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"Christian" means "to live as Christ lived." That's a tall order that I know I sometimes have to work at changing into. Most people define being a Christian as being a part of a church, but you can be a part of a church or denomination, but not be Christ-like. I remember the story of a friend of mine that was in line and the cashier was filthy mouthed. The person who was at the window had a gripe and the lady was just cussing them for all that she was worth. Finally the guy left in a huff and stormed out of the room. The next guy stepped up and the lady looked at his shirt and saw that it had a church logo on it, and she smiled and said, "do you go to church there?" "I've heard of that church." "I'm Christian too." She claimed to be a Christian but she would have had a hard time convincing the people in that line who had just heard her cuss someone a blue streak.

In our text, Paul told the Galatians to "prove his own work" or literally "examine your actions" to make sure that they were as Christ would act in this world. It is not the responsibility of the preacher to examine your actions and pronounce you "Christian" because most people are on best behavior around the preacher. It's not the saint's responsibility to examine each other although many people tend to think that they have that right. We are to examine ourselves. Good days do not reveal our true character. It's our actions on the worst days that reveal who we really are. A serial killer and a saint both have the ability to act nice for a little while. The difference comes out when they get upset!

When you examine the day of Jesus' crucifixion, you are looking at His absolutely worst day on planet earth. Literally everything that could possibly go wrong in a human's life had gone wrong for Him that day. We tend to gloss over the suffering of the crucifixion because it's a familiar story and because we view it through the work that God was doing in the Spirit. But Jesus was also fully human. View it through the human eyes for a moment: three days earlier the crowds were singing His praises and now one of his best friends has literally sold Him out; He was arrested and sentenced to die on false charges; all of His other friends have deserted Him, and one of his closest cussed Him to His face; He is being beaten by a government that He has spent the last three years teaching people to obey and pay taxes to; the governor tells Him that he knows that He's innocent, but He is beaten anyway; the crowd of people that He has only healed their sick, delivered their children, and fed when they are hungry -- all for free, mind you -- are screaming for him to be killed; He is stripped naked in public and cruelly crucified for the entire city to watch; His enemies are making fun of Him and giving Him vinegar to drink; The two thieves one either side of Him are cursing Him as if He had anything to do with their situation, and the people walking by are mocking Him and taunting Him. I've had some bad days, but I do not think that I have ever experienced anything quite like that!

My point is that if a bad day brings out true character, then it is by Jesus' actions on this horrible day that we should be able to tell what it means to really be a Christian. There are many things that we could talk about, but the point that jumps out from the scriptures is that -- even on His worse day -- Jesus Christ cared for others. Hanging and dying, He prayed for the very ones who had crucified Him and asked God to be merciful to them. Even in the short, painful hours immediately before His death, He took time out to reach out to one of the thieves that had at first been railing upon Him. The scriptures say that He looked down at His mother who was standing there with John, and His heart went out to her. He realized that she was watching her eldest son die. Daddy Joseph was dead and Jesus had been the primary caretaker of the family. He asked John to take care of His mother for reasons that she did not even realize. It was more than just providing physical care for Mary, but Jesus knew that if Mary was living with John's family then she would be there to see Him resurrected and that John would make sure that Mary was at the Day of Pentecost so that she could receive the Holy Ghost. By the way, she was there in Acts chapter 1, and she did receive the Holy Ghost! Even in the worst day of His life, Jesus cared for the salvation of others. It was His true character that came out that day!

