the tabernacle setting where they could go, where other people could not. They received the offerings from the community and offered them before the Lord as sacrifices.

But I wanna draw our attention to one of the ways that Ezekiel describes the function of a priest. Not only do they minister to the Lord by way of ministering to the people. It's described in Ezekiel that the priests also minister to the Lord himself directly.

I'll read for us some parts of verses 15 and 16 from Ezekiel 44. It says, “The Levitical priests… are to come near to me to minister to me before me… They alone are to come near my table to minister before me and serve me as guards.” (Ezekiel 44:15–16)

In all of the ways that we get to minister as God's people, that includes ministering to the Lord directly himself. In Richard Foster's book, Celebration of Discipline, he talks about this. He says, “For the Old Testament priesthood, ministry to God was to precede all other work. And that is no less true of the universal priesthood of the New Testament. One grave temptation we all face is to run around answering calls to service without ministering to the Lord himself.”

He also talks about the way God is calling his church back to worship. He says, “It is as if God is saying, ‘I want the hearts of my people back!’ And if we long to go where God is going and do what God is doing, we will move into deeper, more authentic worship.”

And so in the context of worship, I wanna take a minute today to look at how we can minister to God directly and how we can minister to him first. Because when we begin there, then our ministry flows out to the other people that we love and that we serve.

And as I reflected on this topic, I realized that I don't often think about things this way. I get to engage in a lot of ministry. But I want to minister to the Lord first. I want to seek what would bring joy and delight to him. I want to find out, God, what would you like from me today? What can I offer you as a sacrifice of praise? What can I bring before you to minister to you, not just to minister with you to others?

Hear me, I'm not negating any of those other expressions of ministry. That's good. God invites us to partner in what he's doing in the world as expressions of ministry and of worship to him. But let's not miss this opportunity that we have as his royal priesthood to minister to him first. To draw away to the secret place. To do things that no one else will see, because we want to do something that's delightful to the Lord. Because we want to minister to him in fresh ways, and we're in relationship with him. We can respond to what he puts on our hearts. We can hear from him directly in how he would have as minister to him.

And so that's the question that I'm leaving us with today.
God, how can I minister to you right now?

Take action on what he shows you. Even if you're not sure, even if it sounds silly or inconsequential. If it aligns with the Bible and God's character and nature, then it's worth trying it if you think it could be God saying it to you.

So here's that question one more time:

God, how can I minister to you right now?

Have a good talk.

And if you've been encouraged by this content, please share it with a friend and help them grow in their conversational relationship with God too!

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