We have been talking about the life of Paul. I am amazed at some of the questions we had this morning. Some of you missed a great time. But anyway, I guess I can expect just about anything.
The thing that has fascinated me about Paul is that God called Paul. Why God called Paul, nobody can say, except that God chose him and God loved him. Paul was the most unlikely man to ever become a Christian. But then God called him.
You know, it is amazing to me. In a group like this, there are some here that you would say would be the most likely to be good Christians. Well, maybe they will end up being that. But then you look over a group like this and see some who will probably be the most unlikely to really find Christ and follow Him. Sometimes they turn out to be those who really go on with the Lord. I do not know why that is.
I remember when I was seventeen or eighteen years old. I was not a Christian, and you could not have gotten me into a group like this. I was so into myself. I suppose if I came into a room like this, I would not know how to behave. I would start horsing around, fooling around, just doing everything I could to distract everybody so I could be the center of attention.
That was always my sort of modus operandi, you know—becoming the center of attention everywhere I was. But somehow God loved me, and He called me. He saved me when I was twenty years old. I was a sophomore in college and had already made a lot of mistakes in my life. Jesus loved me.
Now, sixteen years later, I look a lot different and act a lot different. I am on the road. Jesus is working in my life. I still have a lot of things to do, but thank God there has been a change.
Some of you perhaps even look at me tonight and think, “You know, this guy is kind of a little bit square. He has been a Christian kind of a long time, and he kind of speaks loud.” It was not always like that. But thank God He is working in my life, and my hope and prayer is that somehow God has been working in your life.
I do pray—actually, I am hoping—that out of this whole group of sixty people, there would be even ten who would really be one hundred percent for the Lord. Just ten people, one hundred percent for the Lord, can do amazing things.
When we look at the life of Paul, we see somebody who—I do not know how else to put it, because nobody is one hundred percent—but Paul was as close as anybody. This guy was really for the Lord.
He was a zealous man. He was on the road to Damascus, and Jesus called him and said, “Paul, that is the wrong way to go. You need to follow Me.” Paul said, “Okay.” He found salvation.
Then, after a short time in Damascus, it seemed that the Lord sent him out into the desert for a while. Out in the desert, Paul began to see Jesus more clearly than he ever had before. He did not just come through knowledge about Jesus; he got to know Jesus.
I hope that has been your experience. I hope that you always have some kind of desert experience where you get to know Him more, where you spend time with Him. It is not a negative experience if you understand that its meaning is time spent with Jesus.
Then we saw that after Paul came back from the desert, he was ready to preach, but God was not ready for him to minister yet. So God sent him home. We talked last night about the fact that home is where our Christian experience is really tested.
I believe it was during that time, or in whatever circumstances Paul was in when he went home, that he had to be faithful day by day. He had to submit to his parents. He had to obey the brothers and sisters there. Paul probably came to realize that, as much as he wanted to serve God, there was something inside him that prevented him from serving Him.
He came to that moment where God called him to sanctification—to a holy life. God said, “Paul, you cannot be halfway. You have got to be all the way.”
Paul said, “Lord, how can I be holy? I hear You calling me to be holy, but how can I be holy? I mean, I am me, Paul.”
Jesus said to Paul, “That part of you which is not holy, I have crucified already. You are a new man. You are whole.”
Paul dropped, it seemed, in a sense, his old life. It just fell off. All of his trying, all of his struggling, just fell off, and he became a new man.
I have been crucified with Christ;
and it is no longer I that live, but Christ liveth in me.
If you and I can find out this secret of sanctification while we are living at home, we have found a real secret indeed: your life is Christ’s, not your own. The more you discover that and utilize that, the more you will find real freedom in your life.
Tonight I just want to glance at the last aspect of Paul’s call that we will be looking at, and that is his call to ministry. Now, we have all been waiting for that.
We all know that Paul was called to be an apostle. Paul was called to evangelize. Paul was called to build the church. Paul was an exciting and outstanding servant of the Lord. He went from place to place, and it seemed like everywhere Paul went, churches were springing up.
Paul had such ability, such love, such anointing, and such a prayer life that this ministry he had was just amazing. But Paul waited for God to call him into such a ministry.