In our text, Paul also told the church in Galatia to "bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ." The word "law" here literally means "custom" or "manner." So Paul was telling them and us, that we will never truly be a Christian and follow after the manner of Christ until we learn to bear each other's burdens and to care for others. Here's yet another lesson to be learned from the Cross of Calvary: it always takes dying out to our flesh to be able to care for others even in the midst of adversity. If we really are to be like Christ, then we must be willing to change some preconceived notions about who we are and how we act and how we treat other people. Our natural response when we are hurt or are going through a bad situation, is to become defensive. To close up. But Jesus did not close up on the worst day of His life: even in dying, He reached out to others. There ought to be a concern there beyond just reaching out to help feed the poor and hungry. There has to be a concern beyond just physical appeasement of a temporary situation. Christianity is not just helping people out of financial jambs, but true Christianity is being able to see others as Jesus saw His mother Mary. She was distraught because her eldest son and her breadwinner was dying, but Jesus knew that she needed more than just physical care. She could have returned home to her other sons and they could have stepped up and provided her physical care. But Jesus Christ looked beyond the physical need and saw the true spiritual need in her life was that she receive the Holy Ghost and become part of the Apostolic church and get forgiveness for her sins. Therefore He asked John to take care of her! The thousands of people that Jesus fed on the day that He broke the loaves and fishes all got hungry the next day! It was a fabulous miracle, but it only temporarily satisfied a physical need. But Jesus told the woman at the well, "if you drink from the water that I give you, you will never thirst again." He was talking about a spiritual fulfillment. Thank God that our church sees the need to reaching out to others that are hungry and helping the community get food, but don't forget that their natural hunger is not their true need! If they have plenty to eat, and yet die without the Spirit of God flowing into and through them, then they will still die spiritually hungry!

The Law of Christ is a burden to minister to other people's spiritual hungers! It is caring about the spiritual state of others! Even more so than we care about our own fleshly gain. If we are going to call ourselves Christian, then we must get a genuine concern for the spiritual state of other people! Have they repented of their sins? Have they been baptized as the scriptures teach in the name of Jesus, by full immersion, when they were old enough to have faith for themselves? Have they received the Holy Ghost as they did on the Day of Pentecost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues? Are they living a peaceful and good life in every area? If not, then what can I do to help them do so? Can I teach them the Word of God so that they will have faith to receive what God has for them? Can I call their name out in prayer each day? Can I fast with them, until they receive what they need? Can I give a word of encouragement to let them know that I am reaching out to them? I haven't truly fulfilled the Law of Christ until I have learned to give unselfishly of myself for the benefit of others' spiritual well being. If you are truly a Christian then you are called to be a minister, because Jesus Christ was a minister! We must fulfill the law of Christ.

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So if we must minister to others, in order to fulfill the law of Christ, then "how do I minister to others?" The answer is found in our other text containing the story of Peter and John going into the temple to pray and healing the lame man that sat by the gate Beautiful. There is so much that we can learn from this story. It was after the Day of Pentecost and the Early Church was growing. At this time the disciples still frequented the temple to pray and teach. They would later be kicked out because of times like the one mentioned here. The Jewish leaders thought that they had got rid of the Jesus problem by crucifying Him, but now there was a bunch of His disciples acting like Him and walking around healing people and praying for people and teaching! They did not realize that by crucifying Jesus, they just paved the way for the Holy Ghost to be poured out and now Jesus Christ was IN many people. The power of Jesus was not just in one body but was now in thousands of fleshly bodies in Jerusalem! It was the enemies of God's worst nightmare come true! You can't die out to your flesh without winning other people and seeing the church multiply!

So it's a normal day, about three o'clock in the afternoon, and Peter and John are going into the temple to pray. That in itself is an important lesson of ministry. Peter and John had learned the necessity of prayer in order to fulfill the law of Christ. If we are going to respond like Jesus Christ responded to situations in other people's lives, then we must pray. Peter and John had learned a valuable lesson from earlier in their ministries. In the second year of Jesus ministry, He sent out the disciples in pairs and in groups and gave them the ability to pray for the sick and them to recover. He commissioned them to cast out devils and to do great miracles and teach others. That is the "Jesus way" to build a church. The ministers win souls, and teach Bible studies and then began to teach the ones that they won how to do it. Everything was great at first. The disciples came back from the first few crusades pumped up and they even said "the devils are subject to us in your name." And Jesus basically said "big whoop." "Don't get happy because a bunch of devils are subject to you, but rather that you are saved and that your name is written in the Lamb's book of life!" Even if God used you to cast out every devil in this world, you should get more excited about the power of the saving name of Jesus which you called out in Repentance, and had called over you in Water Baptism! You ought to get happier when someone receives the Holy Ghost than you do when someone gets healed with a notable miracle! Which is harder to do? Which cost more? The healing comes from a few stripes when they beat Jesus, but for you to be saved, it cost Him everything!

