It Pays to Serve Jesus

“Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.’ (Mark 10:29 & 30 NIV 2010)

Many times men and women of God go through a season in their life when it looks as if they have served God in vain and laboured for nothing. The prophet Isaiah certainly felt like this in Isaiah 49:4(NIV); ‘But I said, “I have laboured in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing at all’.

The Apostle Paul was someone who definitely could have related to the sentiments expressed by the prophet. At the tail end of his ministry, after years of faithful service of pouring his all out for Christ he was in prison writing one of his last letters  – 2 Timothy. Was this what one gets from faithfully serving God? Here he was ‘languishing in a cold Roman dungeon, chained like a common criminal’ and waiting to die. Does this fit into our popular notion of a successful ministry? Was God unfaithful to Paul? Does it pay to serve Jesus?

In Genesis 24:1(NIV) the Bible says: ‘Abraham was now old and well advanced in years, and the LORD had blessed him in every way’. Remember Abraham’s experience, which was similar to that of  Paul in that he had left everything to serve God’s purpose for his life. He had ‘put all his eggs in one basket’. He had gone through troubles and had faced contradictions but at the end of his life the Bible says ‘the LORD had blessed him in every way’.  Isn’t that always true with God? That he blesses those who walk with him? That he doesn’t subtract but adds? That at the end of it all, though there may have been many troubles, the righteous will look back and testify that in every way God has been faithful. He had not only given Abraham the son he had promised him, he had also kept him throughout his sojourn in a strange land. He had crowned him with honour and surrounded him with peace. God turns our trials into gold. This is not a cliché but truth: God is good!

Now did God bless Abraham more than Paul? We would be quick to think it was so if we did  not understand that God’s blessing in a man’s life goes beyond how much he is able to physically show for it in this life. Did Paul feel he had laboured in vain? Listen to Paul ‘That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day’ (2 Timothy 1:12 NIV 2010). Listen to me: there is not only ‘today’ (this present life) there is also ‘that day’ coming. God is faithful. He blesses those who serve him. God never subtracts, he adds. He never wastes a life, he redeems it.

The servant of God will on that day look back and see that God has done what he promised to do and even more than what he (the servant) had imagined. By the time Abraham’s eyes were closing in death, he had not seen the fullness of that word ‘To your offspring I will give this land’, as they still dwelt in tents as pilgrims in the land of promise. But he was confident that God would do it. Like Paul, he too must have said, ‘I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day’. For him there was no going back to the land of his fathers. He did have all his eggs in one basket. He knew he could count on God.

When we are faced with the ‘Isaiah syndrome’ we must remember that God never calls us to seek him in vain. When we begin to think that it is unprofitable to follow him, please remember that God is faithful and can be trusted. As Paul looked at his end approaching, he said:

‘For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day’ – 2 Timothy 4:6-8

He looked ahead to ‘that day’. He looked ahead to a crown. He knew that he had fought a good fight – given his assignment his all and done it by keeping the faith (relying on grace and growing into Christ). Even here on earth, he could hear his Master’s well done and now he eagerly looked forward to seeing the righteous Judge face to face on ‘that day’ and to hearing him say ‘Well done good and faithful servant’. What a glorious day awaits those who serve Christ!

Let us not be misled by the glittering lights around us concerning the true meaning of success. Success is having God’s ‘well done’. It is not measured by the growth of your ministry or your position in society or how many things you have accumulated. Here is what is important: Are you where God has stationed you at this season of your life? Are you giving your all to do what he has called you to do? Are you relying on him and not on your own strength or wisdom? And are you daily growing into his likeness? Then rejoice, for it pays to serve Jesus!

Pray Ye Therefore…

“Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” Rev.14: 15 (KJV)

In the middle of the year 2000 while leading the CAPRO missionary team in Togo, West Africa, I led a group of my colleagues to explore the northern part of the country, and we came back with burdened hearts.

For some time our team had been praying for God’s leading for a new thrust among the remaining unreached peoples of Togo. During this time, one particular group had continually been impressed upon my heart – the Anufos. What we knew of the Anufos before we went on this trip was that they were a certified unreached people group found within the 10/40 window in the far north of Togo in the savannah region. We knew that the majority of the group were animist, and that in the more recent past the Muslim population had been growing due to increased Islamic missionary activity funded mainly from Kuwait.

There were some things we didn’t know however, and only found them out after we arrived.  Firstly, we discovered that over 80% of this people group had never had any opportunity to hear the gospel even once (that is 2000 years after the good news came to the world!)  In one of the remote villages we visited we asked a young man if they had anything like a church there and we were stunned to discover he had no idea of what a church was! In many other villages all they knew about the gospel was that it was something that had to do with a ‘fada’ (referring to a white Roman Catholic priest who had visited one or two of their major villages).

The second remarkable thing was, to see how ripe these people were for harvest. Everywhere we went, even in communities with some Moslem presence, we and our message were welcomed. In one village the chief gathered the villagers and asked us to preach to them. They shared with us that they had been planning just the day before to send one of them to go to look for the ‘fada’ and see if he could come and tell them about the way of God. So they said it must be God who had sent us to them. We shared about the deliverance and the love that is found in Jesus Christ, the One God sent us. They were full of joy at hearing of God’s love, and that day they prayed their first prayers in the name of Jesus.

They asked us to stay and teach them about Jesus. And within a few years of preaching the good news, many turned to the Lord and today there are more than 14 churches scattered around these villages.

Today all over the world, it is harvest time. These two realities we saw among the Anufos are still true for many unreached peoples in our generation. – There is a very large  number of unevangelised people and they are hungry for the truth. Have you been following the news of the mass protests in North Africa? I tell you there are deeper issues beyond socio-economic challenges involved. We need to sense the urgency involved in harvesting these people. I believe God wants us, as the church, to witness a mass movement to Christ provided we move fast. But if we delay we may lose this harvest to the fowls of the air.

What can you do? You can pray. Our prayers are mighty through God for enforcing God’s will among men. Pray that God will use all means to create open doors for the gospel. Pray that the Church will see and enter into these doors that God is opening up in our days. Pray and claim by faith the remaining unreached peoples for Christ. Ask God to send out labourers among them. Pray for a rapid and massive work to be done by God’s Spirit in their midst as the gospel is proclaimed. Pray for God’s anointing and protection for the missionaries  who willingly are hazarding their lives in these harsh, hot places in order to see God’s kingdom come there too. You can also give of your resources to make these outreaches possible. Finally, ask God if you should go either short-term or long-term to help with bringing in the harvest.