Focus: Ministry or People?

As I've been reading The Final Quest I've found that although it is a short book, it is taking me awhile to get through it. I find as I read each chapter I need to take time to let things sink in and let God speak to me.

So as I was going back over notes that I've taken on what I've been reading I found some quotes that I wrote down that I believe deal with the post I made last night about The Sheep and the Goats. I wanted to share these with you now.

This whole battle was for the people, and yet people were often regarded as the least important. We will fight fo truths more than for the people for whom they are given. We will fight for ministries while running rough shod over the people in them.

How much was I doing to promote myself rather than Christ? I began to see how much I did just to prove myself to others, especially those who disliked me, who rejected me, or who I felt in competition with in some way. I began to see how much of my own life was built on the facades of a projected image that belied who I really was.

I read these two items in the book and I thought "Yep, that happens alot. I've seen this many times in the Church." But then the Lord revealed to me how many times I've done this myself. I don't have any huge minisitry, but I've still had these attitudes. I've lost focus of God and those He loves and put the focus on me, my beliefs, my agendas, etc while believing I was walking with God and doing His Will. It is about our attitude and our focus.

In the story Rick is given a very drab and plain tunic to wear over his armor. Everytime he looks down at it (especially when he is in heaven amoung all those who have been purified by the Lord) he feels plain, dirty and ashamed of the tunic. But then he is reminded that the tunic is humility. He is to wear it while on earth so that the glory that is the Holy Spirit within him does not offend others who the Lord wants to save.

I realized that every time I start to think "Yep, I have that tunic!" are really times when I am at my most arrogant regarding my spiritual walk with the Lord. At those times He reveals to me a little bit more about how I look without His grace and I am immediately on my face before Him again. But after, I have a new understanding of His Love and Grace that I had not had before that experience.