Time goes by and the disciples keep assisting Jesus. Then one day, a man brings his demon possessed boy to the disciples and they pray just like they did before and Matthew 17:16 says nothing happened. I can imagine that the disciples looked at each other and tried again. Nothing happened. They brought the boy to Jesus and Jesus delivers the boy and sends the man on his way. The disciples got a little aggravated and they went to Jesus and said "why couldn't we cast the devil out?"

Jesus said that it was because of their lack of faith! Doubts had entered into their minds and the reason that it had come was because they had not been praying and fasting!

Faith will get you everything in God, but the only way that your faith is going to be what it should be is if we pray and fast! The disciples had gotten so caught up in doing the work of God, that they had justified their lack of prayer and preparation. There is a three part process to fulfilling the law of Christ and ministering to others like He did: the call, the preparation, and the performance. If you come to God, you will hear the call. Everyone under the sound of my voice tonight is hearing the call to "walk as He walked;" to fulfill the law of Christ. To become a minister after the example of Christ. Most of you will see a performance of that call in your life. I wish all of you would. It is the will of God for all of you to see yourself anointed and used mightily of God, but for you to see the performance, you must prepare yourself. We must pray and fast for what we are doing. We must allow God's Word to change us and find root in our lives. It is only through preparation that we obtain the power. I'm not calling everyone to a pulpit ministry or a pastorate. There is a difference between being called to the 5 fold ministry of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers and being a minister. Not everyone is called to be a prophet or a pastor, but everyone of us is called to be a minister: to make a spiritual difference in someone's life. It might be through teaching Bible studies about basic spiritual concepts, it might be through praying for revival, it might be by helping the church financially or helping with the grounds upkeep so the church appears neat to the people passing by. It might be cleaning the church. It might be witnessing. It might be serving in the nursery so visitors can get something out of service. It might be praying people through at the altars. It might be taking the time to talk to others and being willing to listen and empathize with them so that they know you care. It might be a number of those things. Those are all ministries that God wants to anoint us to and to help us make a difference. But just showing up to do something does not make it a ministry to you. Simply showing up at visitation does not make it your ministry. Simply praying for someone in the altar does not make it your ministry. It becomes ministry when you throw your complete self into it and allow God to move through you! That's ministry and it takes an anointing from God. If God has called you to clean the church, then clean it with passion and with fervency! If God has called you to witness, then put everything that you have into it!

There is a scriptural principle that God will not put more on us than we can bear. That goes for temptations and trials, but it also applies to anointing and gifts. Sometimes people beg God for a particular ministry or anointing that they see in other people's life and wonder why they never see it in their own life. They wonder why they are not as effective as others in reaching out to hurting people. The simple reason is usually that their faith can't stand up to that level of anointing! And the reason that their faith cannot bear the blessing is because their level of understanding, faithfulness, trust, study, prayer, and fasting --in other words, their preparation -- hasn't been like it should.

I read the true story of a small, frail mother who was watching her son work on the car when the jack slipped and the car fell, trapping him to the pavement. There was no one around to hear the mother's scream for help. In an adrenaline surge, the small lady who did not even weigh a hundred pounds grasped the bumper of the car that weighed hundreds of pounds and picked it completely up off her son and held it there until he could pull himself to safety. There are many similar documented cases in medical history. This lady who had never lifted weights and who could normally only lift a very small amount, in the face of adversity lifted a tremendous load. But the interesting part of the story that really got my attention is that they were interviewing the woman from her bed. After lifting the car, her muscles shut down for like two weeks. It took several weeks beyond that before the muscles repaired themselves from the damage that had been done in a moment of exertion that they had not been prepared for. What if that woman had been lifting weights regularly before? If so, it would not have taken the muscles as long to heal.