Imagine that at the moment of Paul’s conversion, God said, “Paul, I am going to send you to the Gentiles, and you are going to preach deliverance and salvation to the thousands.” Yet Paul had to go into Arabia and Damascus for three years. Then Paul went home for four or five years.
It was ten years after Paul was saved before he really started ministering in a full way. Ten years. Now, how long have most of you been Christians? Five years? Two years? Six years?
Paul was an adult and was a Christian ten years or more before he was used in any great way. I am not trying to say that everybody has to wait ten years. My only point is that the Lord takes time to prepare His vessels.
Some of you, even now, may have a desire to minister. You have a desire to witness. You have a desire to be used by God. Yet God has to prepare you as a vessel—sanctifying you, fellowshipping with you, getting firm in you what He is really trying to do.
I will tell you what happens, brother, because this has happened to me many times. I have gone out somewhere in public, to a public place, and preached Jesus. I preached that Jesus is the way of salvation.
It is one thing to do it in a fellowship where everybody is Christian. Everybody is nice and polite. But when you go out on the street and start to speak, you get all kinds of hecklers. You get people who call you names. You get all kinds of things. You find out how strong your faith really is.
When you are preaching Christ in the fellowship and everybody is already sympathetic, that is one thing. But when you go out where people are not sympathetic with you and begin preaching Christ, you had better believe what you say, or you will end up folding up your suitcase and going home.
So God has to make it real in you. You have got to be convinced that Jesus is the Savior. He does it by working it again and again in your life, showing you that He is faithful.
Now we find in Paul’s life that after ten years—perhaps around ten years—something happened. Understand that nobody knows the exact timing. Nobody wrote it down chronologically: Paul went to the desert here, Paul did this there, and so on. We just have to take the story and try to piece together what happened in Paul’s life. We get only a basic outline.
But perhaps ten years after Paul had become a Christian, something happened. Let us turn to Acts 11.
Paul had been in the city of Tarsus, his hometown, for perhaps five years. He was making tents, probably preaching, talking in synagogues, and fellowshipping with Christians. We do not know exactly what he was doing, but he was at home and ministering in one way or another locally.
After five years in Tarsus, Paul had proven that he was going to be faithful. No matter if he was taken into the desert, no matter if he had to go home, Paul was going to preach the gospel. He was faithful. He had proven himself; he was not going to back down. So God was ready to use Paul.
There is another reason Paul had to wait ten years that I would like to mention. It did not just have to do with Paul’s life. There were other things in the matter of timing that had to happen before Paul could minister to the Gentiles.
Paul had a commission from Jesus. Jesus came to Paul and said, “Paul, preach to the Gentiles.” There was only one problem with that: the church at that time was made up entirely of Jews.
Even though it may not sound like a problem to you, it was a problem for the Jews. “What do we do with Gentiles? I do not think we should preach to them.” What had to happen? What happened to Peter?
Paul had to wait for Peter to see a vision. Peter one day saw a sheet coming down from heaven with all kinds of things in it. He finally got the idea from God that the Gentiles should be preached to.
Peter went to Cornelius’s house, and while Peter was preaching, the Spirit fell upon the Gentiles. Peter and those who were with him said, “Look what is happening!” Peter said, “The Spirit fell on them just like He fell on us. I guess we have to baptize them. God must be speaking to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews.”
You see, Peter had to come to that understanding. Otherwise, if Paul had gone out to preach to the Gentiles, all the apostles in Jerusalem would have said, “Stop it.” God had to show Peter, “Yes, I want to pour out My Spirit upon the Gentiles.”
Something else also had to happen. Not only did the apostle Peter have to come to the place where he accepted ministry to the Gentiles, but God had to pour out His Spirit upon the Gentiles in Antioch.
In Acts 11:19, we pick up the story.
They therefore that were scattered abroad upon the tribulation that arose about Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, and Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to none save only to Jews.
But then we read in Acts 11:20-21:
But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus.
And the hand of the Lord was with them: and a great number that believed turned unto the Lord.
News of this reached the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. They said, “Barnabas, you had better check this thing out. They say Gentiles are being saved by the thousands up there in Antioch. Go out there and see whether this is right.”
