Do you think ministry should be easy? No stress, comfortable, convenient and always go smoothly according to plan? I don’t see that in the scriptures. In fact there are scriptures to support quite the opposite.
Listen to Jesus from John 12:23-25. “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
And Luke 9:23- 25. Then he said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his lie for me will save it.’
I only see sacrifice being described here when serving in fruitful ministry. A seed must die before it produces many seeds. And we are called to take up the cross of Jesus every day and lose our lives when following him. These scriptures make me question why we would ever think ministry is supposed to be easy. I mean if nothing else we must realize that we are dealing with sinful people both who are our focus of ministry as well as our partners in ministry.
I think once we accept these facts we will approach our Kingdom work more realistically and it will be easier to deal with the challenges we face when serving the Lord of Lords. We must heed the words of our Savior and High Priest, Jesus. We must die to self to produce many seeds and we must deny ourselves and take up our personal crosses daily to correctly follow Jesus.
So let’s have a healthy and realistic view of ministry, let’s not fool ourselves into thinking ministry is easy.
Barnabas Man 