Luke 9: 10 says, “When the apostles returned, they told Jesus everything they had done. Then he slipped quietly away with them towards the town of Bethsaida. ”
We stayed with Tom and Cindy Sipling which was an amazing blessing in so many ways to our team. Tom and Cindy are the squad coaches for the World Race June squad. Tom continually challenged our team to rest, and to not put our identity as individuals or as a team on “doing” ministry. I think I have fallen to the trap of putting an importance on “doing” things for Jesus over simply being Jesus to those around me. I feel that I have been raised with a “doing” mentality. Religion is performance and agenda driven and I desire to be reflecting Jesus not a religion.
I want to share a story with you of the trap we all are capable of falling into as believers.
Our team met a gentleman who is a believer here in the area. Upon hearing that we are missionaries he invited us to his Saturday morning evangelism that he did. He used a certain type of evangelistic approach that he was very excited about. We exchanged numbers with him. We then ran into him again. This time he said to us, “So what are you guys really doing here? Are you just on holiday or are you doing anything?” He then began to tell us about the evangelism he did on Saturdays, the bus church he did with the homeless every other Sunday, the discipling program he had begun, and a few other ministries he was involved with.
At the rehabilitation center the man who began it said to Taryn one day, “I’m still trying to figure out what you guys are doing here.”
And how do we be Jesus? The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If all the “doing” for Jesus gets done without these fruits ever being shown than I question what we as Christians are doing at all.