When Barnabas came and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced. He began to encourage them. He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, and considerable numbers were brought to the Lord.
Suddenly, thousands were being saved in Antioch. Barnabas came up from Jerusalem and said, “Hey, this is good. This is God.”
At this point, Barnabas remembered somebody. “That guy I met down in Jerusalem—the guy who said he had been saved, the guy whom God had called to minister to the Gentiles. What was his name? Saul? No, Paul. That is right. We sent him off to Tarsus.”
Acts 11:25 says that Barnabas left for Tarsus to look for Saul. Barnabas went up to Tarsus, knocking around on doors, and finally found Paul. He brought him to Antioch.
And it came to pass, that even for a whole year they were gathered together with the church, and taught much people; and that the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.
So Paul was brought by Barnabas down to Antioch, and he began to minister there. Oh, what a blessing they had. Barnabas and Paul, along with some other men, began ministering in Antioch, and the church really began to grow.
Paul began to minister along with, and under, other brothers. Barnabas was the senior Christian. Paul did not begin by being the big name. He began by serving and helping.
What was Paul’s ministry in Antioch? Was he an evangelist? An apostle? A pastor? A teacher? Let us look in Acts 13:1.
Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers, Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen … and Saul.
It does not say whether Paul was a prophet or a teacher, but he was probably one or the other according to this list. That is what he was called in those days. He was not an apostle yet.
Then, in Acts 13, God gave them another call. Jesus calls us into what He wants. Jesus called Paul to salvation. Jesus called him to fellowship with Himself. Jesus called him to sanctification. Now Jesus called him into ministry through the Holy Spirit.
Acts 13:2 says:
And as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Separate Me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them.
Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. That is when Paul became an apostle, because the word apostle means “sent one.”
The Holy Spirit made Paul an apostle. Paul did not say, “I am an apostle. I have decided.” The Holy Spirit called Paul and said, “Paul, I want you to be an apostle.”
We have a problem, you know. I used to be a Baptist minister. Do you know how you become a Baptist minister? You decide that you are a minister and tell everybody that.
That is how I became one. I went home to the church that I belonged to and said, “I think God is calling me to be a minister.” They said, “Well, that sounds pretty good.” I went off to school, studied a little bit, and when I got out, they screwed a halo onto my head and put “Reverend” at the beginning of my name. I became Reverend Dana Condon. I was an official, one-hundred-percent minister.
I had called myself to be a minister. But the Bible says the Holy Spirit calls you to do something. That is the thing. Being a minister just means being a servant.
So what was I? Well, I was the chief cook and bottle washer. I held the old people’s hands, prayed, preached, and was a teacher, pastor, evangelist, apostle, prophet—I was everything, but I was nothing.
I was all confused because I did not know what the Holy Spirit wanted me to do. I just knew what I wanted to do. Actually, God had called me and was calling me, but I was so confused because of the tradition in which I grew up.
In the Baptist tradition in which I was raised, if you wanted to be a real servant of God, what you did was become a pastor. That is what I did. As a matter of fact, I became a missionary. That was even more holy than being a pastor.
But you see, it is all mixed up. The Holy Spirit is supposed to call. Jesus calls you into whatever service He wants you to do.
Paul, like many other people in the Bible, started out in ministry by helping somebody else. Paul started out by helping Barnabas.
Paul and Barnabas went to one town—I think it was Lystra, or perhaps Derbe—and God healed somebody. The people started worshiping Paul and Barnabas as gods. Do you know whom they thought was the biggest god? Barnabas.
Barnabas was Zeus, and they thought Paul was Hermes—Mercury, the messenger god, the fellow with wings on his ears. Paul was just the messenger guy, but Barnabas was the big one. It just goes to show that Paul was not always the big name.
Paul began ministering, serving, and helping under Barnabas. Barnabas was the senior Christian of the two.
Can you name some other people in the Bible who began their ministry by helping other people?
Samuel became a great prophet, but he began by working in the temple under Eli. Every day he opened the doors, closed the doors, lit the lamp, and did all the little chores around. Because he was faithful in doing little things, God began to bring him into a great prophetic ministry.
