Key scripture- “While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”(Acts 13:2).

Do you know what it means to minister to the Lord?

When you “minister to The Lord” you are worshipping the Lord. The verse in the Key scripture is telling us, that they are going to discover their purpose/destiny through worshiping the Lord, and we can discover our purpose/ our destiny when we worship The Lord.

Most people go to church for the Lord to minister to them. They go to church to hear what God has to say to them, what God is going to do for them, how God is going bless them. But they will not discover their destiny and purpose until they minister to God.

When we minister to God, He is the audience and you and I are the performers. So my question is; When you met with the living God today did you do anything for Him? Or did you go before Him just to find out what He can do and will do for you? Has God ever gotten your praise, your prayers, your celebration, and your commitment, or do you just go to Him looking for a blessing from Him? Do you want God to give you everything but you give nothing in ministry back to Him? If so, you’re basically saying, “God I want to leave you out. I do not want to spend anytime with You in prayer or praising or celebrating You, but I still want my blessing from You.”

Whether or not you minister to God will determine if you are just an event fan or a follower of Jesus. If you want to know which one you are, keep reading.

An event fan is somebody who loves the event, someone who wants the benefit of the gathering at church, but they don’t necessarily want to minister to the Lord.
These are the ones that show up for the show. They want to hear the choir singing, and they want to hear the preacher preach. They go to the event on Sunday and show up for a new event the following Sunday, but they don’t care anything about God from Sunday to Sunday they only think about Him on Sunday when they are at church. If you are just a fan, an event Christian on Sunday, that means that there is a seven day gap in your worship, from one Sunday to the next, and you are only getting what the event offers one day a week.

The worship of God was never meant to just take place one day a week, on Sunday. If you go out to eat after church and you eat a big meal, do you eat another meal before the next Sunday? Of course you do, because you get hungry and you need to feed your body. You don’t expect that meal to last you all week until the next Sunday. Some Christians starve themselves all week long spiritually and they wonder why they are spiritually malnourished even though they go to church. That is because they are an event worshiper, a fan, not a follower.

But the serious followers, not only go to the event, they also minister to the Lord, all during the week. When you minister to the Lord, it is not just about going to church and reading your Bible, it is about praising Him, blessing Him, singing to Him, worshiping Him, and then saying, “Holy Spirit fill me today”. They talk about it, read about it, think about it, meditate on it, sing about it, worship about it all week long. They have decided that God is worthy of their time, effort, attention, and worship all during the week. They have made worshipping God a lifestyle, and that is what carries them, every day of the week, through every season, and through every problem. They know that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords and He deserves their time, attention, and worship, every day, not just on Sunday.

Our worship of God is the means for us to enter the spiritual realm, we enter His presence through worship. We see that in the Key scripture because it says, “the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So while they were worshiping, while they were God focused, while they were centering on God, while they were praising God, praying to God, acknowledging God, singing to God, celebrating God, making a big deal about a Big God, the Holy Spirit spoke to them, with a personal word for them, a Rhema Word. That is when the Holy Spirit lifts the truth of God’s Word off the page of the Bible and puts it on your heart. That is why the Bible says God “will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” (Hebrews 10:16). But in order to hear a Rhema Word, you must have a relationshiip with the Holy Spirit, and the only way you have that is when you minister to The Lord.

Look at it like this, in football there is a rulebook that all the teams have to follow. Every game has to be played by those rules. Those rules are the standard for every team and every player to comply with and to follow. One rule book covers all teams, all games, all players. The Referee makes all calls and decisions based on that rulebook.

In addition to the rulebook, every team has their own playbook. The playbook are the specific plays that the team is going to run in that particular game. These are the plays that they’re going to call based on the battle on the field that they’re facing against a particular opponent. The playbook changes every week depending on who their opponent is. The playbook can also change during the game. When the opponent does certain things then they have to change their plays in response to what the opponent has done. In order to be able to do that, there is a man that sits high above the game in the stadium and he is the offensive coordinator. He is watching the game from the top of the stadium, and as he looks over the whole field he is constantly checking out what is going on, and when he sees the opponent doing something that diverts from their original plan, then he whispers into a microphone that is in the quarterbacks ear and he changes the play. He adjusts the playbook to respond to the changed scenario without ever messing with the rulebook.

The Bible is God’s rulebook and the Holy Spirit is like the offensive coordinator because He gives you your plays in response to what is going on in your life on a daily basis. He gives you the plays that you are supposed to run that are consistent with the rulebook. But if you have no relationship with the Holy Spirit, then you may know the rulebook but be running the wrong play, because He is not whispering in your ear about the individual decisions that you need to make about your life.

The worst thing that can happen is you may be in tune with the rulebook, the Bible, but you have no playbook because you don’t know the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s job is to say, “I know you plan to go left, but don’t do that right now because that’s not good for you.” You have to be in tune with the Holy Spirit so he can speak to you and help you make the right decisions. If you are thinking right now, “I have never heard The Holy Spirit guiding and leading me,” that is because you have not been ministering/worshiping The Lord.

We also need to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit daily. So if ministering to The Lord let’s you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, and you need to hear His voice every day so that you will know the plays that He is going to call for that day, then that means you’ve got to be ministering to The Lord daily. Therefore, if you only worship The Lord on Sunday then that is the only day that you get to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. Which means you have to live six other days on your own until you get to the next Sunday when you finally worship The Lord once again. If you are living like that then that is why you can be all spiritual on Sunday and be messed up Monday through Saturday, because you are only tuned in to the Holy Spirit on Sunday.

If you will become a worshiper, if you will say, “God I’m not just going to worship on Sunday, I’m going to worship every day of the week by having my own mini worship every morning”. I’m not just talking about you reading your Bible. I’m talking about, in addition to that, you praising Him, singing to Him, blessing Him, then you can say “Holy Spirit fill me today. I want you to talk to me today, I want to hear from you today, I want to know the plans that God has for me and what His will is for me today. I am so desperate for you today that I’m going to minister to God because I can’t make it today or any day without a relationship with You, without hearing from You.”

How you worship God will play a key role in you being able to understand, define, and experience God’s purpose and calling in your life. Worship is the recognition of God for who He is, for what He has done, and for what you are trusting Him to do. Worship is simply our response to being in God’s presence.

Pray this – Our Precious Heavenly Father, forgive me for being an event fan and not a follower. I want to change and start ministering and worshipping to You. I know that worship is critical to my destiny and Your purpose for me because worship puts me in tune with You. Father, I give You glory, I give You praise, I give You adoration, I give You celebration, I give You confession, I give You dedication, I give You my surrender, I give You everything I’ve got because I need to hear from the Holy Spirit today. I need to hear from Heaven today. So I’m going to give it up and minister to You until I hear from glory. Like the Psalmist, proclaims in Psalm 96, “Oh sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.” (Psalm 96:1-6). In Jesus’ Name, I pray, Amen.