Effective in Ministry

I love being in the presence of someone full of the Holy Spirit, speaking God's words, ministering in His goodness. I see this in my husband when He is teaching in our adult Sunday school class or with our midweek youth Bible study. It awe's me! That's what I want for myself. To be used by God like that. So I can't spend enough time in this journey with Christ. The more I know Him the more I can share His goodness with others. There's just one problem that gets in the way...me. Even though I teach for a living and get in front of college students lecturing, I lean more to being an introvert verses an extrovert. It is painfully difficult for me to "mingle" at events, to speak up and share my heart in a Bible study or shake hands of unfamiliar people during the greeting time at church. It makes me terribly uncomfortable!

So I have been feeling God's urging that if I want my prayer to be answered to "be a vessel He can use", I have to get over this insecurity. I have to be strong enough to "Walk Across the Room" ( a wonderful book by Bill Hybels if you haven't heard about it yet). I know that God will meet me (you) where I (you) am but I (you) can't stay there. There is such a Christian that can have a great deal of spiritual knowledge but be ineffective and unproductive in ministry. I don't want to be that type of Christian. God needs me (you) to move "across the room" for His kingdom-to live out His goodness. 'Goodness' is defined as "the quality of being good, specifically-personal virtue; excellence; kindness; generosity; benevolence; the best part, essence, or valuable element of a thing". Wow! That is a powerful description! The value of goodness is but a steeping stone for effective ministry as we see in the principles found in 2 Peter 1:5-8:

"For this very reason, make every to add to your faith goodness;

and to goodness knowledge;

and to knowledge, self-control;

and to self-control, perseverance;

and to perseverance, godliness;

and to godliness, brotherly kindness;

and to brotherly kindness, love.

For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure,

they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive

in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ".

So I am challenging myself and anyone who reads this, to step out of our comfort zone and reach out. Live out the goodness we have experienced and learned in Christ. To be an effective ministry partner for Christ, to be used by Him, we are called to be filled with goodness and kindness and emptied of ourself. We are called to be a "valuable element" of Him.

If you have time, please share what you do to overcome yourself to live out these principles found in 2 Peter 1:5-8. If you are like me and find it difficult to "walk across the room", or have overcome this, please share how!

In His Graces~Pamela