Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. (2 Tim 4:2)
I thought of this scripture last week when I received an early morning call from my aunt, the call actually woke me up.
She informed me that she had been very sick. She also said she was supposed to speak that night at a ladies meeting. She shared with me that she didn’t have time to study because she had been ill. She said, “Kim, can you help me? I am supposed to teach on Psalm 57, and I have not had time to get it together.”
“Aunt Judy,” I responded, “I don’t even know off the top of my head what that Psalm says but I will get up and study and see what I can do.”
I crawled out of bed and got my Bible. I recognized the Psalm once I read it and there were specific parts of it that I had studied years before. “Whew” I thought.
So, I grabbed my laptop and my Bible and created a message for my aunt. She was so relieved and I was happy to help.
Later that week, a friend called and asked if I wanted to ride out of town with her. After thinking about it, I said yes and packed my clothes. She called when she was on her way and said this, “I’ll make a deal with you, I will drive you up here if I can have a copy of the notes, you gave your aunt.” I just laughed and said, “Okay, I’ll email them to you.”
It pays to continually study and be ready in season and out of season – obviously, that week was IN season. Those notes blessed two different people. But the blessings didn’t stop there.
I was privileged to be in my friends ladies class that weekend and hear her teach from my notes. She brought so much more out of those notes that it blessed me tremendously. I took two pages of notes off the lesson she taught from the notes I had given her.
Still, the blessing didn’t stop there either.
There were several ladies in that meeting who were all blessed as well. You could see on their face that they were receiving this powerful message from my friend.
You never know how many people you can touch with one simple message. One word of encouragement. We began this ministry with a handful of readers. When we reached 123, I thought we had arrived. LOL. God had bigger plans. Now we have thousands of readers daily. We are able to feed the poor, help the homeless and minister to those who have been through natural disasters – God brings increase and multiplication if we will simply take that one step.
My friend talks about a season when she first started teaching those ladies, she said Sunday after Sunday only one lady would show up. One person, yet she taught, preached and ministered to that one woman the same as if there were a thousand ladies there. I met that one lady this past week. She said her life was changed through her teaching and she wouldn’t be where she is now if my friend had not continued to teach her when she was the only one who showed up.
Jesus went after the one. We are to do the same. Yes, sometimes we may minister to hundreds or thousands, and that’s great. However, every single day we can minister to the one. We can change one life at a time – IF we stay ready in season and out of season. Let’s purpose in our heart to do just that.
