Peace of Mind and Support

It takes greater courage to say no to an open door for the Lord in the face of no peace than to say yes in the face of difficulty. What do I mean by this? 

We face many good opportunities that may very well benefit the furtherance of the gospel, but not all open doors are meant to be walked through. It is only the open doors where God provides peace and support that produces God-fueled accomplishment.

This is seen in church leadership and in parenting.


In church leadership we face many needs – desperate needs in the community and in the body of Christ. The temptation is to start ministries that will provide for these needs. The temptation is to act on the need before seeking God’s peace and His support first. Yes, these needs are open doors for the Lord to work, but they must accompany peace of mind and support. God never intends for us to move forward in ministry without His peace and without His provision of leadership and manpower. When these two lack, we travel through open doors with stress, anxiety, frustrated success and limited resources. In many cases, these new found ministries fail as a result.

In parenting, we are offered a plethora of great opportunities for our children to experience. Yet, not all of them are to be encountered. Again, the key is peace and support. Ask yourself, is this opportunity going to rob me and my family of peace? Is it going to support peaceful relations between parents and children? Is there support for these endeavors? Support comes in many forms such as time, financial resources, and parental agreement. Again, when we lack peace and support in our family undertakings, we only set ourselves up to embrace the enemies of love: assault and withdrawal. Out of stress, we either assault each other with words or we withdrawal from one another in anger and frustration. We pick up the baton of fault-finding and blame and we distance ourselves from what matters most: relationships and ministry to people.


Paul was a man of God who had the courage to seek God’s peace of mind and His support before He walked through open doors of ministry. On his way to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, Paul “…found that the Lord had opened a door for him. But Paul had no peace of mind, because he did not find his brother Titus (support) there. So, he said goodbye to them and went on to Macedonia” (2 Corinthians 2:12-13).


Notice that the Lord opened the door for Paul to preach the gospel, for God’s heart is for all people to know Him and be saved. But Paul also recognized that the open door had to also accompany peace of mind and support of a partner in the ministry. These two lacked while in Troas. As was with the case in this story, there are many who need the Lord, many who are desperate for the word to be preached to them and there are many ministries that are needed in our community. But it is fruitless to attempt ministries without support of people and peace of mind. God provides all three and we must seek them all when meeting the needs of others in our churches and community and when choosing experiences for our children: open door – peace of mind – support.


Lord, may we be as courageous as Paul and only walk through the open doors You provide with Your peace and Your support. We aim to have God-fueled success not man pleasing feats. Increase our faith to wait for Your timing and Your endowment of all resources needed. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Where Do We Get Our Parental Credentials?

We live in a culture where credentials are very important (sometimes even more important than character). Credentials or another way to put it, recommendations, are often sought through higher education, degrees, experience, and the like. Notice, that all of these worldly “credentials” are sought to better the one seeking; in other words they all point to self. Take note: I am not saying these are sinful, but they are not the end to our qualifications. Paul tells us that he gets his credentials (recommendations) from a different place: those he ministers to.

“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:1-3).

Key phrases in this passage of scripture are: “You yourselves are our letter…known and read by everybody…” and “…the result of our ministry…” The one place where we can find that we are qualified in ministry is in the ones we minister to. Are those that you minister to living for Christ, following His word, and modeling the character, grace and mercy of Jesus? Those we influence in our ministry are our credentials! They are our letter of recommendation! They are the ones that make it obvious to others whether we are (or not) effective in ministry. What a heavy responsibility!  

Likewise, parents can apply this very principle to raising children. Children give position to their parent’s credentials. They qualify us to be ministers in God’s kingdom (1 Timothy 3:4-5). Do our children reflect the heart of God? Do they follow His commands and seek His word for wisdom? Whose character do they wear? The world’s or Christ’s. As parents, this is hard to face, especially when we have children that are not wearing Christ’s character and are living for themselves instead of God. When our children’s behavior is contrary to God’s character, as parents we have to ask ourselves the hard questions: are we modeling this negative behavior for them? Are we not addressing the issue with our children? Parenting is a hard position to fill; it is not one we can do alone. We can only find confidence in this role with Jesus, especially if we seek to succeed. Notice what Paul continues to say,  

“Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:4-6).

The key phrases in this passage are, “Not that we are competent in ourselves….but our competence comes from God…” It is only by the power, grace and mercy of God through His Spirit that we can succeed in ministering to God’s people, and likewise our children. “…for the letter kills…” does not negate the need for the law, but the law alone leads to death. We need the Spirit of God writing the law on our hearts, not just our minds so that we can be fruitful in our endeavors to obey it. When the law is written on our hearts (where we are fully obeying because we desire to not because we have to) our lives are then read by others as success. They see the value of following God’s ways and not following man’s accomplishments.

Not only do ministers have a responsibility to guide people to live for God, parents have the same when it comes to raising children to love and live for the Lord; our responsibility does not just rely on filling our children’s minds with His instruction; we need to impact their heart, as well. If we don’t succeed with their heart, we fail to be effective in the development of other areas in their life. Our children and those we minister to are the test for nonbelievers as to whether following God is THE successful route to take or not.

Lord, may I never forget where I get my confidence and my power which is in YOU alone. May I never neglect to minister to the heart (not just the mind) of those in my influence (my children and God’s people).