Worshipping 'ministry' rather than Christ

Six days before the Passover feast, Jesus journeyed to the village of Bethany, to the home of Lazarus who had recently been raised from the dead, where they hosted Him for dinner. Martha was busy serving as the hostess, Lazarus reclined at the table with Him, and Mary took a pound of fine ointment, pure nard (which is both rare and expensive), and anointed Jesus’ feet with it; and then she wiped them with her hair. As the pleasant fragrance of this extravagant ointment filled the entire house, Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples (who was plotting to betray Jesus), began to speak.

Judas Iscariot: How could she pour out this vast amount of fine oil? Why didn’t she sell it? It is worth nearly a year’s wages; the money could have been given to the poor.

This had nothing to do with Judas’s desire to help the poor. The truth is he served as the treasurer, and he helped himself to the money from the common pot at every opportunity. John 12:3-6


I wonder how often we are Judas in this story, rather than Mary.

The perfume she poured over Jesus was worth a years wages. It is true that amount of money could help a lot of people.

But Jesus is more important than people. Yes, you heard me. Even poor people.

But doesn't Jesus care about poor people? Of course He does. And of course he wants us to care about them also. He wants us to love others as He does. But the thing is, if we are focused on the others without first focusing on Jesus, then we are actually missing the point.

Jesus is more important. If we can get that, and truly live it, then our lives will become Christlike. Then the compassion and service and ministry to others will follow, as Jesus leads.

But if we focus on 'doing' - even if it is for others - and just try to add Jesus in to it, then we have made 'ministry' our idol and object of worship.

Perhaps we are trying to cover up our own fallibility, insecurity or guilt. Deflect from our own faults. Or gain for ourselves. Like Judas. If we make an obvious show of how much we care for others, perhaps people won't notice how broken we still are ourselves. Perhaps others will look up to us. Perhaps we can even fool ourselves into thinking that we are 'good' enough because of everything we sacrifice for others.

How much of our desire to help those 'less fortunate' comes from our love for Jesus overflowing, and how much comes from self focused desires?

It is a tough question and sometimes takes laying bare the deepest corners of your heart and motivations.

How can something 'good' be bad?
When it's motivated by self and not love.

It's a question I've had to ask myself. In writing this blog. In wanting to go on volunteer and missions trips. All 'good' things, objectively. But too much of my motivation at times rested in myself, and not in God.

Have you ever told God you are willing to sacrifice anything for Him, but heard yourself add in the mental footnotes a few conditions about what that actually looks like, about the recognition, about how much, how often or where?

Are we willing to pour out our whole jar of perfume - our whole life in worship - on Jesus feet, regardless of how others react, regardless of how 'wasteful' it seems to the natural mind to not be 'doing' something more.

Even when we truly want to be serving Jesus, we often find it difficult to take the time to just lay everything down at His feet first. To stop and be lavishly excessive with our worship and praise and sacrifice.

Just worship. Without thinking of what we are getting, what others are thinking, what we will do with it later...

What use is all the service and ministry we can muster if we didn't give it all to Jesus first.

I hope it's clear I'm not saying doing things in service of God and others in bad. I'm not saying helping the poor is bad. Of course not! How we love others is a direct and natural result of how we love God.

But I think this time is coming where we will be called on to do big things, to have great compassion, to radically change the world and radically love those whom others have oppressed and ignored.

If we are going to do that right, we need Jesus. We need to know what it means to really pour out ourselves in worship of God first. Because if we can't first give ourselves wholly and unreservedly to Jesus, then we will never be able to do it for others. There will always be a large portion of 'self' tying it up.

No matter how much we act or give or do, it will be empty. No matter how powerful and influential our lives seem to be, without Jesus as Lord first of all, our lives will be shallow. And what is the good in our 'good' deeds if they are motivated by self. If we end up saying 'Lord, Lord' only to hear "I never knew you."

