What Makes a Minister a Man of God?
When I think about what ministry is and what it does, I always feel like it is something beyond me. For some people, the ministry is about using your talents to do some chores at church. For others, the ministry is a calling from God or a post someone occupies. I have been studying the topic of building the house of God in the Bible. I have come to realize that ministry is about a relationship of trust and dependency. While using your gifts for God may be a great thing, it should be noted that God who split the red sea, fed millions with manna from heaven, stopped the sun and the moon in the sky and froze time, raised the dead and healed the blind from birth is not searching for skills, but rather an obedient and trusting heart.
If we want to be honest with ourselves, we would all agree that the true challenge is not skills and talents and long hours of ministry work, but the true challenge lies in the heart of man. Where does his strength come from? Whom does he run to in times of need? I am talking about the difficulty in ministry. The Bible talks extensively about the difficulty Israel faced when rebuilding the temple. They had to face their ego (Haggai 1), their inner fears (Haggai 2) and persecution (Ezra 4-6).
The Bible talks about men of God who rose with great talents and abilities but fell quicker than lightning. Men like Saul, Sampson, Solomon, and others. The Bible talks about others who went all the way because of special quality in their hearts: sincerity.
"There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions. I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, “The gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him.” So we fasted and petitioned our God about this, and he answered our prayer." (Ezra 8:21-23)
Ezra was a great man of God. He was no prophet or miracle worker. He was a scribe, a skilled scribe! to be precise (Ezra 7:6). His ministry had put him in a favored place before the Lord and this shows in chapter 8.
Ezra was a man who looked to God and not to the work of his hands. Ezra was a man who feared God, a man who sought Him and trusted Him in difficulty. But above all, Ezra was a man with a sincere heart. He couldn't do anything that contradicted his words. His "yes" was "yes" and his "no" was "no". He served God with the consciousness that his works were clear before the eyes of God. That is what made Ezra a great man of God.
Ezra was a humble man, although he could see the hand of God upon him. He knew that his strength came from the Lord and knew very well that the scariest thing would be to take that grace in vain.
"Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, who has put such a thing as this in the king’s heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, and has extended mercy to me before the king and his counselors, and before all the king’s mighty princes. So I was encouraged, as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me; and I gathered leading men of Israel to go up with me." (Ezra 7:27-28)
All who love the Lord seek this kind of heart. God's grace and favor is with those with humble and sincere hearts, men who are conscious of their actions, men who live by faith!