Elisha did not just start out as a prophet. He followed Elijah around. He followed, learned, and helped. One day the mantle fell on him, and he had a ministry of his own.
Joshua worked under Moses for a long time. When Moses died, God said, in effect, “Joshua, it is your time now.”
How about in the New Testament? You could say any of the disciples. They lived with the Lord, watched Him work, understood how He functioned, and then one day they began to minister as apostles.
Timothy got started helping Paul. Paul went to a town, Timothy joined him, and he started traveling with him. The next thing you know, Timothy began to help a little bit. Then he began to minister a little bit. The next thing you know, he became a real servant of God, traveling around himself.
Mark went out with Paul and Barnabas, and later he went out with Peter. That is what tradition tells us. After a while, he ended up writing the Gospel of Mark.
Stephen and Philip started out as deacons. They were helping the apostles in Jerusalem, and God began to give them a ministry.
Paul went on three missionary journeys. When the Holy Spirit set apart Paul and Barnabas, they went out together. Paul did not go out by himself; he went out in teams.
They went first to the places they knew. Jesus told the apostles to go first to Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, and then to the uttermost part of the earth. The same principle applied to Paul.
Paul was called to be a traveling apostle, but first he went where he knew people. They went to Cyprus first because that was where Barnabas was from. Then they went to Asia Minor because that was where Paul was from. They went around and started churches there.
On the second journey, Paul went back out to Cyprus and around Asia Minor. Then God called him to go over into Macedonia. How did He call him? God gave him a vision. That is how Paul got started across the way into Greece.
On the third missionary journey, Paul spent two and a half years in Ephesus. Ephesus was the main place where he ministered on that journey.
Brothers and sisters, in the Book of Acts you have recorded many miracles that Paul performed, many things that he did, and many churches that he started. But the one thing I want to tell you about—the thing I do not want you to forget—is the many things that Paul suffered.
I hope every one of you here has this heart’s desire: “Lord, if You call me to serve You, even to go to other lands and preach the gospel, whatever You want me to do, to be a witness, I am willing to do it.”
I hope everybody here has that desire. But I want to tell you the truth: if you do it, there is a price to pay.
Look in 2 Corinthians 11:23.
Are they ministers of Christ? … I more; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft.
Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
They said forty lashes would kill somebody, so they gave him thirty-nine and let him go.
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep;
in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
Aside from that, Paul says, inside he always had the pressure and burden of what was going on in the various churches.
There is much that you have to give up and sacrifice at various times. Thank God, I do not know anybody in this modern day in America who has gone through imprisonments and all these things, but the day might come.
If your call is to serve the Lord in some way, maybe you will come to the place where someday you have to witness in front of hostile people. Are you willing to do that?
Brothers and sisters, I just want to end tonight by saying this: God wants to call you to ministry in the body of Christ.
You may be thirteen, fifteen, sixteen, or eighteen. I want to tell you something I desire that you hear: God wants you to minister in the body of Christ—not to be passive, not just to be somebody who sits there. God has a ministry and a function for you.
Some of you perhaps have a larger ministry ahead. Some of you may even serve the Lord full-time one day. But how do you come into ministry before the Lord?
Brothers and sisters, I just want to tell you a few practical things. Can you hold on and listen for a few more minutes?
How does a person come to the place where he can be used by God in ministry? Some of you, I know, desire to serve the Lord. I want to tell you that the way Paul did it is a principle for the way that we should also do it.
The first way we enter into ministry is to begin to help in small ways.
Some of you may one day have a teaching ministry of the Word. But do you know how you start out in a teaching ministry? You start by reading books, reading the Word of God, organizing your thoughts concerning the things you have understood, and experiencing Christ.
In a small way, you begin teaching by teaching other people one to one. When a new Christian comes into the fellowship, do you just leave him alone? Well, somebody ought to help him.
If you can be one who shows a new Christian different things in the Scriptures in a very simple way, and if you are faithful in little things, you might find that God gives you more.
Many Christians are not even faithful in little things. They just want something big. They want a teaching ministry, but they are not willing to help out in little ways. But that is the place to begin.
Some people desire to be witnesses and evangelists, to preach the gospel to people. But do you know how you begin? You begin by being a witness at home, and you begin by being a witness at school.
