"I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them." John 17:26 NKJV

Have you ever pondered what great majestic thing God has in store for you to do in your lifetime? Will you have the ministry of marriage, motherhood, missionary or minister? Perhaps you think you need to wait on His timing or training in answer to this question. Maybe you think you have to wait until this homeschooling journey is over. Well, I have good news for those of you who wait: wait no longer! God’s perfect timing is right now, today, and his perfect candidate for ministry is you!

There are many things Jesus taught us through the example of his own ministry here on earth. None of which require anything more than faith in God as our benevolent Father. Here are a few things which you can begin practicing right away and right where you are.

Is this a ministry? This is the prelude to any kind of ministering. And, He definitely ministers to you! The law and the prophets hang on this, that we love God and love each other. Part of loving God is communing with Him as often as possible. When you love someone, you want to spend a lot of time with them. After being ministered to by your Father, you are then able to move among His people. Jesus spent much time with His Father and did only those things which His Father told Him. They were united as one, so much so that Jesus thought His Father’s thoughts – Jesus walked in His Father’s steps and reached out with His Father’s hands and spoke only what His Father told Him to speak. When we commune with our Father in His Word and through prayer, we can begin to have His mind and walk in His steps as He leads us to minister to those around us; especially those of our own household. "Come to Me" is His continual invitation. "Go" is His continual command. "I will be with you" is His continual assurance.

When you spend time with your Father, He will fill you with His compassion. When Jesus went to the people, He was moved with compassion towards them. This compassion moved him to walk among them and heal them and attend to their physical and spiritual needs. We need compassion in order to see the real needs around us and meet them as our Father directs. A judgmental and critical spirit towards others will blind us to people’s needs and deafen our ears to the voice of God. Ask God to open your eyes to see His opportunities and to fill you with compassion to follow through. As you commune with Him and follow Him in His work, He changes you into His image. If you lack compassion now, you will be changed into His likeness as you become one in purpose with Him. Your children, your family, and your friends will be drawn to Him as you are moved with compassion toward them all.

At the end of Jesus earthly ministry, he prayed, "I have declared to them Your name." In greek, the word declare is gnorizo - "to make known, certify, declare, give to understand." The word name is onomah - "name, authority, character." Therefore, Jesus made known and gave us to understand the name, authority, and character of God. By doing this, Jesus said He had completed the work He was given. What was this work? He said that He declared to them God’s name and He would continue to declare it. This is an eternal work. He prayed that we would be one in this work of declaring. But, if we are to declare His Name, we must first know His Name. To know His Name, we need to commune with Him and study His Name and character as revealed in scripture.

How do we make known this Name to those around us? It all goes back to communion with Him. As we come to Him, the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth concerning Him. And as we are filled with Christ’s Spirit, He will declare the Father to us and through us to all those He has placed around us. His purpose is to declare His Name and He will work out His purposes through us … for it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).

Why did Jesus declare the Father’s name? The verse goes on to say, "that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them." (John 17:26) Jesus said that He declares the Father to us so that the same love the Father has for Jesus would be in us. Just how much does the Father love His Son? He loves us with that same fervency and wants the world to know it through us! Jesus declares the Father to us so that we will know the Father’s love and that we would love others the way He loves. He wants us to see and feel what He sees and feels when He looks at those He’s placed in our lives.

Don’t wait, commune with your Father and get to know the highly exalted Name of His Son. Then, go out with compassion and declare the Name and character of your Father through Jesus Christ to all those around you, for this is your ministry!