Tonight in New York, we welcome 47 new Cadets. They are this territory’s class of 2016, otherwise known as the “Messengers of Light” session. They arrived on campus last week, classes begin and the journey of obedience continues.
(An open letter to the Messengers of Light session,)
Messengers, I’ve got some thoughts for you.
First of all, we’re glad to have you. Thank you. Thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your commitment. Thank you for being here, right now.
We need you.
There are old churches to run. There are new ministries to conceive. There are programs that need your gifts and talents. We need bodies and minds and hearts in ministry positions.
You will be used. And in that, you may feel used. Some of you will feel used by God, some will feel used by people. Some will feel all used up. Others will feel useless.
You are not useless. A messenger is never useless.
Because a messenger is never on his, or her, own. By definition, a messenger is a go-between. A messenger carries an important message and is always en route between the sender and the receiver. If at any time you find yourself lost, remember the Sender. That will remind you of the Message. That will lead you to someone who needs it.
Always think of the one person who needs the Message right now. And please, please, don’t forget them and move on. You may be in a room with 200 people, but each one is worthy of every word, every prayer, every blessing and every moment. It’s not an assembly line. You’re not a factory worker, putting the same part in the same place a thousand times a day. You are a minister and each one you minister to has their own needs and their own darkness.
Being a Messenger will be exhausting. You will travel far and wide and rarely know home in the way that you’ve always known it. Often one Message will lead into and blend into the next and eventually you might even get caught up in the challengers facing you and forget the Message itself. Or you wander off or get lost.
Return to the Sender. Often. Intentionally. Above all else. As important as they ever tell you that stats are, this is the one failure that will leave your burnt out and empty.
Return to the Sender. Spend time with Him. Set it apart. Find your Sabbath. Keep it holy. Be a Timothy and find a Paul and a Barnabas. Find someone who speaks into your life and keeps you on track, who loves you like a father or a mother. And then pay that forward into someone else. You cannot fill others unless you allow yourself to be filled. Sharing nothing isn’t sharing at all.
Return to the Sender. (I said it again. It must be important.) Nothing else will matter if you forget your place in the journey. If you fall into the trap that you are the Sender, or that you take His place, blessing will not find you. If you lose hope in the Message, you will wander through years of wilderness.
Don’t ever forget the Messenger must be the first receiver and the message MUST be intact through you. It is a Message of “Do as I do” not “Do as I say”.
It has been said that we are all messengers of light, but it is you who now bear the name and the title. So here is your blessing.
May you bear the Message itself to a world that desperately needs to hear it and may you be used by Him and never useless.
And may you Return to the Sender often. May you continually search for and find blessing in the Message. May you always be a Messenger that believes in the Message.
2 Comments
THAT WAS BEAUTIFUL!! THANK YOU FOR BLESSING ME!
This was a true blessing and reminder to me too!