The Ministry of Noble Success: The Awakening Part II
September 29, 2009Several years ago, I went on a missions trip with my friend, Pastor Rick Searls to Brookes Point, Palawan, in the Philippines. We visited Brookes Point Bible Church, a work he helped start and which our church supports. While there, in one of my devotions I read a passage of scripture that caused me to begin some serious introspection into how my life counted for God!
Romans 10:15 asks a very interesting question, “And how shall they preach, except they be sent? ”
Of course the first question that came to mind was, Who is suppose to send them? Well, the obvious answer, I thought, was that it was God. Then another question came to mind. How does He send them? I must say, this was where a lot of soul searching began …
I looked at what was going on in this vibrant growing work in what would be considered borderline primitive in the US. I saw all the needs that were going unmet, the hard lives that these believers were living as opposed to the relative ease of life in the West and in particular, the United States. It was a revelation to say the least!
Multiply their situation by thousands all over the world. Add the hundreds of missionaries who are struggling to raise support to get to their field of calling and the thousands who are struggling just to keep enough support to stay on the field. And then there’s the ones who burnout and simply give up trying – staggering!
I could not stop thinking about this. Eventually, I put together some teachings based on these thoughts entitled Called to Send.
The problem is that it is getting harder for those who are called to go to get there because those of us who are called to send have not fulfilled our calling! Don’t believe that? Take a look at the average Christian’s lifestyle. Not only living paycheck to paycheck, but deeply in debt, just like everyone else! Now, tell me who is worldly! Think of how much money is wasted on temporal things and frivolous personal whims, when perhaps millions of Christians by making even a slight adjustment in lifestyle, could make a huge difference!
In preparing Called to Send, I tried to address what I saw as the responsibility of the “everyday” Christian. The man in the pew, so to speak. This has evolved over the years into what I now call The Ministry of Noble Success, the title of this book.
The Awakening, Part III will begin describing what this “ministry” is all about!
NOBLE SUCCESS 
Cork, Wonderful! Keep writing, writing, writing! You have so much to say!
Thank you Charlotte. Sometimes it is hard to sit down and write after a long day at work, but once I do, hours seem like minutes!
In Leviticus 19:9-10, God commands the Israelites, through Moses, to not reap the corners of their fields when they harvest. They were to remain for the poor. God, though not needing emphasis, noted His seriousness of this matter by concluding His commandment with, “I am the Lord your God.” Today, our paychecks are our fields. We reap every square inch of them. We then, not being satisfied, reap beyond the borders of our fields into the neighboring fields. These fields are owned by Matercard, Visa, Discover, and American Express on all four sides. They willingly wave us over, and we willingly disregard what the Lord our God commanded. As special offerings and needs come up at church, we sit silent; already owing more than we can pay. Visa gets the money that the Lord earmarked for a certain missionary before the foundation of the world. How sad. One day we will account for the Lord’s pennies. I will be one of the millions of Christians who stand ashamed.
James – bingo. What a good word picture! The whole point of what I am writing about is that those of us who are not called into “THE MINISTRY” are still called into ministry, but you would never know that by the way we live. We work jobs that we hate, getting paid just enough to keep us in the misery, and spend the meager earnings on a lot of frivolous things that tend to keep our heads just above the waterline! My goal is to teach as many of the next generation of Christians as possible that their calling is to “send, support, and supply”. The only way to do this is to realize that our jobs, our businesses, our professions are the vehicle to fulfill that calling, not “the calling”.
Much more to come on this over the next months, so keep reading (and thank you for reading!) and pass the word. The goal is to organize all this into a book next year.
Cork