Your great commission is your call to serve in the kingdom of God. It is your divine assignment or purpose here on earth; your great commission is the call of God upon your life to serve Him in whatever capacity to grow His kingdom. Such a call could be in, or outside, the vineyard. It is God’s prerogative to decide, you have no hand in it. All He wants is your cooperation for you to say, like prophet Isaiah, “Lord, here I am, send me.”
What distinguishes the call of God from your personal life project is that His call comes with an anointing or spiritual gift/empowerment to enable you fulfill the call, whereas, all you need to actualise a life project is talent, mainly. In either case, divine grace is also very essential. This piece is intended to get a lot of confusion off the heads of our youth about focus or direction. Many youth don’t know why they are here on earth. They don’t know their purpose. I hope this piece will help them understand it.
Let me make this very clear. Talent is not a spiritual gift, but an anointing, like healing anointing is a spiritual gift; not everyone has it though anyone can, however, receive healing by faith. Everyone is talented in some way, and I believe that everyone who is a child of God has one form of anointing to serve God one way or the other.
The term “Great Commission” is used by theologians to describe the last directive Jesus Christ gave to all believers before He ascended into heaven. This instruction is in the Bible book of Mark 16: 15-18, where He said Christians should go into the world and make disciples of all nations. This is the Great Commission. It is a statute of general application and it applies to all Christians. With this great mandate as mentioned earlier comes divine empowerment called anointing, to enable you achieve this goal of growing the kingdom of God.
Many young Christians are going into ministry these days on the claims that the economic difficulties they are facing is evidence that God has called them to preach the gospel. Some claim that they had a strange spiritual encounter, affliction, sickness or attacks because they did not heed the call to ministry.
When young folks read the fairy tale exploits of wealthy and popular televangelists like Bishop T.D. Jakes, Pastor E.A. Adeboye, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, Pastor Tunde Bakare, etc., and juxtapose these with the call of many Bible characters, they are inspired to launch into ministry head-on. A tiny, negligible few succeed somehow, while many are confronted by the nightmarish experience of poverty, hunger and failure.
The biggest problem of the Pentecostal church today is that most of the young ministers come into ministry unprepared. They are usually not well-instructured in things of God before plunging into ministry. A one-month or 12-week crash programme in a so-called Bible college is not enough to equip you for ministry. It is a popular fallacy to claim, as most people say, that God would put an affliction, sickness, poverty or hardship on you to compel you to preach the gospel. That’s cheap blackmail. And God is not a blackmailer.
Now, the question: How do you know your divine call or assignment? You should first understand that the word of God can come to you mainly through revelation, inspiration and illumination. Let me put it in proper context. When God calls you, He speaks to you in a clear, small, still, audible voice, just like you do when you whisper to someone. That’s why we call it a “call.” He calls in a voice. That’s how He called Bible saints like Samuel, Paul, Isaiah, Moses, Adam, Jeremiah, Solomon. God’s style is to call in an audible voice. You can find time to read the stories of those He called in the Bible.
Before I started this column, I struggled in a wrong ministry. Then I asked Him: Lord, what’s my call? He replied: what made you famous? I said, writing. Immediately, I called the managing director of this paper, Mr. Eric Osagie. I said, please I need a column. I sent him two samples. After reading the article, he said: “Great pieces! You can start the column (Motivation Power). I’d give you a space every Friday.” You see, if God calls you, He’d help you do the job. That’s the beauty of it. Everything would work in your favour. And not all calls are in the five-fold ministry of Pastor, Teacher, Evangelist, Prophet and Apostle.
There are several other gifts like administration, helps, leadership, counselling, writing, exhortation, faith, healing, etc. All are important and, together, they make the body of Christ function in harmony. No gift or call is little; they are indispensable to each other. If one organ of the body is dysfunctional, the whole body is sick.
Young people should understand this clearly. If you have a call, you don’t have to struggle with it too much because God will help you fulfill it. If you are facing challenges in health, marriage or business, it is not God calling you to set up a church. Ask for direction, He’ll give you a strategy to prosper.
Weekend Spice: Give me a place to stand on, and I can move the world – Archimedes
Folks, its nice being with you this Friday. Stay motivated.
• Ladi Ayodeji is an Author, Rights Activist, Pastor and Life Coach. He can be reached on 09059243004 (SMS & Whatsapp only)