I planted some sunflower seed during winter. I know that isn’t the right season, but I thought I would just try and see what happens. We had an extremely mild winter and the seeds soon germinated and the plants started growing. Last week, just as spring began, the first blooms opened. They shouldn’t be flowering now, but they are.
2 Timothy 4:2, Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
We are all instructed to preach the word and to spread the Gospel. We have to take every opportunity to speak to people and to testify about the things God has done for us. We are not to wait until someone gives us a chance to preach from a pulpit. If you feel like God has called you to preach His Word, then you have to start at home. You have to be an example in your own home and you have to live the Gospel before you can preach it. If you feel like you’ve been called to missions you have to start in your own community. People often say they long to go to foreign countries to preach God’s Word, and it’s a wonderful calling to have, but if they don’t want to start in their own backyard they have no business going to another country. Well, that’s my opinion.
I feel that every calling has a time that has been ordained for it to come to pass, but until that time comes, you have to practice where you are. Maybe you know that you have to pastor a church. You have your ministry degree, you are in the Word every day, you’ve prayed till you have callouses on your knees, but still no pulpit in sight. If you have the passion you say you have, then you will start preaching in the streets. If the congregation isn’t going to come to you, then you have to go and find an audience. Maybe your elderly neighbour has never been told the Gospel. Maybe your neighbourhood has many unsaved souls. You know where to start. You don’t do nothing while you’re waiting for your season, you practice so that when your time comes, you are already accomplished.
2 Timothy 4:3-5 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Anyone who wants to preach or teach the Word has to make very sure that they know the truth and they aren’t afraid to tell the truth. If we are going to be talking to people about Jesus there is no compromising. We cannot soften the hard parts because we want to please people or because we want to gather a lot of people to listen to us. These verses clearly tell us that people are going to be turned away to fables, to made up stories. And if things get hard we have to be humble and endure the hard times for the sake of the Gospel. If we want to preach the Gospel we have to remember that the Gospel is more important than anything else. It must be the centre of our existence.
It reminds me of the song, All for Jesus.
Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be
I surrender these into your hands
For it’s only in your will that I am free
Jesus, all for Jesus
All I am and have and ever hope to be.
We have to put Jesus above everything else in our lives. That is not an option. If we call ourselves Christians we cannot compromise. Jesus has to be the centre of our existence, whether it is winter or spring. All seasons are our season to bloom.
alexfromalexblog 