The ideal stimulus for ministry, missions and all of life is Jesus

"In missionary enterprise, the great danger is that God’s call is effaced by the needs of the people until human sympathy absolutely overwhelms the meaning of being sent by Jesus." Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest.

Chambers begins here... "Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so, I am sending you.”" (Jn 20:21). One could (and this one will) add this... "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." (Acts 1:8). So that one could conclude that we minister to men primarily because Christ sends and/or calls us to it, not because men have needs (or else Christ would have commanded slightly differently.) That is so freeing, and it resets focus from man to Christ. What is Jesus instructing, where is he sending?

If we take the same lens to Col 3:23, "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men." we can conclude once again that Christ should be/is the focus of ALL the activity of the faithful person. Nothing should be/is done rightly just for another person if not motivated by Christ's many commands and examples. Hence when we daily decide to deny ourselves for the service of Jesus we fully live the life of a follower, we are in act Christian. Chambers again, "The idea is to carry out His enterprise." Heavy words to a selfish man.

Lord, I believe,  but help my unbelief. I desire to serve you, but help my lack of desire to serve you. I love you, but help me to love you more and me less. Lead me and help me to follow. Fill me with your Holy Spirit.

Honest, good and patient

As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience.
Luke 8:15 ESV
http://bible.com/59/luk.8.15.ESV

I have read this scripture over a hundred times, and this is my first noticing of the nature of the heart receptive to the seed of the Word. First, the soil is prepared by the Gardener or Farmer. God prepares the soil of our hearts in the things he allows in our lives. Our days are numbered and he carries the cipher. All our events are pre-ordained and freely chosen by us, a confounding, seeming-contradictory fact whose detail is hidden in the inscrutable nature of the God who became a Man. Life makes us hard, fertile, rocky or arable.
Once the soil is prepared it receives the seed from the sower, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace! The sower, once faithful to sow goes on to the next field, this is his job. He rarely stays to nurture that one seed, one plants, another waters and to God is the increase.
The arable heart is first honest in its receipt of the Word. Honesty to admit the need for a Savior,  honesty to recognize the difference between Light and Darkness, Life and Damnation. It is second, good. This is difficult to describe, Jesus says, "No one is good except God." I think the good human heart pursues goodness to the ends of the Earth. Like Paul, the 'good man' cannot say that he has attained, but that he forgets what is past and presses toward the goal. Without the Word, that goal is here and there, Brownian motion for the soul. After the honest receipt of the Word, the pursuit of goodness is focused because it has a goal - follow Jesus and apprehend holiness. The honest and good heart is eager to receive the Word and it holds fast to it, never letting go as a boy handles his first marble or a girl her favorite doll. Hold fast and never let go. Notice, this is spoken as occurring in the instant of hearing the Word, but I think for most holding fast occurs as the worth of the Word dawns on us, hence patience. The rate and intensity of holding fast is a function of honestly recognizing the need and pursuing the goodness therein. As we see what we have, as we learn to learn it, use it and teach it we grow and produce fruit. This is where the patience of the heart comes in. So many seek God desiring a quick fix and are disappointed. It is not that He does not care, but the true, effectual knowledge of Him requires patience. As a man pursues the woman he loves, so ought we to seek God's face. Moses waited six days where many of us will not wait 6 minutes.
Honest, good and patient is the heart and that receives the Word of God, that sees the face of God and accomplishes the purposes of God.

Peace vs. Rest

I ponder often why I am always tired, why I rarely feel rested, even after rest. It seems inane, but one can eat and not be full. One can work and not be tired or reach completion, I guess resting is one of those things like, 'Just because you are alone it does not mean you are lonely.'
More often than not I rest, but rarely do I feel rested. It hit me in a brief prayer time today - I need not the absence of activity, but the presence of peace and the absence of internal turmoil. This one is surely impossible with man. So I put my hope in God to pacify the internal environment so that I feel less run down all the time. Just yesterday I was saying, "there is no such thing as too much ministry." This is the closest I have been to 1 Kings 18-19 in a very long time.
Lord, I beg for internal peace that I might be rested when I rest. You know the things that plague my mind and you know how to quiet them. I pray for peace in my heart that I might be refreshed. Help me to remember that my soul is renewed daily, help me thus to feel renewed daily.

Atmosphere vs. Reasoning

"Spiritual truth is learned by atmosphere, not by intellectual reasoning. God’s Spirit alters the atmosphere of our way of looking at things, and things begin to be possible which never were possible before."  Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

I reason a lot of things, even the spiritual. I used to be very pentecostal and atmospheric and things often got weird. I learned of the systematic study of the Bible and began a systematic walk with God and things got rigid. There is a time, place, and measure for all things. I am trying to masquerade a pastor and a happy, functional, spiritual family and it is not and will not work. I am still willing to be made willing, but for now, the mask is cracked and cracking. Jesus was transfigured before his disciples, Wiersbe says that was the opposite of masquerade, change from the inside out.

Lord, I pray that you would transfigure me into a good, spiritual, Godly man. Help me to stop masquerading, yet help me to walk in faith so that I may walk on water by your enabling. Change me from the inside out and make me more and more like you. That I would be my best when no one is looking and when things are at their worst.

Who do people say I am?

Now I am curious - from what I know I am hard-working, faithful, good, kind, funny blah blah. I talked to a friend about the difference between children behaving well and children knowing right and wrong. Many of us are outwardly sorted, we know how to behave well though our innards are wretched.
My desire is that Jesus would cure the bad water from the aquifer, that he would cure the wild vine, from the root up to the branches. I might be outwardly decent, passable at best but my inwards self is so wretched and it is not because the Bible tells me so. My thoughts and some of the things I think I would want to; ok, check this: consider something you think you would love to do and then watching it happen to someone else and your stomach turns. That is me, and I know without the restraining of the Holy Spirit I would likely be out trying to do all those sick-inducing things I think of...losing my point.
I pray that the gap between who I want to be/who people say I am and who I am in the lonely dark would be smaller and smaller as time goes.
Dear Lord, I am tired and never seem replenished. Why is that?