It's the same in the Spirit. God can use you to do anything if you will yield to Him in faith. But it is not the will of God for you to help others in the Spirit once in a blue moon. It is the will of God for you to minister for the long haul. For you to be reaching other people even 15 years down the road. I've seen men and women dive off into helping someone with a tremendous anointing and after two or three months, they are drained and empty because they had not adequately prepared for their ministry with prayer and fasting and faithfulness and study and discipline to the basics of God. You can only give of what you have received. And you minister from your overflow. You minister from your excess. If you try to minister to others while praying and fasting and preparing the same way that you have always prayed and fasted and prepared, then you will quickly find yourself malnourished spiritually and weak. When you do have an opportunity to help someone, then you find yourself like that woman who lifted that car. When Jesus fed the 5,000 men plus women and children, there were 12 baskets of food left over, one for each disciple. God does not create waste. I think the disciples ate their fill, but they did not take the extra with them. When they were on the boat going to the other side, Jesus asked them where the baskets were. Everyone of them had left the baskets. Why did Jesus ask them about the baskets and create them in the first place? Because He was just trying to teach them a concept, that when you become a minister, then you must always gather up extra and not just eat until you are full. Prayer should not just be until you feel better or normal. You cannot wait until you feel like you NEED to fast to fast when you are minister. Church has to become more than just worshipping and hanging around until I get what I need then leaving. I must get extra if I am truly to minister from my overflow. I must be like Mary and willing to spend time in the Master's presence and teaching!

Ministry is not just preaching or teaching Bible Studies. Ministry is being a servant of the Lord. Most people do not view cleaning the church as a ministry, but it is. And I have seen people grow spiritually weak cleaning the church because they did not pray and fast and prepare themselves spiritually for the onslaught that hell was going to try to bring against them. Satan does not attack the worst during the call or the performance. He attacks the most during the preparation. Satan showed up to tempt Jesus Christ while He was fasting and praying in the wilderness immediately before His ministry started. The last two weeks have presented an interesting dilemma in my life. I am getting ready for three Bible studies and two sermons each week now. That's in addition to any counseling or encouragement on a personal level and basic Bible studies that I teach. Plus piano lessons. I went on a three day fast this past week, because I knew that I needed to prepare myself and have plenty of extra "oomph" if I am going to survive ministering so freely. Jesus frequently got away from the disciples during His ministry to pray alone. Jesus realized the importance of spending time alone in preparation in order to keep a ministry going.

Can I tell you that I had a worst time hearing from God this week than I did last week, when I wasn't fasting? My wife asked me Thursday evening if I knew what I was preaching on Sunday, and I asked her to pray for me. I had no idea. I usually work all week long on my sermons. It was like I was hitting a brick wall trying to find direction this week. Understand it had nothing to do with me not having enough time to pray and study. I had plenty of time. It's just that I would sit in my office for hours and pray and seek God and I wasn't getting anywhere! It took until Friday afternoon before I realized that I wasn't fighting flesh or God, but the devil! I never blame the devil for everything because he usually isn't my problem. But this time it was the devil. He is afraid of my preparation, so he tried his best to disrupt it this week with confusion and frustration. I'm not telling you this to make you feel sorry or whatever for me. I'm trying to tell you that every failure in God is a preparation failure. Satan comes against people trying to prepare themselves for ministry like nothing else, because when you prepare for a great revival, then you are believing God for a great revival! And you are willing to step out trusting God for a great revival. If you've been fasting and praying and you've only gotten more frustrated. If you have been faithful and consistent and are wondering where the anointing is, don't give up! Satan is fighting you worst that he ever has before. Respond to him by submitting yourself to the things that you know to do for God, stand on God's Word, and rejoice because the very fact that he is fighting you is a sign that you are about to have a tremendous breakthrough in your life!

