Never underestimate the great value you are to the Lord in touching the lives of those around you. You may not even think that you have a ministry, but you are a ministry in the life you live out with others. How you treat even one person can make a difference for God’s kingdom.
To be effective for the kingdom, it is not how much you know but how much you live out. “Obey the Word of God. If you hear only and do not act, you are only fooling yourself” (James 1:22 NLV).
With however you have failed, you must not let it deter you. We are all learning, and it is often in the classroom of our failures where we will learn the most. Don’t squander the lesson, but only learn from it. Pick yourself up by the back of the neck and just keep going.
Be the one that God can use to build His kingdom. “The Lord wants to use you for special purposes, so make yourself clean from all evil. Then you will be holy, and the Master can use you. You will be ready for any good work” (2 Timothy 2:21 ERV).
Don’t measure your success for the kingdom based on the worldly measurements of man. You may not be earning a single dime in profit in the world but filling up the richness in the precious souls going to heaven. The world as we know it will someday end, but heaven will go on forever.
Kingdom wealth comes from investing in the lives of others. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another…” (Colossians 3:16 NKJV).
Kingdom success is not measured by how many you reach but by how you reach even the one person whom God puts before you. To the degree you are loving, you are godly. To be loving is not measured in what you do but in why you do it. The measurement is in the intentions.
Motives trump actions in the kingdom of God. “Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs and examines the hearts [of people and their motives]” (Proverbs 21:2 AMP).
Kingdom success is not measured by how popular you are with others but by how intimate you are with the Lord Jesus Christ. Get your relationship right with Jesus, and He will decide how many He wants to reach through you. You cannot be His light until the light in you is actually Him.
You won’t get high marks on earth for living a lowly life for the kingdom. “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29 NIV).
Kingdom success is not measured in how much money your ministry can receive but in how much you are willing to let the Lord pour out through you. Even worldly non-profits can gain big contributions, but only the saints of God will be vessels through which He will pour out onto others.
A profit for the kingdom is more important than a profit in the world. “Just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved” (1 Corinthians 10:33 NKJV).
Kingdom success is not measured by your ability to speak with eloquence but by your humility to speak out of your inability to do anything apart from Christ. It is not how good you are at speaking but the good things that you are talking about that matter.
Jesus will use you to the extent you are willing to let Him. The Lord Jesus taught, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5 NIV).
Kingdom success is not measured in how talented you are naturally but in how willing you are to be used by the Lord supernaturally. You might be the greatest by the world’s standards, but that is never the measurement that God uses in the kingdom.
Until you learn to rest in the Lord, you won’t get much work done for the kingdom. “Rest in the Lord and be willing to wait for Him. Do not trouble yourself when all goes well with the one who carries out his sinful plans” (Psalm 37:7 NLV).
Kingdom success is not measured by whether you are employed in a ministry but if you live a life doing the ministry of the Lord. The world will recognize those set apart in their careers, but God is looking for those who are set apart in their lives.
In the world, it is what you can do. In the kingdom, it is what He can do through you. “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:13 NLT).
Kingdom success is you doing the work of the Lord towards every person that God puts before you. Some of the greatest work we can do is by prayer or by practical service. When we pray, we are tapping into heaven. When we serve practically, heaven is tapping into us.
Our success for the kingdom is not measured by how much we have gathered but by how much we have poured out. “God is always fair. He will remember how you helped his people in the past and how you are still helping them. You belong to God, and he won’t forget the love you have shown his people.” (Hebrews 6:10 CEV).
Blessings to you,
Paul Balius
Beloved brother Paul, you highlighted and expounded such excellent points, among which you write, “To the degree you are loving, you are godly.”
Yes! God Himself is love unmerited, agape love. 1 John 4:8,16, 1 Corinthians 13 et al.
Ever and always, the size and strength of any situation is the spiritual exercise of love or the lack thereof. Any individual and any assembly of individuals will progress or digress in the eternal excellence of the economy of God no more nor less than the measure and move of love they receive and give. We know from Galatians 5:6 that faith works by love.
The beauty and benevolence of Jesus’ everlastingly unfailing love are indescribably illimitable, endeavor as we might. He loves each and every one of us individually, infinitely intimately, as much in a single millisecond as He loves the grand sum of all creation that is, and was, and ever shall be through all eternity.
In the deepest depths of your being, do you, dear reader, believe this about Christ, concerning the eternal, darling, Bridegroom King of Heaven He is, as love unformed, and your Creator, colossally cherished self?
If you have not thus far along in your time on this earth surrendered to the superscendent splendor of Jesus Christ as the supreme and sovereign Savior and Sanctifier of your spirit and soul, I urge you to do so before it is too late, or else you shall die in your personal sins that He sacrificially, severely sufferingly shed His innocent, holy blood to atone for, and give you everlasting life with Himself, in the happy highlands of Heaven hereafter.
Beyond this passing lifetime, of a fallen world of abject anarchy with all its God-less glamour and Christ-less clamor, is for me, spirit and soul, to be absent from my body and triumphantly present with my Lover Lord who conceived me, who breathed me into being. To live is Christ; to die is the absolute, irrefutable gain of grandest graduation, in vital-most union and inamorata, closest communion with our Creator through endless ages.
I am so blessed to read your words written in an eloquence that inspires me to draw nearer to my Lord Jesus! What a blessing your words are to the kingdom! I pray that the Lord is using you mightily in the sphere He has placed you in. Blessings to you always!
“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate” (1 Cor. 13:1 MSG).
Paul, I exult in and extol our Abba, Love Almighty, for your unique, weighty, loving contribution to the claim and fame of Jesus infinitely impressive Name.
I am reading and reveling in the riches discovered in the book you faithfully co-authored with the Holy Spirit entitled If You Can Believe: Then all things will be possible.
Trusting, I ask that the Kabod of The One All Glorious God, His weightiness, splendor, majesty, and plenteousness rests upon you.
Thank you so much! You are such a blessing to me!