God recently spoke to my heart and gave me a message about quietly doing His work. I am an open and transparent person. When God is doing something great in a ministry I want to shout it from the rooftops and tell everyone! However He has shown me that sometimes we need to serve and do so quietly to fly under the radar. If we are doing something great for God, satan will be wanting to attack that ministry. Sometimes we need to be strategic like Jesus was and not call attention to the ministry and work being done, so that we CAN continue to do His work.
In the book of Mark, chapter 1 Jesus was performing miracles. He healed a man of Leporacy and then told the man to go show only the priest, but to not go and tell others in the village.
Why would Jesus not want everyone to know He healed this man? Why wouldn’t He want to show His good works and His proof that He is God’s son? It is because He knew they would kick Him out of the village. Jesus was right. The man went and told others and Jesus was subsequently kicked out of the village. His ministry resumed in the remote desert. Satan used the word of mouth to get Jesus driven out. That is what can happen to our own ministries or ones in which we are involved.
We have to be careful and listen to God when He is telling us to do His work quitely. We are not ceasing our work for God! Quite the contrary! We are steadfast in doing His work all the while knowing that satan may use others to attack and try to drive us out. We need to be like Jesus and go about our work quietly (when needed).
A good modern day example of this is missionaries living in places where Christians are killed. Do you think they should be putting up posters advertising that they are Christians and are there to spread the message and love of Jesus? Probably not if they want to stay alive. They must fly under the radar and detection of those who are ready and wanting to persecute Christians. That requires strategy on how to achieve their goals of doing God’s work without drawing attention to themselves and their work.
Another example is starting a Christian club within the schools. Now the Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that Christian groups have that right to meet in public schools, much like other non-school affiliated clubs. Schools can’t discrimate against the Christian clubs if they allow other clubs to meet. However, just because the law says it is ok to meet doesn’t mean that opposition won’t be met. In fact, if you are doing something for God’s glory to spread the message of Jesus you better count on satan to come up against you. We are to stand firm and do God’s work. We can avoid some of the battle by not engaging the enemy. The enemy (satan) wants us to fail and he wants us to stop doing whatever work we are doing for God. He will use whoever and whatever means he can get his hands on. We must be prepared for this and have a willing heart to stand up for God and His work. But we can avoid some the battles if we are smart and do what Jesus did. We don’t want to yell it from the rooftop if we know that there are people ready to drive us out of our village, school, or wherever it may be that we are called to serve God and spread His message.
Keep doing God’s work wherever you are being called to serve and do His work. Stand firm and know that God is bigger, more powerful, and greater than the enemy. However, we are to be like Jesus and that is to fly under the radar when necessary so we CAN do His work without distraction and interruption.
