Satan says you are more godly in the law. God says in the law you are a worker and a slave. The story of the slave woman and her son is the story of a couple who sought to carry out God’s plan in the flesh. Who we are depends on who we define ourselves as. Have we defined ourselves in Christ’s gospel or in a gospel of our own? We create our reality in things spiritual by the narrative in which we choose to live. Is our gospel the Gospel of Jesus and the apostles teaching or is it what Paul called, ‘Another Gospel?’ John Hewson wrote in The Age, “Life is about and defined by choices – how we make them, what we decide, and how we live with the consequences. Governments have a particular responsibility as we rely on them to make choices on our behalf, especially the bigger national choices that we feel somewhat powerless to make or influence, while they use our money to fund them. It is reasonable for us to expect these choices will be in the national interest, rather than to favour a particular group or interest, or for short-term political benefit.” Genuine Christian Ministry is the same. By definition it is meant to be life-giving. Life that is ‘about Him’ is the life of all. Jesus defined such life Himself as ‘life to the full.’ The best expression of this is ‘life without limit.’ A LIMITED OR INFINITE LIFE Life since the fall has been limited because our normal life consists of degrees of death. These degrees include diseases of the soul and the body and death itself. But the most subtle disease is the disease of a dormant spirit and a crippled soul. Here we are talking of a soul that is ill and a spirit that is barely alive resulting in a self that has a severe deficit of spirit and life. Real life is never about our achievements externally. Real life is you becoming who you really are – as conceived in the womb of the trinity and redeemed by the enterprise of the trinity. The solution to escaping the life of the un-dead is Christ our life. Jesus healed eyes and limbs as a sign of the greater healing - the healing of our relationship with God. The cross achieved the undoing of Adam and the rebirth of you and I in the person of Jesus Christ. With Christ as our life, our spirit comes alive, our soul undergoes healing and we are on the way to eternal life. But this eternal life is meant to be preceded by the experience of resurrected life in the body - prior to going to be with Jesus. The key truth of the post cross age is incarnation: Christ and the fullness of the God-head bodily woven into your being. New birth is not just us as a moral/moralistic person. It is us as a new created being. We are new and ignited with spirit and life because Christ in us IS US. NOT FOR VESTED INTERESTS The remarks of John Hewson are particularly relevant to ministry. Our ministry must occur in the commission of ministering unlimited life to all, rather than to favour a particular group or interest, or for short-term political benefit. It’s never about pumping up our church. This is to say we are called to be ‘ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.’ What is the new covenant? Pretty much incarnation. We have no commission and no legitimate right to be ministers of ‘another gospel’ on the excuse that this fortifies our identity, gives us a sense of status or because it satisfies the egos of groups or interests to which we think ourselves beholden. As John Hewson asserts, those who would claim to be leaders are duty bound to represent the best interests of all society – not the interests of those whose desire for profit comes at the costs of unease, disease, drought and fires.