You begin with small things. If you are faithful in that, God may increase your ministry and the realm in which you work.
If you have a burden on your heart, especially a burden for people who are not Christians, someday you may be an evangelist. An evangelist does not mean that you just travel all over preaching the gospel. Maybe you will evangelize and witness in your own local place.
But start out with a burden inside. Do you know what burden the Lord has for you? Have you ever asked the Lord what He is calling you to?
Have you ever said, “Lord, what is it You desire for me?” Everybody cannot do the same thing in the body of Christ. What is the burden that you have?
If you are faithful and ask the Lord, He will show you what He wants you to do. But usually, it is little things.
I know this might sound silly to you, but I can tell you right now who in this room will really minister and be helpful in the body of Christ ten years from now. I can tell you who they are. They are the people who right now are willing to minister right where they are.
There are some people who are willing to set up chairs. There are some people who, when they have a youth meeting, are willing to bring refreshments. There are some people who are willing to do little things: take up the offering box, put the books in order in the meeting hall, and do these little acts of service.
Everybody else does not have time for something like that. But ten years from now, I believe it is going to be the people who do these things who will be ministering in the body.
Do you know who will be ministering in the body of Christ out of this group? Tomorrow night there will be some people willing to stand up and minister: share a testimony, sing a song—even though they are nervous, their hands are sweaty, and the whole thing is difficult. Still, they are willing to do it.
Do you know what will happen? God willing, if they are faithful, in ten years they will be ministering much more than they would ever have imagined.
Now, that is not to say all of you have to get up and minister. I am not trying to force anybody. I am just saying that the handwriting is already on the wall, brother. Be faithful now in little things.
Some of you may have a friend at this conference who, to be honest about it, needs to be talked to. Maybe you are the one who knows what they are doing.
Every year we have some people here to whom the Lord wants to minister something. We have a blessing here in our young people’s group when the young people minister to the young people.
You expect me to minister to you or talk to you and say, “Hey, you have been goofing around all week long. Do you know what Jesus wants with your life?” But when I say that, it sounds like one thing.
Sometimes, when a young person goes to another young person and says, “You know, I have been praying for you. I just want you to know. I want you to be faithful in the body of Christ,” sometimes it really has an effect.
My brothers and sisters, the time is now to be faithful. When you get back home to whatever fellowship activity you are involved in, the time to be faithful is now. It is not later on, once you are grown up or once you have gone through school. It is now you can be faithful.
The people who end up ministering are often the people who help now. When I go different places to minister, there are some young Christians who come with me and help out. That is all they are doing—they are just helping out.
You know what will happen? If they are faithful, in ten years they will be going different places in ministry. It is always funny how that happens. Those who are willing to help now with little things end up doing bigger things in the years to come.
Are you willing to help in little ways? Are you willing to be an encourager in the body of Christ in some little way? Are you willing to be a witness in some little way now?
If you are faithful in little things, there will come a day when you will be faithful in much more. Now, what is God calling you to?
Some of you do not know. Sometimes it is because it is not time for you to know. But are you being faithful right where you are now, or are you just kind of goofing off?
God does have a calling for you. It might not be ministry right now. You know what it might be? If you come to God tonight and say, “God, here I am in my room, just You and me, and I want to know: what are You calling me to?” then God might say, “You know, son, I am calling you to spend some time with Me.”
Are you willing to be faithful to do that? Paul wanted to minister right from the moment he was saved, but God spent ten years getting him to settle down, get still, spend time, find out about Jesus, and study the Word of God.
He spent a lot of time being pruned and working in obedience at home. Then, when God said the time was right, Paul was ready.
What if you came to God tonight and He said, “I want you to spend some time studying the Bible”? Are you willing to do that, or are you going to do the thing you always do—study the Bible for one week and then drop away?
Maybe, if you want to know what God is calling you to, He will tell you it is some obedience He wants you to do now. But you have to be willing to obey.
I remember back a couple of years ago—most of you know I was in Raleigh for five years. I remember three, four, or five years ago there was a young man in the fellowship named Don DeBruce.
He was a young teenage fellow, but he was really helpful. He loved the Lord. He had many struggles, like every other teenager, but he helped out.
