To and Before

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD before Eli. And word from the LORD was rare in those days, visions were infrequent.

I Samuel 3.1

This verse jumped out at me this morning because it reminds me of something I was told just last Thursday.

A brother who has been faithfully serving at the church, was finishing up his work that morning when I caught him and thanked him for his faithful work, told him how much “I appreciated it”.

His response was, “as much as I love you , I don’t do it for you… I do it for the Lord”. I was tickled to hear that. This is absolutely the right heart to have in serving, without a doubt.

Look again at the verse above Samuel was ministering TO the Lord BEFORE Eli. Eli might have been the one around at the time but the ministering was to the Lord.

I can not tell you how important that perspective is when giving of our time, energy or resources. It is so easy to find ourselves in a place where we think people should thank us more than they so, to think we deserve more credit than we receive, to think that I have earned or am owed something as a result of my serving, or I can just simply grow weary in well doing; all of which leads to getting “burned out” with ministry.

Nadab and Abihu we a couple guys who experienced burn out in ministry. Their story is found in Leviticus 10. The setting is the dedication of the tabernacle; a time of great celebration and praise and thanksgiving. As the convocation began these two priests grabbed their firepans and placed fire in them and began to burn incense on them to the Lord. But their offering was “strange fire” and fire came out from the presence of God and consumed them.

Talk about burned out in ministry…

The deal was that fire was to come from one place and one place alone… the altar. So the only place fire was to be taken from was the place of offering, of sacrifice. The altar in OT typology is a picture of the cross.

How does that relate to us today?

Our “fire” for ministry must come from the altar as well, from the cross, from Calvary. Our passion for service must come from a response to the great gift given to us there, from the great love demonstrated there, from the great sacrifice offered there.

The fire comes from the cross.

The cross is to be the single, ever available, source of strength, encouragement for ministry. Any other motive, no matter how noble sounding, is “strange fire” and will lead ultimately to one being “burned out”.

So when this brother said that he did not serve at the church because of me I thought, “here is a guy who gets it”… awesome!

So may we minister to the Lord before people for His glory with a passion and energy that come directly from the altar... the cross of Calvary.