Mike Wolff is a speaker, teacher, writer, and mentor, who has spent over 35 years in para and traditional ministry. He currently works with Open Door Ministries in Denver. He has self-published two books, has two others seeking a publisher, and recently published the first of a four-book devotional set,Praying Today's Psalms, with Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas. He has published articles in War Cry and Charisma magazines, and has written for the Externally Focused Church Network.
“But earnestly desire the greater gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way.” (1 Corinthians 12:31
So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts. But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.
OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt)
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One beautiful fall Colorado day in 2016, my wife and I took one of our grandchildren out for a morning of exploration and much-needed exercise. We rode our bikes along a river not too far from our home, where the city had just finished a new recreational project. While we were there, my grandson Peter [fictitious name], a typical young lad, started picking up stones to throw into the river. Initially, we worked on teaching him how to skip the small, flat ones. But soon, that no longer held his interest and he wandered off looking for the largest boulders he could possibly carry. He wanted to lift and carry the biggest boulder he could, throw it as far as he could, and make the biggest splash he could make. The risks of getting wet or tripping and falling down paled in comparison to conquering the biggest mountain he could find.
As I watched his efforts, the Spirit of the Lord immediately spoke to mine. “Why is it the men I created and commanded to explore and lead in My kingdom, get this backward? Why do they start out looking to take risks that will make a big splash for Me on earth, and yet as time goes by they drop their boulders and settle for smaller and smaller stones to skip instead?”
The Lord also brought to my remembrance a friend and brother I knew in my younger days as a Christian. He was a brilliant man who worked for a high-tech company. Joe [fictitious name] was a father of four, and he and I were involved in Christian leadership. Like me, he loved the Lord and was very active in his faith. Then the economy turned. He got laid off and was forced to take a job doing menial labor in a factory to make ends meet. At first, he hated it, for it provided no challenge to his considerable gifts. But as time went on, he got used to the “comfortableness” of it and stopped seeking more challenging opportunities. He dropped his boulders and began settling for stones. But there was a price to pay, as there always is when we settle for mediocrity in the kingdom of God. He eventually became very disillusioned with life, dropped out of fellowship, divorced his wife, and walked away from his kids.
Jesus calls us to a process of constant maturing during our time spent on earth, as the verses above illustrate. If we continue to try to live for the comforts of the world or turn back to them after coming to understand the kingdom, we simply cannot grow in our relationship with Christ or our fruitfulness in the world. We pick up the stones of work, school, recreation, retirement, politics, and other interests that keep our hands so full we simply have to drop the boulders we were once willing to pick up for Jesus. As our responsibilities in the world increase, our willingness to take risks of any kind decrease. Soon we are holding a comfortable boulder for the world, and pebbles for God. Jesus said of such men, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62
But Jesus told him, "Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God."
OPEN VERSE IN BIBLE (nlt)
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Our Lord picked up the greatest boulder of all for us, took the biggest risk, and made the biggest splash in history when He sent His Son to give His all on the cross. Is He going to simply overlook it in the name of grace when we offer no return on his investment, because we traded boulders for pebbles? I think the servant who hid his talent under the rock might have an opinion or two on that one if he could tell us. But he has bigger problems right now. Time to get rid of the comfortableness of this world, and start taking risks for the One who wrote the book on them.
I’m part of a unique fellowship of men dedicated to seeking the leading of the Holy Spirit, and though I’ve witnessed amazing things in this group, nothing could have prepared me for a woman of tenacious faith named Barbara [names fictitious]. A mom at the end of her rope, Barbara came along with her two sons seeking healing for her family. One joined us and one was curled up in the car outside in the parking lot, no doubt unexcited to join a bunch of “old guys” wanting to pray for him.
Barbara’s husband had spent his life suffering from severe asthma, and now two sons spent theirs constantly battling severe food allergies that led to constant headaches for Brad and non-stop ringing in Jimmy’s ears. One had told her he didn’t want to live any more. As Barbara told their story I witnessed a look of pure hopelessness in Brad’s eyes. I fought to hold back the tears. We were all sent scrambling to move burritos and coffee when Barbara informed us just the odors would make Brad sick.
The family had been to numerous physicians and the Mayo Clinic. No answers. Convinced God would be the One to bring healing, they had sought famous faith healers as well. But Barbara was not one to give up. Barbara, like the woman in the parable, was fully prepared to wear out the ears of heaven!
When asked why she had come to a group of ordinary men when the renowned healers had failed, Barbara’s words struck gold in my heart! Her husband Chuck had been told by God, “When the men pray, your family will be healed.” His Spirit cried out in mine, “I told them to go find the sort of unrenowned men My Son sought: the fishermen, tax collectors, and doctors who will arise when I call to restore My church as they did before. Find these who gather in community as one to seek Me and act. Go find the men!”
