What quality should our care be?
All our care/ministry for others should be excellent!
Question: Why should our ministry both to and for God be excellent?
Answer-The first and foremost reason is that our God is the most excellent God.
Psalm 8:1 O LORD our Lord, how excellent [is] your name in all the earth! who has set your glory above the heavens.
The Lord our God has an excellent name and He is worthy of our very best.
Question: why does it matter what we offer to God in terms of our ministry.
Answer: All through the Old Testament God made it clear that whatever was offered to him in sacrifice should be without spot or blemish. The book of Leviticus has dozens of sacrifices specified but all without blemish.
Lev 19:2 This is the ordinance of the law which the LORD has commanded, saying: ‘Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring you a red heifer without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which a yoke has never come.
In the New Testament, Ephesians 2:5 Jesus will present his Father God with a glorious church not having spot , or wrinkle or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish .
Jesus offers only excellent ministry to his father. We should copy Jesus.
In other words anything that we give to God whether spiritual, material or service it should be excellent in every way. We should never offer anything that is a reject or substandard or second quality nor damaged in any way, Everything we offer to God should be excellent in nature, not defective in any way, not sloppy, ill prepared or executed.
For example, if you have three weeks, three days or just three hours to prepare a bible study, God will give you the grace to make up the difference in what you can achieve.
However if you have plenty of time we honour God by making excellent preparations.
This applies at work too!
Obstacles to caring; sometimes the people we care for look terrible or they have an unpleasant smell, they may be aggressive, unhelpful, unwilling to share and often ungrateful. There but for the grace of God go I.
Prayer: Lord, help us to offer excellent care to our fellow human beings which is pleasing to you. Help us to see the poor through your eyes.
Amen.
In Part 5 we consider the cost of caring
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