Is Your Ministry Achieved or Received?
by Jack Taylor
from the Friday Roundtable

In Acts 20:22 Paul writes to the Ephesian elders: “Now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem not knowing what shall befall me there. None of these things move me. Nor do I count my life dear to myself so that I may finish my race with joy and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”

When I read this I thought if there is a received ministry, it’s possible that we may have the antithesis of that: the achieved ministry.

I know what it is to have an achieved ministry. My system taught me. I measured that ministry with statistics and clawed and tried to get to the top and counted my brethren and others as competitors. I’m sick of that and sick at others when I see it.

The achieved ministry is something that is worked up from the view of the needs that are obvious. Now that sounds good but that will not keep you in the ministry. The received ministry, on the other hand, issues from the heart of God. Let me say it again: the achieved ministry is cast along the lines of human need. It supposes that we know the needs better than God knows them. But the received ministry is simply a call from the heart of God to follow him.

The achieved ministry depends upon human energy. While that is very important, if that is all you’ve got, you’re going to burn out. The received ministry depends upon the energy of the Spirit constantly upon us.

The achieved ministry inevitably results in competition. It’s MY ministry. I felt that very deeply. One of the greatest problems I had was just feeling competitive with my brethren. While the received ministry is one of relationship and cooperation, the achieved ministry, in order to verify itself, has to create a statistical system to confirm its worth. The received ministry needs only the inner reassurance that I’m in this because God called me.

Discouragement may be a sign that we’ve slipped into the achieved ministry. The achieved ministry is categorical. It’s provincial, it’s denominational, it’s racial. But the received ministry is cosmic. We don’t have a local view. We don’t have a regional view. We don’t have a global view. We have a cosmic view — a view from the heart of God.

The problem is we all think from where we are. We think in reverse. We start where we are instead of in the heart of God. The greatest thing I know is that you, as a human being, can get to the heart of God and look back this way from God’s heart and see it.

The achieved ministry, because of its nature, is often little more than cosmetic. It may make the news but it doesn’t get beneath the surface.

The received ministry is absolutely subsurface and deals with all the realities that made the expressions what they are. So it is content to work subsurface until the fullness of time when it blasts out into the open and surprises the devil.

If man started a ministry, man can stop it. If God starts it, nobody, including hell, can stop it. It can be terminated, but there is a river that flows from the heart of God. You stop it up and it will go around the dam. If you cover it in every area, it will go subsurface and it is content to flow for years because it knows that somewhere out there it will surface and blow everything all to heaven.

The achieved ministry will fail, even though it succeeds. There is nothing worse than succeeding at a failure. The battle of the flesh is already lost. The battle of the spirit is already won. So an achieved ministry will fail, even though it succeeds. The received ministry will succeed even though it fails.

I know what it is to have an achieved ministry. I know what it is to come to the end of it and say, “If this is all there is, I’m out of here.”

I’m beginning to find out what it is to have a received ministry. It takes us out of competition; it takes us out of burnout. There will be some heaviness and some discouragement, sure, but all we have to do is encourage ourselves in the Lord, because in the Lord is where our call came from. I want to be like that. I want to say, “Hey, I’m going and I don’t really expect it to be all roses.”

Holy Ghost has said there’s going to be more trouble like you’ve had. Just look to the past. But my task is to finish the ministry that I received of the Lord. I don’t want you creating my ministry. I don’t want your needs to mark the boundaries of my ministry. I want a call from Him. I don’t get my encouragement from you. I get it from Him.

This is kingdom stuff. This is the kingdom ministry. We haven’t evaluated our ministry properly until we look at it through the eyes of the King. Forget the denominational headquarters, please! Forget any implication from any side — denominational, categorical, provincial, regional or racial. We’re in it all of us together. That’s what we want to do — finish the ministry that we received of the Lord Jesus, which is to testify in word and deed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. - Jack Taylor