God is calling us out to restore the church His Son first revealed. As before, He’s calling men out of the lavish temples of comfortable religion—out from what too many years of religious freedom and too little religious suffering have reduced them to. He’s calling us to follow Jesus out in our homes, our board rooms, and our coffee shops, to rebuild true Christian community.
We’re being called to be the men of God people like Barbara and her family are looking for—transformed, engaged, on fire apostles! The comforts of this world, so abundant for so long, are beginning to fail us. These will be “only the beginnings of the birth pangs,” as a new and desperate hunger for Jesus Christ increases as the world’s solutions increasingly fail us. It will be a new breed of apostles the Spirit will lead the lost and desperate to seek out.
We spent two hours talking and praying with Barbara and her two sons [after praying with Barbara and Brad, we gathered around Jimmy in the parking lot to pray for him]. I’m not the charismatic type, but I came away from there expecting healing because I believed we were the men they sought. Brad’s non-reaction to the food and coffee odors still permeating the room as we went on was a good sign. His countenance had noticeably changed.
So thank you, Barbara, for being one of the bravest people I’ve ever met, and for displaying a faith so rare these days. Moreover, thank you for reminding me of the importance of my mission: calling men out of the culture and religion of Laodicea to become the transformed men of His new church. The great Judge is calling out, and searching for, men of no great renown yet who are ready, willing, and able to declare “Here am I, Lord. Send me” into Your kingdom to grant the lost protection in a world teetering on the brink.
I stood behind one more servers' table, peering into the eyes of a woman I'd never met. But I knew our experience would forever change my effectiveness in ministry. It's not a proud moment when you discover, after many years of Christian service, you really weren't serving in the name of Jesus.
Up until a few days before that fateful night, I thought I was ministering the Gospel by merely serving people's physical needs. Then God began asking me if I was just hiding behind the soup ladle, or was I truly giving those I served the full measure of what I had been given?
For six years prior to that I ran a ministry "serving" retired folks in a mobile home community. We did hundreds of jobs, provided food and transportation, and had many opportunities to form relationships. From all outward appearances, I was the definition of a man all about Christian service. But now God was leading me to examine just how many I shared something important and eternal with.
Helping people with physical needs has always come naturally to me, but seeing to the far more important needs of their souls? Watching this woman approach that night, I came to the unsettling conclusion that as much as I wanted to think I was doing God's work, by attending only to those needs I was comfortable with, I was not. I was hiding behind the ladle, and cowering behind the paint brush. I had been giving people what their flesh required, but in fear I had been neglecting what their souls required. "What does it profit a man…?" I could have given them not only my service, but my wallet and indeed "the whole world", and I would not have been offering what they truly needed.
So there I stood, wondering if I would hide behind my former idea of Christian service or step out of my comfort zone. The question was redundant, for I knew the choice was already made. Before this woman could make her selection of cookies, I asked her if I could pray for her. Though we had never met, she held out her hands to me and the flood gates opened. She told me a story like the ones you too often hear on the streets, and I prayed. Then she led me across the parking lot to pray for her husband as well. As my fears passed that night I got to share, really share, what truly mattered with several people.
By its very definition, faith means moving into the discomfort of the unknown. Can we imagine being one of the disciples following Jesus as He moved from prostitutes to the demon possessed? Would we want to be seen with this man who alienated those we had grown up believing were our shepherds? Would "comfortable" describe life with Jesus?
Following requires faith. Faith means putting a comfortable present in the recycle bin to make space to download an uncomfortable future. Following Jesus we suffer the heartbreak of ministering to those who will disappoint us, the mocking of those who oppose us, and the relentless attacks of the one who wants to untrack us. It's all part of a pruning process that leads us to bear fruit in the kingdom of heaven on earth. If Christian ministry is comfortable, as so many try to keep it today — as I used to try to keep it — then it's not the kind of ministry we read about anywhere in the Bible.
Many people who profess no belief at all do good deeds for the needy. That's not hard. What sets us apart, and what is uncomfortable, is including the message that compels us to service. Words without deeds fail, as do deeds without a message. As Swanson and Rusaw say in The Externally Focused Church, "Good deeds pave the road over which good news travels."
Jesus came to us in word and deed. That's how He showed us the fullness of God's love and justified his claim of being our Good Shepherd. In the end, He will likewise judge us according to both our words and our deeds.
From now on, I go all in or I stay home. No more hiding behind ladles thinking I am ministering when I am withholding what truly "profits a man". We need to both speak and be His good soldiers if we want to truly benefit those He grants us. Together, our service and our message provide that which the world simply cannot offer.
