Appointed Work
John the Baptist had a thriving ministry in the middle of nowhere. However, once Jesus started His ministry, everyone started going to Him instead. Some of John’s disciples were not pleased with this turn of events.
John’s disciples came to him and said, “Teacher, the man you met on the other side of the Jordan River, the one you said was the Messiah, is also baptizing people. And everybody is going over there instead of coming here to us.” John 3:26, NLT
From our human perspective, we tend to think that every ministry we are involved in should be growing in size. Our competitive drive is only satisfied if our ministry is bigger than the one down the street. John, on the other hand, understood that his desires we not the issue.
John replied, “God in heaven appoints each person’s work.” John 3:27, NLT
The important issue in ministry is that we are doing the work appointed by God rather than the work chosen by our ambition or coerced by well meaning friends.