Sacrificial Availability

I want you to think of a close friend or a family member who at any time you'd drop what you were doing to help them out. Now most likely you'd take a phone call from them, run them gas on the highway if they ran out, pick them up from somewhere, loan them money, offer advice, be a shoulder to cry on, right? Why? Because you care, they are important to you, their needs are important to you and their future is important to you.

Now I want you to think about someone you know that you aren't exactly "close" to on the same level as the person we just talked about. Get someone on your mind...

Do they know Christ? If they are a believer, are they grounded? Do they have a good support system, could they benefit from you reaching out to them?

Over the years I've had people come in and out of my life, people that I believe God positioned in my life so that for a time or season I might have some positive influence on them (some more than others). This isn't a "oh wow Ryan you are so wise and almighty" comment, I think God allowed me to learn as much if not more from the experience than what I was able to impart to these individuals. One thing I've taken away from these experiences, which I was reminded of recently in my Sunday School class(we now call them Connect Groups), to truly reach someone and be there for them, we have to make ourselves "Sacrificially Available."

So you might ask, "What do you mean 'Sacrificially Available?'" Well I'm glad that you asked, I feel like it means to make yourself completely and totally available to a person in order to benefit them to the best of your ability. Often times we tell people to give us a call or shoot us a text if they need prayer or anything at all. Frequently we press ignore on our phones or don't call them back for days. This is not being available at all and certainly not on the sacrificial level. 

So why the sacrifice? To be a Christian means to be Christ-like. What did Christ do? Sacrificed himself so that we might have eternal life. Any chance we can sacrifice something to help someone else we are being like Christ. I feel like true "Sacrificial Availability" means that you put another person's needs and priorities above your own, this would be the common behavior in a marriage or between a parent and their children. This kind of activity obviously breeds love, success, maturity, discipline, the list goes on. Why not try this with someone in need? 

Pray that God opens your eyes to see a person in need, or ask that they literally be dropped in your lap. It can happen, and this is the kind of ministry where we can be really effective in sharing about Christ, what He's done for us, and what He can do for them. Think about Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch from the book of Acts, Phillip was minding his own business traveling from one town to another town and God brought him somebody....
29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” 30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. 31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
    and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
    Who can speak of his descendants?
    For his life was taken from the earth."
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. 36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him."
-Acts 8:29-38

Phillip, in this instance, made himself "Sacrificially Available" to this man, and because of it, he was able to lead this man to Christ and Baptize him as well. More often than not, our experiences won't be this simple or short lived, but the moral of the story stays the same. As ambassadors of Christ, we make ourselves available to deliver his message, but we don't just leave it at that. We must make an effort to continually encourage and build up those we witness to. Sometimes the continual contact and conversations will minister more to a person than all our efforts to "evangelize" them. Personal contact goes a LONG ways today.

So again, what is "Sacrificial Availability?" I say it means answering the phone when that person calls, it may mean stepping away from the dinner table, muting the TV show, waking up in the middle of the night, or going over to someones house to let them unload all of their emotions. It means going beyond what any normal person would, because guess what? We aren't normal people, we are believers in Jesus Christ, we are Christians, we are more than Conquers and we are empowered for ministry by the Holy Spirit and called by the Great Commission to go preach, teach, and reach.

Become "Sacrificially Available" to those people you are ministering to, or to that friend who needs your help, or that coworker or classmate that really doesn't have anybody. Go out of your way to care about someone else's needs and make their priorities your priorities. Their future ought to matter to you, they need to be important to you, you should care...

Be blessed!