What ONE life can do to IMPACT

I have seen in my ministry life many Christians have give up either on their ministry, their church, their friends and their own life. I've seen christians who're once ministering at their top-highest level of spirituality and passion and now, some of them living their life as if they never know who they're once before and what God has done in their life. It's such a sad situation. It bring tears to my eyes as I see my friends & other people drifting away from their calling.

The numbers of youth attending church these days are growing really fast and yet I am not surprise if we gonna lose this generation soon...sooner than we think. Why is this happening in our generation? Most of us can come up with many reasons...which is true but in my opinion, the reason why some Christians can't run the race till the end is because they have not realize what God can do with their life.

Years ago, my aim of being a christian is to enter heaven. While waiting for His second coming, I will try my best to be a good christian, living my life according to the bible. And if i'm blessed enough with some talent, I will serve God in church...and apparantly I find myself involve with the music ministry in my church back when I was 13 years old. Playing drums from church service to inter-denomination service. That time being a Christian and a church musician, I thought the highest level of ministry i can go is to play music in the state level youth conference. Those time, any church musician who manage to play at the youth conference is considered as the best musician. It was a big event, held at the capital city of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu.

Well, God is good...He manage to grab me before I play there (youth conference). I didn't manage to join my team to serve at the youth conference because my whole family move to peninsular malaysia. Why did I say God is good when He grab me away? Well, I will become a big head church musician if I were to play there.

Looking back, I want to tell you that being a christian is not about serving God at the largest venue, popular conference / service, recording album, touring the nation with your ministry group and so on. Well, all these are just part of the ministry but doing it doesn't make us be the highest level or the elite christian. That's not the main reason God created us.

Imagine if you were to reach those level. You'll be thinking, "what else needed? I've reached my goal as a Christian. I've involve in the biggest ministry ever!"...I have impacted the nation. Sounds true, but not quite true. First and foremost, we know that “For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is not from works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9 (NET) Nothing that we do can make us righteous other than by the grace of God. So, I thought whatever I do, if it’s big, then I can consider myself making a big impact and inspiring others. But God rebuke me. My life, my renewed life is not solely for doing church ministry, organizing events and stuff…my renewed life is to impact other people 360 degrees through my words, my thoughts, my actions, my music…in fact, EVERYTHING about my life, when I’m at the pulpit, when I’m not serving in church…EVERYTHING about my life is meant to give impact to the people around me.

Some Christians divide church ministry and their daily living. Hey, our life is a ministry! Every single thing that we do is for God (Colossians 3:17). I want to summarize all this through the following lines:

Don’t think that you're making a big impact when you’ve become a great preacher.
Don’t think that you’re making a big impact if you’re a worship leader in a big conference.
Don’t think that you’re making a big impact if lots of people know how talented you are.
Don’t think that you’re making a big impact if your voice can’t be heard by thousands.
Don’t think that you’re making a big impact if you only know how to do ministry but not ministry itself.

But

You’re making a BIG impact when you willing to spend some time listening to a friend who are struggling with his sin.
You’re making a BIG impact when you willing to help your church’s usher to arrange the chairs or clean the church.
You’re making a BIG impact if you willing to take unpaid leave just to take care your sick relative.
You’re making a BIG impact if a person sees you on stage while you worship lead, saying “I know him, he’s not just a worship leader, he’s my mentor”
You’re making a BIG impact if you found yourself praying for your troubled friend over the phone when she called you at 4 a.m.

The list goes on and on…making an impact with your life not about quantity; it’s about the quality of your life. I believe that if a person connected to God, whatever he do with his life is an impact towards others. If you can see how your life can be used to impact others, the word “retire” from ministry will never surface. Let us continue to impact others with whatever we have. Just like the little boy who make a BIG impact by giving his 2 fish and 5 loaves to Jesus.

Have a blessed day.