THE YOUNG MINISTER:
BEWARE OF STRIFE.
Luke 22:24
And there was also a strife among them, which of them should be accounted the greatest.
Nothing suffocates the flow of grace in a Minister’s life like inter or intra ministerial strife.
I remember in the early 1990s while growing up in Lagos, there were three major televangelist in Lagos. Amongst these three was Pastor Chris Oyakhilome.
It was practically impossible to ignore the presence of this men on air. They were a delight to listen to. Most up and mobile young people then craved to hear them speak. The first two were insightful teachers with an unusual command of the English language.
Shortly, one of them took on Bishop David Oyedepo while the other made Pastor Chris his subject. They never ceased at every given opportunity including from their respective altar to discredit these men.
While they made these two their subjects of consistent attacks, the men neither responded nor attacked them. They kept their focus on their mandates and buried themselves in their assignments.
Few years later, while the first two are diminishing in influence and effect, the last two are growing stronger in impact and influence.
Again, Just few years ago, the social media space was awash with several people who claim to be New Creation cum grace teachers. You could feel the venom of bitterness, pride and arrogance of knowledge with which they preached their messages as opposed to the spirit of grace the same message is being preached by Creflo Dollar and Joseph Prince or as was taught by E W Kenyon. They propagated grace as a discovery but lacks it as a virtue.
Many of them quickly faded out while some are silent today or have consciously realigned.
Furthermore, while Jesus’s disciples were busy contending for who should be the greatest, they became helpless over a little demonic case that was brought to them, rather others who were not in their camp were busy out there casting out devils and healing the sick in Jesus’s name and the only thing they could think about was how to stop them because they were not in their camp. Jesus’s said to them, “leave them alone”.
Listen!
You can’t carry strife and carry power at the same time- make your choice today.
In John 21, Peter saw one of the disciples following and said to Jesus, “what shall this man do?” Jesus answered, “if I want him to tarry till I come, what is that to thee? I say unto thee, follow thou me”
About twelve years ago, I had the privilege from my then Senior Pastor to coordinate church plantings from the Headquater church. While on that assignment, I practically refused to accept to place any of the branches of the church in any facility that has a church already in place even if such was offered free to us. The same principle I applied while in Enugu. In one of the branches, a church came right beside the facility we were using and I agreed with the pastor there to leave the place for them. God gave the church a better place.
Today, I still see a lot of young ministers who should focus on finding their routes in ministry and building personal capacity in other to give maximum expression to their callings busy themselves in unnecessary and unhealthy inter and intra ministry competitions, backstabbings and sometimes out to outrightly pull down their fellows.
Some engage their current or former Senior Pastors who did hurt them in a war of attrition on and off social media.
Many young people today make older or contemporary ministers the subject of their new found revelations.
Now listen!
In ministry, those who strive for mastery don’t strife with anyone. God has no class prefects or referees in ministry. Refuse to engage or be engaged by anyone into strife- it’s a downhill path to average and ignominy.
The journey of ministry is long and tedious, strife is your greatest liability in staying on this journey after sin.
No one is in anyway obligated to share in your perspectives. Be matured enough to respect other peoples’ views.
Your twenty one days of fast can be deflated by an ounce of strife.
My counsel:
1. Love God genuinely!
2. Love the body of Christ passionately.
3. Suffer yourself to be defrauded if it will protect the church. Allow those who think they have outsmarted you enjoy their temporal glory. God is not unjust to forget your labour of love for His sake.
4. Look away from what you don’t seem to understand in others except where you have an instruction to speak with the person privately.
5. Refuse to be joined into conflicts you don’t understand why and how it started irrespective of who is involved.
6. Refuse to be engaged into key pad battles by anyone on matters of doctrine except a constructive discus.
7. Pray for those you think are missing it while showing an example through your own platform and lifestyle.
Hope this helps?
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