So Peter and John were going into the temple to pray. They had been praying and ministering to others from their overflow and you can tell because of their response to this beggar. Peter and John had passed this guy before. He had even had Jesus pass by there before. Jesus visited the temple many times and this guy was a regular. But Jesus had never healed him for some reason. We are not sure the reason for this. Maybe Jesus was waiting for Peter and John to come along. Maybe God waits to do miracles in others because He is waiting on us to initiate the faith! Or maybe the guy had never asked Jesus' help. He was a beggar at the gate called "beautiful." It may have been beautiful in name, but his situation was not one that was beautiful. Some people convince themselves that they are really okay being spiritually lame. They convince themselves that their life is okay and even "beautiful" when they are really suffering on the inside. People can learn to put up a good front. When you begin to prepare to fulfill the law of Christ, you will see past the front that people put up. This guy asked for alms. He didn't need a temporary situation fixed. He really needed healing! He really needed a miracle! But his problem was that he was focused on his situation. Peter had to address him and say "hey look at us!" Peter and John had the anointing and the power because of their preparation to see beyond the obvious and beyond the masks in this man's life. They also had the power to get him to look beyond his situation and look up!

We must get a concern for others as Jesus Christ did so that we can bring people hope in their life. Peter looked at the guy and said "Silver and Gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee." He didn't have the answer to the symptom, but he did have answer to the problem! We do have something to give this world! We have something to offer! We must realize it! But we must prepare with a burden until we are bold enough to see past the mask and the surface issues and realize that they spiritual man is what really needs ministering to! Peter got the guy from being focused on his problem to looking up for help. We must allow God to bring this anointing of hope into our lives! We must be willing to speak faith in a hopeless situation. We must be the ones to be so radically different that when we enter the room, people can't help but get their eyes off of their situation and look up!

Peter looked at the man and said "in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." He spoke what God could do for the man BEFORE it happened! We must be willing to look at others and realize that what we have to offer does not come from our own ability, but that we have a God who is able! But they need to hear what God can do for them BEFORE it happens! When someone comes to you at work and says "I don't know what I am going to do...." Don't snarl at them and walk away. Don't get all panic and scared to mention God. Why don't you speak what God can do to them. Look at them and say "well, I can't personally change anything in your life, but I can pray for you and introduce to you a God that can!" I've been touched by the many people who have asked us to pray for them and their families. They want to believe. They want to trust God. But they are looking for someone to proclaim to them what God can do! For it to happen, the church must be willing to speak it before it happened.

And Peter didn't just stop there, but after he had proclaimed what Jesus Christ could do for the man, he reached out to the man and said "I'll help you take first step." It was not up to the man to believe and receive or refuse to grab Peter's help. Peter grabbed the man's right hand. The right hand in scripture always represents power and strength. The left side denotes weakness or insecurity. I'm teaching you how to be a minister here. Or actually this story is teaching you to be a minister. Peter proclaimed what God could do. He reached out to help the person make the first step of faith. Peter reached to the man's strength and began to lift the man up. The miracle happened when the man was being lifted up by Peter! God caused his feet to receive strength and God did the work!

We must learn to recognize the cry for help from others. We must be spiritually sensitive to see that they are asking for so much more than alms or temporary fulfillment. And we must be willing to reach out to them with a helping hand after we proclaim what God can do to them. It's their choice whether or not they take it. But if they do, then lift them up by their strengths! Point out the things that they are doing right. Remind them that they have faith that God has given them somewhere! When you begin to lift them up, you will see God perform a miracle in your life!

Peter and John were Jesus to that man. He knew what had happened. He did not praise them, but ran into the temple leaping and praising God! God had done the work when Peter and John prepared and fulfilled the law of Christ! We must all fulfill the law of Christ!

{if desired, show how that just how Peter and John ministered unto the lame man is exactly how to pray someone through to victory or the Holy Ghost}