Serving and serving

The main purpose of ministry is to bring others to Christ.

I have been serving in ministry since I was 14. Whether singing, teaching Bible studies, advising another, planning church events: somewhere in the midst of all the hustle of ministry, I seemed to lose sight of this. Not in its entirety rather, but this vision seemed to become blurred. I mean, walking into Jr. High having nothing in your mind but, "Well today is the day the Lord chose to save souls!" is astonishing. I want to do that EVERYDAY. But once ministry becomes some type of chore or just something on your to-do list, something's gone astray.

His Word says, "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9
The only reason the Lord has not come yet is because He's waiting for His people to repent. This supernatural patience that He owns is in effect up to this point in the universe, in our lives.

I've found myself "overloading," if you will, in servitude. I've heard books say that this is both good and bad. Good because it's all you want to do: serve, do something for the purpose of the Kingdom, use everyday of your life in ministry (and I'll elaborate more on this a bit later). Bad because you don't want to burn yourself out, you have to give time to other things in life.

Elaboration
As I mentioned under the "Good" part of "overloading" in ministry: all you want to do is serve, for His purposes and use every waking moment in ministry. Now let's be reminded that ministry is not only within the worship center (usually called church) walls. If that's all you think of when you think of ministry, then you must go back to the word and read the ministry of Jesus... He was barely within walls. He was always out and about in the streets of cities, walking up to the most secluded and vile people who were ostracized because of some reputation, desease, or tradition. He took ministry with Him everywhere.

If "overloading" means using every minute of everyday thinking of what you can do (wherever you are) for the Lord's purposes, then go ahead and overload.
If "overloading" brings to mind how Martha felt, "Mary...sat at Jesus' feet and heard His word. But Martha was distracted with too much serving," (Luke 10:39-40) then there must be a facet of "serving" that does not please the Lord. Jesus came to Martha's house (she invited Him in) and He began teaching. Mary took the initiative of actually stopping everything she was doing to sit at the Lord's feet to just merely listen to Him. On the other hand, Martha just kept trying to get things done as fast as she could, sort of as if she was running late trying to serve the food, and she later complained that Jesus admonish Mary to help her finish all the to-dos (because that's what it seems the serving had become: "to-do's"). Jesus said to her, "'Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed and Mary has chosen that good part."
The word "distracted" here is literally "dragging around," which implies that Martha was in a tumult (MacArthur commentary). In John MacArthur's Twelve Extraordinary Women, he said, "Martha...fussed over her hostessing duties. She wanted everything to be just right...What Martha was doing was by no means a bad thing. She was waiting on Christ and her other guests. In a very practical and functional sense, she was acting as servant to all, just as Christ had so often commanded. She no doubt began with the best of motives and the noblest of intentions. But the moment she stopped listening to Christ and made something other than Him the focus of her heart and attention, her perspective became very self-centered. At that point, even her service to Christ became tainted with self-absorption and spoiled..." (p.161 & 164)

Once we forget who should rule in our lives and focus on "completing this and that" to get it over with or we barely have any delight in what our ministry is, we have to drop everything and reflect. Once you find yourself dragging and trying to push yourself to go to ministry and pep-talking yourself or just merely tired and frustrated: STOP. Refocus. "Why am I serving?" If the Lord's purpose of saving souls is not gladly driving you to serve, then stop serving. Take some time to pray, reading His word with enough time to reflect on it, to converse with Him about it, to listen to Him.

I've found that in all the business, my listening deafens bit by bit. NOT GOOD. You can serve, but above all you must listen.

So my longing is to get up and sing and play the guitar, talk to others, live with the mindset and heart of pointing others to Christ, for Him to save souls. For the heavens to rejoice and all the angels to cheer and clap and have a huge celebration because that one person accepted Christ into their heart. Ministry points to Christ. If it's not, then it's not ministry. It's deministry. If you're not ministering, you're deministering.

May all that I do point to Christ.
Help me Lord