Creating Margins for Others

• October 7, 2011 10:10 am
• by: Pastor Sherrie Hittler

Have you taken time to reflect on WHY it’s important to create margins for others [Pastor Mark’s message on 9.18.11]? Yes, the simple answer is so we have time, energy, and resources to form relationships with others who don’t yet know the Lord. But, why bother forming more relationships when we’re already maxed out with obligations to current relationships? Really now, is God asking us to extend ourselves even further? Is He asking us to bring in the harvest?

Look around you! Vast fields are ripening all around us and are ready now for the harvest. ~ Jesus, John 4:35 NLT I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The one who plant and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. For are god’s co-workers; you are god’s field. ~Paul, 1 Corinthians 3: 6-9 TNIV

The real question for me is whether I trust God, who is already at work all around me, to do the work. My task is not to ‘convert’ people, but to be God’s co-worker. I am to love others as myself. I am to be a light in a dark world, salt in a decaying moral culture.

When I view creating margins with these thoughts, I see beyond my energy and time commitments and look more at my heart attitude toward being God’s co-worker.

So… how well have you been creating margins in your life? Does it help in any way to look at your deep belief of your ‘role’ and God’s role in the whole ‘winning others to God’ question?