“But I will tarry in Ephesus until Pentecost. For a great door and effective is opened unto me, and there are many adversaries.”
Though there were “many adversaries,” Paul saw a great opportunity to witness and minister in Ephesus. We should also recognize the great opportunities that we have to serve the Lord regardless of the circumstances. In fact, we should see each new day as an opportunity for some kind of service for the Lord. We need to see life as an opportunity to serve the Lord. We should seize every opportunity for service. We need to look back over our lives and think of the opportunities for service that we overlooked and ignored. There was the person to whom we should have witnessed – but didn’t. There was the lonely person that we should have visited and given a few minutes of our time – but didn’t. There was the depressed neighbor that we could have cheered up with a visit, and maybe a pie or cake, - but didn’t . Starting today, all of these opportunities are open to us. All of the things that I wrote about are simply opportunities for what I call witness and ministry. There will always be people who will need something from us, and we need to see them as opportunities of service for our master. We need to be careful not to close our lives off from other people. Christ saved us to serve Him. Service for Christ is not complicated. We don’t really need training to do it. All we need to do is to keep our eyes and hearts open for opportunities. We should see each new day as an opportunity for service. Today is the day of opportunity. Each new day affords opportunities to serve Jesus. As Shakespeare had Brutus say: “We must take the current when it serves, or lose our venture.” Another way to look at it is “to strike while the iron is hot.” Opportunities for service come and go, and if we are not careful we will miss them. As we wake up each new day, we can see it as an opportunity to be of service to the Lord and for our fellowman. In order to do this, we must develop what I call “a habit of service.” Habit is probably not the best word, but it does tell us that we need to ingrain Christian service into our hearts and minds. How can we develop such a habit? Determine that when we see an opportunity for Christian service, whether witness or ministry, we will do it then, or make plans to get it done. Staying with Paul’s commitment, we also need to know that there will always be many adversaries. “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” Paul was eager to take advantage of this door of opportunity in Ephesus even though he had opposition. Not everyone will “rise up and call us blessed” if we try to minister to them. Not everyone wants to be witnessed to or ministered to in the name of Jesus. If people do not oppose us, we can always depend on Satan to do his part. He will oppose any attempt that we make to serve the Lord. But we don’t go through these doors of opportunity just to please people. We go through them because this is God’s will for our lives. He didn’t call anyone to salvation to just crawl through life and do only what suits our fancy. When you see the door open – enter it! Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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