By Rev. Gideon Mudenyo
“… that I might be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:16 (NKJV)
Have you accepted Christ to be the Lord of your life? If yes, then you are a child of God. God has become your father and as a result, he is revealing so much to you. That which is revealed to you, you will always want to share it with others. This sharing may range from text messages, emails, and written notes, to church newsletters, support letters, blogs, articles, and even books.
Now that you have become a child of God, you are called a minister. A minister is a servant of authority whom God has sent in His authority to perform His service to mankind. Serving mankind needs preparation which takes one into writing.
In showing ministers as servants, God the Father reveals His love for the world, even as He sent His only Son Jesus Christ to reconcile the world back to Himself. After the resurrection, Jesus sent His disciples to continue reconciling the world to God. Now He has called you and me to continue the work of reconciliation. We are God’s servants authorized to call back the world to Him. Whether we call them verbally or through the scrolls, a pen and paper are involved in this reconciliation.
How do we start writing?
The fact that we belong to God, gives us pride that we want to share with others about this good news. It is this good news that the Bible calls the gospel. The gospel has a way of making us all writers in some way. We want to encourage fellow ministers through text messages, we want to write reports through emails, and written notes, to church newsletters, support letters, blogs, articles, and even books. Just know that every day ministers do a lot of writing.
As ministers, we reach out through words, defend our faith through words and proclaim the good news through words. Our God created the world through words. He said and things came into existence. God’s own Son is called his Word (John 1:1). And our very faith is sustained by “the word of Christ,” the message of the gospel (Romans 10:13) and ongoing word-ministry in the life of the church.
Where do we get words from?
Here is a short story. Sheryl and Laura were amazed by how the twenty-four elders in heaven keep worshiping without rest.
“I don’t know how this can happen” Sheryl told Laura.
Sheryl was wondering how the twenty-four elders worship for twenty-four hours. That night God gave her the vision. In the morning she had the answer.
“Laura, now I know, I know” Sheryl with all Joy was narrating to Laura.
She had had a vision of heaven. In her vision, she saw the twenty-four elders bowing and worshiping throughout. She asked one of the elders how they do it. An elder told her that God is ever doing great and new things. When they are still astonished at one thing, already God is doing the second thing. No one tells them to worship but the greatness of God itself leads them to keep worshipping.
From Sheryl’s vision we realize that when we stay close to God, we see a lot that pushes us to share with others. As we meditate on His goodness, He keeps revealing to us great things that we want to tell our generation and those to come. As we write, we may or may not publish but we will always be writing.
So writing is an invitation to every minister. We always want to express to others what the glory of who God is, and what He does. We also find ourselves making use of the remarkable litany of technologies that allows us to communicate in written words.
Why do we write?
As ministers, we recognize that we are servants sent by God’s authority to perform His service. We are therefore the servants of God doing what He tells us to do. In this context, we realize that God has spoken and sent us through His written word – the Bible. So, as His servants, we speak and write His word. Paul writes to us:
You have been acquainted with the sacred writing, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:15–17)
We realize that God has spoken to us in this generation through His written Word. We heard the Word preached to us, we read the Word and we obeyed the Word. That tells us that we too will have something to say, and to write. In obedience to God’s call, we should be reaching out every day through our writings.
How does it help?
We want to help others. Open yourself to let others know what God has revealed to you. Why? People start with an existing body of knowledge and then advance from there. If everyone felt that they had to discover everything for themselves, society would never have evolved from the historical Stone Age period. We attend schools to benefit from the knowledge and discoveries of those who have gone before us. Yet, often later in life, we revert to figuring things out on our own. Desire to share with people what you know. Put in writing for generations to come. Write and write.
It is such good news for ministers of God, which includes you and me that when we are empty, we go to be encouraged by the Words of God Himself written in His book, and when we get back we encourage others through the words we write.
God’s Word through His Holy book is used to send us out as ministers to help a dying world. It is through His writing that we find a place, a call, and a commission. We go in the strength of the same Word to reach out to those we see and those we cannot see. We write something that can get to those that we do not see, and for those that we see, we write something to remind them of what we want them to understand. In obedience to His commission, the Holy Spirit prompts us to put ink to paper.
We are ministers, our work is to reach others. Our writing itself is a service to the Lord and His people. Paul states,
“What we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake.” 2 Corinthians 4:5
God breathed out His Word for us in Scripture that we may be “equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:17).
Our Ministry is about helping the world. Our writing has a purpose for ministry. God’s Word in Scripture equips us for good works in the loving service of others. It is an act of love because we are looking forward to seeing other people helped for the sake of Jesus.
So as a minister, keep writing and you will definitely save others.
About the contributor – Gideon Mudenyo
Pastor. Blessed International Fellowship
