Essential Baptist Principles Quill Selected Article Series
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Editor : Elder Claude Mckee  1497 Bailee Way S. W. Jacksonville, Alabama 36265


8/1/2005

They Ministered to the Lord
Elder Marty Hoogasian 

In the 13th chapter of the book of Acts we are told that there was a church in Antioch. That church is said to have "ministered to the Lord". That phrase occurs once in all the scriptures. But that is not to be understood that the church in Antioch was unique in that she only ministered to the Lord. Those that have been blessed of their heavenly Father to come and inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world, those that have experience hunger that can not be satiated by the food of this world, those that thirst after righteousness, those strangers that had no home in this world, those that were naked and undone having no righteousness of their own, those who have been made sick of their sinfulness, yet unable to come out of their misery without a deliverer, are those that constituted the Lord's church in Antioch. This kind are those that may likewise have a home in the one true Church of the living God today. 

When these souls are seen in their humility wherein they glorify their God, and are feed, and have partaken of the drawn waters from the deep wells of salvation, and have been taken in finding their refuge among the children of God, they that are justified by the faith of God are clothed in their Lord's righteousness as over comers and shall not be found naked; but have the God given desire not to defile those garments.  They know Him that hath, and does, and will yet deliver them out of their imprisonments here in this world. Certainly all the household of God is ministering to the Lord and not just those that are called and ordained to the ministry. If He is your Lord and if you have seen one of the least of these brethren, and have in some merciful way been a blessing to them, then you have ministered to the Lord having already partaken of the eternal life that is in Jesus Christ. Elder Marty Hoogasian 1/15/2004