IF YOU GO INTO MINISTRY expecting to make a great amount of wealth, then you do not understand what ministry is. Ministry is about reaching out to the hopeless, speaking for those who have no voice, and reaching the lost and dying by proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ so they may inherit eternal life. Ministry is about winning souls for Jesus Christ. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost,” Luke 19:10.
IF YOU GO INTO MINISTRY expecting to make a great amount of wealth, then you have lost the purpose of what ministry is about. “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many,” Mark 10:45, Matthew 20:28. We lay down ourselves, our ego, our desires, our will in exchange for picking up our cross, dying to selfishness, and following His Will, giving our lives in service to Him, and going forth to tell others about Jesus Christ and who He is. “He must increase; I must decrease,” John 3:30. “And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me,” Luke 9:23. Note the words “Let Him Deny Himself.”
THE WORD “MINISTER” on its own means “servant.” MINISTERING TO (SERVING) OTHERS is a calling.
IF YOU GO INTO MINISTRY JUST SO YOU CAN GET WEALTHY AND MILK PEOPLE DRY, then your ministry is built on the foundation of self and on things that will collapse when the storms come. IF YOUR MINISTRY IS BUILT ON SELF, THE LOVE OF MONEY, EGO, GREED, AND BUILT WITHOUT CHRIST BEING THE FOUNDATION, your ministry will eventually collapse.
“Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have dens and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head,” Luke 9:58. There isn’t a bible verse that says Jesus lived in mansions while He on earth, and there’s isn’t a bible verse that shows Him demanding payment before or after He ministered to people. There isn’t even a verse that shows Jesus demanding money for His ministry. You will find Jesus preaching repentance and bringing hope to the hopeless, healing the sick, teaching crowds of people, delivering those who were possessed. He is Savior and Lord, and we see Him in the Scriptures as ministering to those who cried out to Him, those who recognized their need for salvation. In those same Scriptures, we see Jesus overturning the table of the money changers for taking advantage of those who were purchasing animals they needed to make sacrifices, “Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. ‘It is written,’ he said to them, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers,'” Matthew 21:12-13.
I will end this post with these words from the book of Jude Verses 10 and 11 and 2 Peter 2:11-13, “These men, however, slander what they do not understand, and like irrational animals, they will be destroyed by the things they do instinctively. Woe to them! They have traveled the path of Cain; they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam; they have perished in Korah’s rebellion,” and “Yet not even angels, though greater in strength and power, dare to bring such slanderous charges against them before the Lord. These men are like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be captured and destroyed. They blaspheme in matters they do not understand, and like such creatures, they too will be destroyed. The harm they will suffer is the wages of their wickedness. They consider it a pleasure to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deception as they feast with you.”
Linda A. Knowles
Stained Glass Confessions 