Remain Available to God!

I do believe God wants me to invest myself with abandon in the ministry He has placed me in and for the duration He would have me to serve in that capacity. I understand the frustration with Christian servants who quit on the call of God upon their lives. Clearly, God is most displeased with this behavior! I do not hold the conviction; however, that a missionary, pastor, evangelist, or associate pastor must remain in a certain location, church, ministry, or country for their entire ministry experience. 

While there are Bible examples of people who answered God’s call to a specific church and location and remained there their entire ministry life, there are also many examples of people who followed God’s direction to other peoples, locations, ministries, and fields. Both realities are clearly exemplified in the New Testament! This is not an either or question; both teachings are true simultaneously.

While I sympathize with churches’ desire to insure their financial investments, and control their missionary assets, we must remember missionaries, like all of God’s servants, are the Lord’s slaves first and foremost. Any casual reading of the book of Acts demonstrates this in the life of Peter, Paul, Philip, Timothy, Titus, Apollos, and Luke. A study of the New Testament reveals no requirement to remain on a certain field or in a particular type ministry for one’s entire life of service. Even though Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles, he still planted churches with Jews in them. Though Peter was the Apostle to the Jews, he still reached and baptized Gentile converts. Though Paul started out pastoring in his hometown, he relocated to pastor in Antioch, and then he finally became a foreign missionary in Asia and Europe (Acts 11:19-30; 13-20). 

While it would be convenient for many reasons to believe that God wants me to spend my life on one specific field, I do not have that luxury. God requires for His stewards to be “good and faithful” (1Cor. 4:1, 2; Matt. 25:21, 23) managers of the ministry He has committed to our charge. I do not believe God requires all His servants to serve on one field for their lifetime. I believe instead that we all should remain open to whatever and wherever the Spirit of God would be pleased to place us to serve the Lord. I understand this observation may present a seemingly unreasonable challenge for some to accept it. The truth still remains that we cannot serve two masters. If preachers are God's exclusive servants, than we cannot belong to anyone else. Christ's pleasure is first and foremost in all our priorities and planning. The servant of the Lord must not divide loyalties, but be free and always available to His Lord. To be committed to Christ's control is to be free from the control of mere men or well meaning organizations. Beloved, remain available to God!