Motivation for Your Ministry - Part 3

This is our last Motivation for Your Ministry post. I hope you've all enjoyed this series learning how to get more motivated about ministry. It's what we're here for after all!

III. Motivated by being a new creation in Christ

I do what I do because of What He has made me to be.

Since He died for me, since I've died to myself, since I am no longer living according to the flesh but according to the Spirit…

I am in Christ and He has made me a new Creation.

I do what I do because of who I serve,

I do what I do because of what He's done for me,

But I also do what I do because of what He's made me.

What does it mean that I am a new Creation in Christ? It means that everything about me has changed. The old man is dead, crucified with Christ; all things are new.

A. New head

I think differently – I don't think like the rest of the world, now I think like Jesus. My thoughts, my desires, my ambitions, all change. Paul tells the church at Rome to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. New creations think differently than old creations. How do they think? They think in consonance, in harmony with God. All things, are from God. Everything new will come from God not from me.

B. New hands

I act differently – you can't have a transformed mind without your actions following suite. When someone claims to have a transformed mind, but their actions don't match their claim, we call that person a hypocrite. They are not really changed, they just want people to think they are. But when there is a real transformation, when Jesus makes us a new creation, everything about us changes, and that includes our actions.

C. New home

I perceive differently – Focus is not on this world but on Heaven. My destination is different. I'm not looking to this world and all it has to offer. As G.Campbell Morgan once said, the person who is made new in Christ, "sees the touch of decay on all the glory that men admire."  I have lost my admiration for the things of this earth. My desires and affections are set upon things above not on things below. Not for the things which are seen and temporal, but for that which is unseen and eternal.

D. New heart

I am different – My character, my nature, my very soul has been changed. I am a new man, not only on the outside, but one the inside. What I am on the inside determines how I act on the outside. Therefore, since I am a new creation, my heart is different.

I am not only motivated by a reverential fear of God, by the knowledge that someday I will stand before Him and give an account for my life. I am not only motivated by the reality of all that He has done for me, by the love that He demonstrated so painfully and yet so powerfully on Calvary's cross, I am motivated by the reality that since He has made me a new creation, since all things have changed in my life, I cannot live a life that is out of keeping with who He has made me to be. I do what I do because I am what I am and I cannot help it.

Have a great week!