Ministering to Jesus!
Matthew 25:31-40
31 “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.
34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ (NKLV).
Recently while driving I was listening to the radio; New Zealand’s Life FM actually. A speaker spoke about these verses from a different perspective.
(Note: I trust we have already settled our eternal destiny. So we can be sure we are the group Jesus referred to as ‘sheep’. Having escaped and rescued from the fate of the ‘goats’, we are those people born again, forgiven, redeemed, justified and being transformed on our way to Heaven!).
Have we given much thought to the act, the lifestyle and the place of ‘ministering to Jesus’?
We hear a lot about ‘ministering’, but it is usually in the context of ministering to others, be they saints or sinners. But our text for this “BriefWord” teaches us that serving and ministering to the hungry, the thirsty, the lonely, those lacking clothes, the sick and those in prison, is actually ministering to Jesus!
What a thought!
So when we say give food to a homeless person, when we visit prisoners, (and nurses) when we serve the sick, we are actually ‘ministering to Jesus’!
Incredible! Mundane tasks, of serving fellow human beings with the right heart and spirit is in reality ‘ministering to Jesus’.
Remember the Apostle Paul’s words;
Ephesians 6:7 With goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men. (NKJV).
Colossians 3:23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men. (NKJV).
Colossians 3:22-25 Servants, do what you’re told by your earthly masters. And don’t just do the minimum that will get you by. Do your best. Work from the heart for your real Master, for God, confident that you’ll get paid in full when you come into your inheritance. Keep in mind always that the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ. (The Message Bible; Emphasis added).
the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ.Carrying this thought around 24/7, could change us a lot. When we ‘minister’, do what we do in our day to day lives, when we help, serve, give, administer, carry out the tasks we have before us, let’s not forget a few important things.
God sees what we do. No generous ‘unseen-by-human-eye’ gesture goes unnoticed by the Father. He sees all we do, when no one else does. He sees and knows about the ‘ministering’ we do to those difficult people.
God values those interactions with humanity differently than we do. Too often we want to do things for others to be seen, and particularly seen by the right people! (Self-promotion). Yet the smallest random act of kindness to the lowest in society, is highly valued by the Lord.
We are actually serving Jesus! Unbelievable! When we think about ‘ministering to Jesus’, we would probably default to think about things like prayer and corporate worship. That is true, yet there’s more to it than that. We are actually serving Jesus!
Remember Paul’s words Colossians 3:22-25 (from The Message Bible), “… your real Master …”, and “… the ultimate Master you’re serving is Christ …”.
Thinking about that could drastically change not only ‘what’ we do but ‘how’ we do it, because the ‘why’ is different.
When our motive and reason for ‘ministering’ is because we know we’re actually ‘ministering to Jesus’ as we interact and serve another soul, then I think we’re well on the way to making a divine impact on planet earth.
