THE FOUNDATION CHURCH OF MAYSVILLE COLUMN
Last week I wrote about John 21:1-17. This week I want to stretch it out to verses 18-22. In this scripture reading, we read about Jesus making reference to Peter of the type of death that Peter will endure, which happened to be the same as Jesus’. Peter looked and saw John coming towards them and asked Jesus, “well what about him.” Jesus replied, “What’s that matter to you, if I want him to live till I come back then that’s my business.” This is my favorite part. Jesus then said, “You follow me.”
When Jesus tells Peter not to worry about John but to just follow him, it reminds me of how God dealt with me in my own ministry.
When COVID hit really hard in 2020 our church had been growing. God was bringing new people to the church almost every week it seemed. COVID shut that down. We had to start doing services through Facebook, and while we made the best of it and had lots of views, when it came time for everyone to come back to church the people were making excuses why they weren’t coming back. Basically, blaming it on COVID even though they would be posting pictures of being out in the crowds. This was hard on me, because my prayers to God for my ministry were to bring me the unchurched and help me to create in them a true relationship with Jesus in their lives. So, when they weren’t coming back that killed me. I truly struggled with this for quite some time. We couldn’t seem to get but maybe thirty people to show up every Sunday.
I remember having one of my breakdown prayers to God and asking Him why and in this one prayer He answered. He spoke to the core of me. He said, “Don’t worry about them. I just need you to do the work.”
So many times in our lives we worry about what God’s gonna do with other people and it causes us to lose focus on our own walk or even ministry for God. A lot of times when we focus more on other people we find ourselves placing judgments on them instead of concentrating on our own struggles with sin.
By the way, after I quit getting anxiety about people not coming back to church and gave it to God, two weeks later the church started growing again. Brothers and sisters, we can’t make people fall in love with Jesus. The apostle Paul couldn’t even do that. But what we can do is keep on working and follow Him.
You never know what seeds you may be planting. Just because you may not see those seeds growing doesn’t mean they’re not. Just do the work!