Too often we get so busy in doing things that we neglect to come aside and spend personal time with God.
It can become so easy to slip into a regular pattern of work and forget about our relationship with God.
For me personally this has looked like travelling up and down the UK, leading people in worship, praying for individuals, preparing talks and planning structures for the future of the ministry. However good the work may be, before long the heart and passion for ministry can be sapped of life if it is no longer connected to the One who called us into ministry in the first place.
The passion and life of a ministry is fully dependent on our closeness and intimacy to God. Staying passionate in ministry is very easy when we spend time aside with a passionate God and stay close to His heart.
“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.”
- John 15 v 4
Everything we do for God in the public place must be firmly grounded in the secret place of intimacy and prayer.
The Psalmist explained this when he said:
Psalm 1 v 1-3 “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners; nor sits in the seat ofscoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.”
When a tree is grounded in healthy soil and watered the fruit grows organically when it is time! The same goes for us as individuals and ministries, as we stay rooted in Him we receive His life and produce fruit.
All of our work and public ministry needs to find it’s source. It’s in the secret unseen place of prayer, where the fire and passion of the Holy Spirit will continue to grow inside us!
I never want to become a man who started well and then dried up as the years went by, I want to be someone whose leaves don't wither! I can only do this if I draw from His life and depend on Him – the Life Giver.
