Ministers of the New Testament

Scripture: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God: Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter; but of the spirit; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. 2 Corinthians 3:5-6

So often in these last days we are tempted to think more of ourselves than we ought to. “I” got saved. “I” got baptized. “I” walked the aisle. “I” will serve as youth minister. “I” feel the Lord is leading me to… You get the idea. We all do it to each other and ourselves. In trying to encourage, we exalt the flesh. The truth is that none of us could do anything unless the Lord himself would have given us the faith to believe (Eph 2). We can no more become born again than we could become born of our mothers and fathers. Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5) He even told Pilate, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above.” Though He has made us able ministers as noted in our text above, the ministry is not our ministry. It’s His. The word minister itself comes from a Latin word which means servant. And what is this new testament? Hebrews 8 states:

10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: 11And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. 12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. 13In that he saith, a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
He is the one that will cause His people to know him. He is the one that will be merciful. He is the one that will no longer remember sins and iniquities. Get the picture? So the next time we are eager to speak of our ministry we should put off our self and put on Christ (Rom 13:14, Gal 3:27)

Cindy Adcock
Manchester, TN

Prayer: Give us humble hearts, O Lord, that we might clearly see that we have nothing and are nothing with you. Amen!

Prayer Tip: Try leaving the I and me out when you pray and watch your focus shift to serving others and worshiping Him.

Sept 10, 2008