About three years ago, occasionally he would bring his guitar to the meeting, and sometimes he would sing a song. Just once in a while he would come, bring his guitar, and sing a song. Who ever thought too much about it?
But brothers and sisters, I think you can see from last night that we do not know. I think God is working in Don’s life. I would not be surprised at all if one day he serves the Lord in some way, because he has been faithful in little things.
It does not take three pounds. You do not have to be six feet three and handsome. All you have to do is these things right now.
I wonder what would happen even at this conference this year if some of you were saved while we are here. I believe we could have an effect on the whole situation, even in the auditorium.
When I stand up there sometimes to lead the singing, I look in the back and see teenagers not cooperating. I feel like it offends or grieves the Holy Spirit. I think, “Hey, they are not singing. The whole back is not singing.”
But at the same time, when I get up there to lead the singing and I see the young people standing up and hear them singing from the back, I think it pleases Him.
It is just little things. You say, “Well, that is nothing.” Or else you go into the meeting where you meet locally on Sunday, gather together for worship, and you teenagers sit around picking your fingernails. You make sure that you do not sing or pray.
When everybody prays, you do not close your eyes; you look around. When everybody claps their hands, you do not clap your hands. When everybody brings a Bible for the teaching time, you do not bring your Bible. Then you think you are really cool.
But in the process, it makes it harder for the Spirit to do His work, because you will not be faithful in little ways. The Book is so heavy that you just cannot bring it.
I mean, it is such a silly little thing. But do you know something? Something goes into the atmosphere that makes a difference in the whole meeting.
Some of you sit here, and I have tried to share the last couple of nights. Some of you have an attitude that I can feel. There is a little vibration, and that attitude says, “I am just not going to cooperate with you.”
Now, I really have to say, in all honesty, that I feel most of you are cooperative. I think some of you are even praying about our meetings before you come. Some of you come up afterwards and say, “You know, I got something out of what you shared.”
You are putting some investment in, just praying a little bit. Maybe some of you have actually gone along with God, as I suggested the last few nights, and asked, “God, what are You calling me to? What is it You want me to do?”
I know some of you are doing that, and I just want to encourage all of you: be faithful in little things.
You might think it is nothing now, but I tell you, ten years from now, every portion of Scripture you memorize, every teaching you hear with your inner ears as well as your outer ears, every little calling you get from God that you obey—it all matters.
Every time you ask forgiveness of your parents for doing something wrong, every time you do something obedient now, it is like a little angle. You make a little thirty-degree angle now by some decision you make in your life.
Maybe you say, “It is such a small thing. I went to my parents and asked them to forgive me because I deliberately disobeyed them last night.” You thought it was just a little tiny thing, but it is thirty degrees.
If you go out over the years, it becomes something real big. You become more deceptive, or you become more truthful. Every time you make a decision, you are moving one way or another.
If God is calling you this week and you do not listen to the call, it just makes your heart a little harder for Him to get through to next time. If you will take Him just a little way, I do not know that any of you need to make some big, life-changing decision.
I do not know. But I feel that probably most of you need to make some little decision of obedience—to obey His call, even this week. That is what I think will really count ten years from now.
Lord, I just pray that out of this group there will be some who experience Your calling upon their lives.
Perhaps some are called to salvation. Perhaps some are called to fellowship with You. Perhaps some need to begin to live a holy life.
Perhaps, Lord, You would even call some to serve You as evangelists, as teachers, even as apostles, as some sort of servant, as a helper, as someone who brings music, as somebody who encourages, as somebody who helps with the chairs, as somebody who studies the Bible.
Lord, whatever it is, I pray that You would call some of Your children to Yourself, even this week. Lord, I pray that out of this group You will raise up some who will minister faithfully, even as Paul did, by Your grace—that they would faithfully minister and do Your will.
Oh, Lord, I thank You that You are faithful to call. Lord, You say, “Who will go?” Lord, I pray that there would be some even here who would respond to an inward calling of Christ Jesus.
May they find opportunities to obey in little ways right now in their lives. Oh God, this is something that man cannot do. But I pray that Your Spirit will call them in the most practical, detailed ways to serve You.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.