There are many people who purposelessly drift through life and never come to understand why God brought them into the world.
Opinion by Phillip Chidavaenzi
But, whatever judgment the Lord will pass on you as a believer at the end of time will be premised on whether or not you fulfilled your calling.
Our Lord Jesus Christ was such a phenomenal success because he understood the scope of his calling and refrained from doing anything at cross-purposes with that call. He is our role model.
The ministry of Jesus was primarily focused on Israel, which is why he never ventured out into the wider Gentile world, but delegated that responsibility to his disciples.
When a Gentile woman implored Jesus to heal her demon-possessed daughter, his response, at face value, sounded more like an insult: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel . . . It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” (Matthew 15:24-26, KJV).
What this simply means is that as an individual, you’re not called to minister to everyone. It is clear in the scripture above that Jesus understood that he was called to minister to the lost house of Israel. Later, in Mark 16:15, he delegated the responsibility of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth to his apostles.
Understanding your ministry is important. In Ephesians 4:11, the Bible makes reference to five ministry offices: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. It is unfortunate, however, that many have sought to delve into ministry offices far divorced from their callings. One may feel that being a prophet is more ‘glamorous’ because of the spotlight.
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But if you are a teacher, don’t force yourself into the prophetic ministry and if you are a prophet, don’t seek the office of an evangelist or apostle.
Paul appreciated that he was called to minister to a specific group of people: “I make as much as I can of my ministry as God’s messenger to the Gentiles . . . ” (Romans 11:12-13, MSG).
You’re not called to minister to everyone. There are people that God has specifically designed to reach you with the gospel.
Your obligation is to reach those people, shepherd them, and ensure that none of them is lost. Jesus’ ministry, for instance, was specifically focused on that inner cabal of 12 men he picked up from the hundreds of disciples who trailed him.
These were the men he spent most of his time with, taught and ministered to more than anyone else and at the close of his ministry on earth, he delegated them the duty to carry forward his message to those he had not directly reached because there were not within the scope of his calling.
In the beautiful prayer that our Lord offered for his disciples as his earthly ministry drew to a close, we see that although Jesus had not personally ministered to everyone in the world, He had, nevertheless, fulfilled the call of God on His life: “While I was with them (the 12 apostles) in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition (Judas Iscariot); that the scripture might be fulfilled.” (John 17:12, KJV).
Popular Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) television programme, The 700 Club, once featured the story of a woman who had a phenomenally successful ministry among sex workers, most of whom she eventually led to Christ.
The woman understood that her calling was specifically to minister to sex workers upon whom society frowned, and to effectively reach them, she dressed as a sex worker and frequented the red light districts in which they worked.
Understandably, many people did not understand her because of the unconventional manner in which she operated.
When you start to fulfill your calling, you will be misunderstood, especially within the Christian community itself. Your journey, as the Bible will tell you, will be fraught with pitfalls. His ministry to the Gentiles was misunderstood by the early apostles who thought salvation was just for the Jews among whom Jesus had walked.
Although Paul did not minister to everyone even among the Gentiles, at the end of his life, he had the unshakable conviction that he had fulfilled his calling: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7, NKJV). lFeedback: [email protected]
