13 Jan 2021
We have seen that with the incarnation, the flow was from the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit; with the resurrection and ascension it is to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. This covers all aspects in our relationship, communion with God as well as in the outworking of our Christian lives and ministries.
As the Holy Spirit is central and essential in this relationship with God the Father, and in the ministry of the Son, and in our outworking of our Christian lives and ministries, it is needful for us to know Him, the Spirit, and to understand and appreciate His work and His Person comprehensively. Likewise, as God reveals Himself also through the written Word, the Scripture, we too must be students of the Scripture or even ‘theologians’, in one sense (refer to “reflections on the Holy Spirit”, “reflections on the Scripture” sent previously).
Our living knowledge and understanding of the Scripture and the Person and ministry of the Holy Spirit would shield us from distorted interpretations of the Bible as well as the manipulation of the evil one and his minions in leading us astray through negative and unwholesome ‘spiritual experiences’ and ‘applications’ in our lives and ministries. This is a real problem facing believers today and the call for spiritual discernment is in order, but discernment can only be nurtured in the context of accurate knowledge and understanding. Remember that our enemy can quote Scripture and he can deceive us through false revelations, supernatural incidents as well as false and inaccurate experiences. God is the author of Scripture and hence in our study and meditation of the Scripture, we need to depend solely on the Holy Spirit to illuminate Scripture to our understanding and for our application. Also, in our worship of God, in our communion with God, in our prayers to Him, they should be undertaken through the Son and in the Holy Spirit.
The implications of all these would lead to the effects on our ministry individually and corporately. Because Jesus has a resurrected ministry, we have a ministry that is entirely oriented around His living ministry – this is a foundational realignment of ministry – everything must be cast in terms of what it means for us to share in Jesus’ living ministry. The life and ministry of the resurrected Jesus directs us to a definite participation in a living fellowship that shapes and informs everything that we do. Christian faith and ministry are the direct consequences of what happened to Jesus, as God the Holy Spirit joins us to Him to share His life, and therefore also His ministry. If Jesus is not raised and we are not joined to His life, faith and ministry are in vain (1 Corinthians 15:17).
If we understand the above truths, then faith and ministry are not defined by ministry management, no matter its virtue, but by the continuing ministry of the living Jesus. In fact, when ministry processes, techniques and programs have centre stage, we are in very serious trouble indeed, for the basic reason that the living, acting Jesus has been displaced by our acting in His stead. The vicarious humanity of Christ Jesus has been replaced by the vicarious humanity of the christian worker. Our ministry then tends to become a series of ministry functions such as service, witness, education and so on. The ministry becomes a patterned set of human behaviours to be structured and managed – it ‘evolves’ into a set of ministries administered through management skills to maintain effectiveness and to accomplish certain goals. The confidence of the christian workers shifts into placing much confidence in their managerial skills or in their use of organizational techniques. We lose sight of the fact that Jesus should be the centre of the ministry and our ministry is only possible because Jesus is present and ministering through us in the Holy Spirit. Only then can our ministry bear eternal spiritual fruits which abide, to the glory of God.