'Your best life'

"Your best life". I hate that phrase. I've seen it as the tag line for churches, and I hate it. Because everyone is looking at that tag line, and I just know the life they are thinking of. They are thinking of this earthly, temporary one. They are thinking 'how do I get my best life, right now?'

Is that really your best life? Is this best part of your existence?

As Christians, why aren't we looking past the physical to see what our 'best life' should really look like?

I've been wrestling with decisions lately that have made me really contemplate what living my 'best life' looks like - and I'm finding that sometimes the best life according to Jesus is going to look like craziness to other people. How do you explain to a world fixated on having and earning and gaining, that I'm taking time - unpaid, financially unprofitable time - to study the Word of God, to sit at the feet of Jesus, to live in faith that what I'm sowing into right now, though it's not putting money in the bank, it's going to pay off so much more richly? How do you explain that?

Well, you can't really. People are going to think you are wasting your time. They are going to wonder why you seem to be just sitting there when there are things to be done.

I guess it depends on where you are sitting. If you are just sitting down in front of the TV, well, they're probably right. Why are you just sitting there?

But if you are sitting at the feet of Jesus - if you are truly waiting on him and letting him lead you no matter where it takes you - then you have 'chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from [you].' Luke 10:42

Other things to look at:


http://sammyadebiyi.com/blogs/sammy-adebiyi/butt-chins-forehead-feet-and-jesus

Hey, God, are you forgetting something?

Genesis 40 tells us how Joseph, unfairly languishing in a dungeon, finally gets his big break. Two men who are close to Pharaoh are in prison too and Joseph, with the blessing of the Man upstairs, interprets their dreams for them. One of them is executed, but that's neither here nor there. Point is, he interpreted right.

And the other one, the cup bearer, gets out of jail and goes back to work for Pharaoh. And when Joseph asks the cup bearer to remember him to Pharaoh, to help a brother out, the cup bearer agrees.

Joseph must have been thinking, "Yes! Finally! God sent someone to get me out of this place!"

And then the cupbearer forgets.


Wait, what?

Turns out that it wasn't his big break after all. He was still in jail. For two years. TWO YEARS!
I don't know about you, but I can get impatient waiting for God to come through on his promises for two weeks.

And this came for Joseph after being in prison for 'some time' already - and in the wonderfully understated way the Bible does it, that probably means 'a lot of time'. And then before that, being sold into slavery by his own brothers.

Joseph knew how to wait. He had been waiting. But imagine how crushing, to think the time has finally come when your waiting is over, when God is going to come through on his promises and lift you up to a higher place. And then he doesn't.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has felt like God promised something, and then forgot. It's like when you were a child, and you asked your parents for something; they'd tell you they would think about it - and then they would forget.

Sometimes we think of God like a forgetful or preoccupied parent, and think he must have overlooked us. Surely those promises he made are meant to have happened by now? And then something happens, and we latch onto it - this is it. Surely this is the plan, I can see it now! And then it doesn't happen. And we are still waiting.

But maybe waiting is part of the plan. We can't see 2 minutes ahead of right now; God sees it all. Maybe, just maybe, he knows the right timing better than we do?

Joseph had to keep waiting. The cup bearer may have forgotten. But it came back. When Pharaoh had a dream, the cup bearer remembered him, and Joseph was able to interpret the dream. The cup bearer remembered at just the right time for Joseph to show the power of God to the ruler of Egypt.

The things we are doing now in the waiting aren't for nothing. The things we do now will come back to us, they will be remembered, and they will be important at exactly the right time.

Make the waiting productive. Joseph was sold into slavery at 17 and made overseer at 30. But he didn't just sit around and wait impatiently in the meantime - God made him successful in everything he did, even when that was in a dungeon.

God wants to renew us, and build our strength and character, he wants to lead us to focus on the right things. He knows exactly where we are going, and what we will need once we get there. God keeps his promises, but in his perfect timing.

If you are waiting for those promises, make the most of this time. Nothing is wasted. God has not forgotten you.