Purpose Not Position

Courtesy: Google Images

Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour." 1 Cor 3:5-8.

"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire" Matt 3:11.

One fascinating thing about working and generally living is that one cannot always be alone or by oneself. Even a petty sole proprietor still has to make contacts with the supplier and consumer. It would be detrimental to the business if a sole proprietor gets over their head and begin to contend superiority with either the supplier or the final consumers. Sadly however, we see unhealthy rivalry and power/superiority tussle ensuing in our places of work every now and then.

Let's look at the man John, sent of God with a clear message; proclaiming the coming of the kingdom of God alongside the practical assignment of getting all that have repented of their sins baptized with water.  Great work if you ask me. The man took his ministry and didn't let the message off his lips even in the wilderness. But there was his little cousin (6 months is a lot), Jesus the messiah, who was probably still busy with his carpentry work while John had been losing his voice telling of the Kingdom of God and whose ministry didn't begin until John baptized him and bore witness that Jesus is in deed, the son of God.

A New Tongue

They will speak with new tongues. .....(Mark 16:17)

Those are the very words of Jesus. He had just delivered a mandate to his disciples to go everywhere preaching his resurrection. Among other things, He said a sign of those who believe in Him is that they will receive ability to speak in a new tongue. On the surface when one looks at this statement, we may want to assume that Jesus meant, instead of vulgar languages, we will begin to speak words of grace.

Remember he was raised from the dead before speaking those words and the holy spirit was not yet given. However, on the day the holy spirit was given, we discovered that the disciples of Jesus really spoke in a new tongue, but not a known tongue. This must be the new tongue Jesus had earlier told them about. When the 120 people who were in the upper room were filled with the holy spirit, they all yielded to the Spirit by speaking in new language they never learnt.

That must be the sign Jesus was speaking about. If it were just a change of language or words, then there was really nothing peculiar about it. However, the event on the day of Pentecost that drew the attention of thousands of people in Jerusalem, both Jews and non-Jews, that led to the salvation of 3000 souls after Peter's preaching must be the sign Jesus talked about.

Delegation

In the last article about excellence, we discussed becoming a person of excellence. The beauty and challenge of excellence is that the more you improve yourself, the more you are set apart from the crowd. After months and years of continuous improvement, the difference becomes clear. Your high standard makes mediocrity irritable to you. You easily notice shoddy work and you are labelled a perfectionist. Your subordinates become uncomfortable working with you because they are incapable of satisfying you.  You are afraid to delegate as you will most likely redo the work. You end up doing most things and barely have time for yourself and things that are really important to you.

Moses the man of God was once there. He received a mandate from God to lead his people the Israelites and he gave himself completely to the work. Exo 18:13 says “the next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening”. This became his constant practice and his major work.  Jethro, his father-in-law noticed this and told him what will be the outcome of his actions; total burn out for both him and the people Exo 18:18. While in the beginning, it will seem a great idea having your personal touch on everything your business or ministry does, in the end you will realize that you cannot do it alone and you were less effective than you could have been if you had delegated.

Excellence Makes The Difference

                                             Picture source: Google images

Excellence is defined by the English Dictionary as the ‘quality of excelling; possessing good qualities in high degree’. While this definition seems afar off, a destination to be reached sometimes in the future if possible. A more practical definition is giving your best at all times and constantly seeking to be better. It is more about being better than you were yesterday while giving your absolute best today. An excellent person does not excuse mediocrity in self. Your presentation might not be the best among your peers, but it is the best you know how to do at the moment and you are on the look out to learn from those who had better presentations. Really then, Excellence is not a destination but a journey.

It is then surprising to see Christians, who are adept at the word and have the conviction that they have been accepted in the beloved and are saved by grace and not works, settle for mediocrity. Of course, nobody will concede to being a mediocre, we just don’t have the time or patience to put that extra in, we have several fellowship meetings to attend than to be bothered with such aesthetics. We are comfortable with the barest minimum since God looks at the heart and not the packaging. We even go ahead to confront anyone that points to the obvious deficiency that there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Come, let’s learn from a man whom God gave wisdom such that he became the wisest king of the ancient world.

Growing Up

Our article this week is a Facebook post by Pastor Poju Oyemade


Growing up as a Christian one of the things I learned early that helped me greatly was to stop seeing the Bible as a theoretical book where it's level of understanding is determined by who speaks more eloquently using high sounding phrases that make little meaning in the consciousness of people.

I came to understand this, the Bible was never meant to be a theoretical book neither are doctrines academic in nature.

What is the purpose of Scripture? Paul answers this in his letter to Timothy

2 Timothy 3:16-17
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works"

 All Scripture and not some are profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction in order that the man of God may be perfect i.e mature and furnished on to good works. So the end goal of God in giving us His word is producing good works in us. It is not to improve us intellectually even though it does, but to produce good works in our lives. The more we understand scriptures the more the works of God are demonstrated in our lives.

That You May Win

“But am a committed Christian and I take my relationship with God seriously, yet why am I bombarded with so many problems. Why are there disappointments all around?”

You might have asked these questions or its variants at some point in your Christian walk or maybe you didn’t so much as utter it, but you only thought about it in your heart. I know I have. While I did not expect a life without challenges, I did hope for an almost smooth road; after all, God had promised to clear the pathway for me such that I will not dash my foot against a stone nor have any big issues in life. But did he?

In the longest recorded teaching of Christ, which was also one of his earliest teachings, in Matthew chapters five to seven, Jesus gave us his manifesto, his mission statement and concluded with this allegory: ‘Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on a rock. And the rain came down, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house. And it did not fall, for it was founded on a rock. And everyone who hears these sayings of Mine and does not do them shall be compared to a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain came down, and the floods came, and the wind blew and beat on that house. And it fell, and great was its fall.’¹ We can agree that the wise man is the committed Christian who does the word of God and the foolish man a church goer who doesn’t do the word and is the equivalent of an unbeliever. It is instructive to note the common experiences of both groups. They both built houses, the rain fell on both houses, both houses experienced the flood and the wind blew against both houses. What was different was the outcome, while one house was able to withstand all the elements of weather, the other house crumbled under the same conditions.

Following the Inner Witness

I was in my sophomore in the university in an outreach program organized by the church I attended. This was the last day of the outreach program and it was a healing service. Several healings were already taking place and something happened that inspired me writing this article. 

 A lady had just come out to testify of the healing power of God on her eyes. She was used to wearing glasses to aid her eyes. She was filled with joy. Unknown to me the lady who stood just beside where I sat at the program was a friend to the person testifying. She exclaimed 'I know her', that was how I got to know. 

 I noticed that she too wore a pair of glasses. I not only saw her joy but her expectation too, her friend had just been healed in her eyes. I immediately felt like ministering to her myself. I felt she deserved her own healing too from God. All these happened just in my head. Although there was a willingness in me, I took no action. 

 I just narrated one out of several other experiences of mine. After that evening program, I felt that lady didn't go to her hostel healed because I did nothing. I was 100% sure if I simply took a leap of Faith by acting on my knowledge at that point in time, she would have been healed.