I was a happy first grade teacher who worked hard at her profession, helped Randy as he pastored the church we grew up in together, while raising three kids to adulthood.  Then God called us out and told us to move from where we were to a place where we would learn and grow even more.  We didn’t ask God to move us.  We didn’t ask God to give us the work that was waiting for us.  Instead, God led Randy to move a thousand miles from home with his family, go seminary, and pastor a church in the country that needed what God would provide through Randy.  God assured us that he would provide for our immediate needs.  And He did.

God told me I would no longer teach first graders.  Instead, I would work for our denominational office as a leader who would train others to lead and teach.  God promised, “I will tell you what to do and how to do it”.  That is basically what happened with many more details in the move.  But the most important thing to remember as we look back at these momentous callings in our lives of moving from family and the familiar was God said go, so we went.  We love God with all our hearts, minds, and souls.  We have never had any regrets of hearing God and obeying His direction.

Over the years of learning our new work in news places, we had many challenges by people whose hearts’ desires were to hang on to traditions while putting most of their thoughts into the building, honoring religious habits more than ministry to people—ALL kinds of people.  They wished that “those people” God was sending to us were more like them.  These are just some of the attitudes that break our Lord’s heart.

Also, as one of few women in ministry in a denomination who said that God-called and trained women were welcomed to do ministry but their behaviors didn’t really show this belief was a great challenge as I followed God’s will in the midst of adversity.  I prayed for God to lead me through this challenge with wisdom for my own behavior as I simply obeyed what He told me to think, say and do for His glory. 

We also combatted those who said, “You moved from local ministry up to the big leagues, congratulations.  I hope to “move up” in leadership, too.”  These were probably the most disappointing words to us. 

Religion versus relationship with God.  Therefore, religion can get in the way of loving relationships with God and each other easily as humans.  Zechariah, speaking for God, tells religious leaders of their folly in religious acts versus building relationships first with God who provides all we need and then loving people like God loves people—unconditionally, nothing held back, full of love, mercy, and grace!

So, ministry is not about our fleeting feelings, or temporary emotions but in saying yes to God, no matter what that looks like to the world.  Ministry is not something you do to feel good, to show others how good you are, or to manipulate others to support you in your own dreams of power and influence.  Ministry is not something you do because (in your mind) nobody else will do it so you step in.  Ministry in done in God’s time and place and not our own.

Ministry is obedience to God first and always.  Ministry is going where God is already at work and who is calling out to you to come and join Him in that work so you will grow in relationship with Him.  Ministry is not a man-made business of “rank and file” or positions of honor. Rather ministry is daily giving all we have back to the One who gave all He had to save us from all our sins. (See Romans 12) Ministry is an intimate, loving relationship that grows in gratitude for the One who saved us.  Because of our gratefulness to the Father, we listen for His Voice and do what He says.  Because of God’s love growing in us, we extend this same kind of love to the people around us and to those God places in every season of our lives.

Ministry is praying to God for direction before doing anything of significance in His Kingdom work—just like Jesus did when He walked this earth.  Ministry with God and for God is with and for people.  Ministry is helping people find and follow Jesus.  “For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16 

Be like Jesus.  Imitate what Jesus did and how He did it.  Have the mind and attitude of Jesus. –Philippians 2

Zechariah 7, The Message

“You’re Interested in Religion, I’m Interested in People”

On the fourth day of the ninth month, in the fourth year of the reign of King Darius, God’s Message again came to Zechariah.

^2-3 The town of Bethel had sent a delegation headed by Sarezer and Regem-Melech to pray for God’s blessing and to confer with the priests of the Temple of God-of-the-Angel-Armies, and also with the prophets. They posed this question: “Should we plan for a day of mourning and abstinence next August, the seventieth anniversary of Jerusalem’s fall, as we have been doing all these years?”

^4-6 God-of-the-Angel-Armies gave me this Message for them, for all the people and for the priests: “When you held days of fasting every fifth and seventh month all these seventy years, were you doing it for me? And when you held feasts, was that for me? Hardly. You’re interested in religion; I’m interested in people.

^7-10 “There’s nothing new to say on the subject. Don’t you still have the message of the earlier prophets from the time when Jerusalem was still a thriving, bustling city and the outlying countryside, the Negev and Shephelah, was populated? [This is the message that God gave Zechariah.] Well, the message hasn’t changed. God-of-the-Angel-Armies said then and says now:

    “‘Treat one another justly.
    Love your neighbors.
    Be compassionate with each other.
    Don’t take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors, and the poor.
    Don’t plot and scheme against one another—that’s evil.’

^11-13 “But did your ancestors listen? No, they set their jaws in defiance. They shut their ears. They steeled themselves against God’s revelation and the Spirit-filled sermons preached by the earlier prophets by order of God-of-the-Angel-Armies. And God became angry, really angry, because he told them everything plainly and they wouldn’t listen to a word he said.

^13-14 “So [this is what God-of-the-Angel-Armies said] if they won’t listen to me, I won’t listen to them. I scattered them to the four winds. They ended up strangers wherever they were. Their ‘promised land’ became a vacant lot—weeds and tin cans and thistles. Not a sign of life. They turned a dreamland into a wasteland.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

“Well, the message hasn’t changed. God-of-the-Angel-Armies said then and says now:

    Treat one another justly.
    Love your neighbors.
    Be compassionate with each other.
    Don’t take advantage of widows, orphans, visitors, and the poor.
    Don’t plot and scheme against one another—that’s evil.’”

Love God.  Love People. 

In Jesus Name, For His Glory, Amen