Lessons from Jesus’s ministry

1) Never ignore the simple talents and ordinary gifts within our reach. Jesus always used what was already there and did extraordinary things. He used the disciples boats on one occasion to teach people, 5 loaves and 2 fishes  to feed a crowd, water in a jar to turn to wine, a donkey and so on.  He could have fed the crowd out of nothing or created wine out of nothing. But he demonstrated that the simple things we have have great potential in God’s hand. God delights in simple things.

2) Jesus taught us that it is important that we remain FAITHFUL to GOD’s calling than to be SUCCESSFUL in a worldly sense. Jesus never had a successful team while he was on earth. Out of the 12 people he picked, all except 1 fled when he needed them, 1 denied and 1 became a traitor. If you put a worldly lens, Jesus failed in his ministry to develop a team. But we know that is not the case! He was the most influential leader the world has ever seen. So if we are not seeing the harvest immediately, we should not lose heart. God is asking us only to sow. Harvest will be in God’s own timescales.

3) God is looking for availability and not ability. There would have been many more capable people than the disciples but Jesus chose them because they were ready to leave everything to follow him. Jesus spent more time with the fishermen who were not very good at writing, preaching and teaching than the Pharisees and other learned people. There may be more talented people in Falkirk but God appreciates our availability and willingness to make an impact.

4) Jesus let the disciples taste “failure” before they learnt “success”. The disciples couldn’t heal a boy with the evil spirit. Later the disciples asked in private why they couldn’t heal. It is ok to not get a perfect result when we are at early stages. But it is important we ask the Lord why we couldn’t get it work and what can we do better. We need to be retrospective. The disciples later did mighty miracles and people even longed to touch their shadows!

5) Jesus knew that Peter will deny him but yet he prayed that his faith will not fail. He could have prayed that Peter will not deny. Jesus understood everyone’s weaknesses in his team and let them fail certain times to teach them important lessons. But he also made sure that they won’t fall completely because of the failure. It is important we make a comeback after a failure.

6) When disciples went back to fishing after Jesus death, he came back to them. He gave them second chances. He never gave up on his disciples.

7) On the day of Pentecost, the team still had 12 people in total. But at the end of the day they had 3012 people in their team! God can thrust us to explosive growth in a single meeting. God is not interested in numbers. He was waiting for the disciples to reach the level of spiritual maturity to handle the growth before he gave them the growth.

8) Jesus often went to pray alone. If the Son of God took time to pray amidst his busy schedules, it teaches us an important lesson about the value of prayer. Prayer is the ammunition for a powerful ministry and a necessity if we want to impact the world.

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