Serving the Lord

And when they had come to him, he said to them: "You know, from the first day that I came to Asia, in what manner I always lived among you, serving the Lord with all humility, with many tears and trials which happened to me by the plotting of the Jews; how I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. – Acts 20.18-20

Wow. There is a lot packed in to these few verses about Paul and his service in Ephesus. This is Paul's address to the elders of the Ephesian church as he is about to leave his ministry there. He had been focusing his work there for about two years. It had not been easy. There have been plenty of trials. His experience is a great example of the kind of ministry that God will bless.

There is a whole list of things here:

I lived among you

I served the Lord with humility

I served with tears and trials

I kept back nothing helpful

I preached to you publicly

I taught you in your homes

I witnessed to the Jews and Greeks that they needed to depend and come to faith in Christ

Like I said earlier - wow!

I look at that list and imagine that it is my own ministry tick list. How many of those boxes could I tick. I many could I tick with total confidence and how many would I have to fudge?

I think this is a list that anyone in any ministry should keep close to hand. We have among the people. There is no room for pride. We are going to she'd tears and go through trials. We must hold nothing back in our service. We must proclaim the word of God publicly and we must teach it where people live. And lat, but not least, we need to be testifying to all about their need to put their faith in Christ.

How are we doing?