Day 3: Called to Care

[abbott1126]

Not everyone is born a shepherd, and every person's life process is planned and arranged by God. So, God calls us to do different jobs at different stages of our lives. In the same way, my life of faith was a long process of searching until the time of God came, in God's time and in God's way, for me to become a Christian and a child of God. So, it wasn't that I found God, but God found me in His plan. In the same way, God called me to be a minister to shepherd God's flock. Before I became a pastor, God first shepherded me and equipped me, and then I have a soft and giving heart; secondly, God allowed me to encounter different things and different co-workers in the ministry of the church, and God allowed me to exercise myself in ministry and cooperation with others so that I could become God's instrument for the fulfillment of God's will. Jesus Christ is my example to show me that when I care for our congregation. I shepherd not for the sake of power or my own good. My ministry is, as the Lord Jesus did, to empty myself and to be humble and obedient. As Christ is described in Philippians 2:5-11:
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)
Hence, I will take up my cross for God's call, follow Christ, and care for God's flock. I believe that I will receive the crown of glory in Christ in the future. No cross, no crown.