25/08/2012 - The example of a faithful minister

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As you also learnt from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf.

Colossians 1: 7

Our God uses whoever He pleases. For me to become the man I am today The Most High had to use numerous of His children who taught me The Holy Scriptures. I am deeply thankful to Him for those lives who knew how to be faithful to His commandments and they led me patiently into loving The Lord above all things. Undoubtedly, those people will be greatly rewarded for the goodness they have done to me and also for serving God.

Epaphras was one of those who served The Lord in Paul’s days. He is referred to by the apostle as a prayer warrior for those who were to inherit the Kingdom of God. In our days we need people like him, people who consecrate their lives to our Father to do His will and, with love, they fight for our welfare! The Most High is faithful to reward each one of those brothers on The Great Day.

We have to pray for those who seek from The Lord the food they need and, very often, with tears on their faces, resignation and even risking their dreams not coming true and their needs not being met, they give themselves to massive spiritual battles for our eyes to be opened up and, thus, for us to stay away from sin and also away from the ruthless desires of the enemy. We have to do that on behalf of all those our Father allows us to rescue for His glory.

Epaphras was not running to take over the ministry of the apostle Paul since he was just an ordinary servant. We should never see in any of those called by The Most High someone who might cause us harm considering that, in fact, what really matters here is how many good deeds those people will perpetrate in favour of The Kingdom of God. It is a good idea for us not to forget that the work done by us is not ours, but our Father’s. We are only called up to work for Him and not for our own benefit.

The world is longing for faithful ministers; men and women who will never be seen by their sheep as people who may have been spotted by any sin. The servants of God must be always faithful in all things. Now, nothing could be sadder than hearing that someone, even a Christian, has fallen into adultery; or been unfaithful in their finances or that they might have promoted themselves at the expenses of someone else’s harm.

The Lord needs servants – not leaders – who do His specific work. The divine work entrusted in us cannot be compared, for instance, to a farm we may own on which the workers there would be our servants and its surrounding town’s inhabitants our cattle. They are children of The Most High given to us to be taken care of, and in due time, we must feed them. We are not doing them any favour when consecrating ourselves, when we seek messages to hand them out or when we pray for that is part of our duty as we are at the service of God.

Our Colossian brethrens learned with Epaphras to have a strong faith in The Son of God – which motivated all sorts of positive comments everywhere – and also to feel such an unmatched love for all the saints. That is the sort of church the world needs to know!

In Christ, with love,

R. R. Soares