Ask and receive from the Lord the spiritual gifts which you need for the successful discharge of your ministry. Many people whose ministries do not require the gift of miracles are asking for the gift of performing miracles. Apostle John did not perform one miracle. His ministry did not require it. In the lists given of the apostles, for example, Acts 1:13, Apostle Peter is always listed first and Judas Iscariot is always listed last; Apostle John is always listed second, but he did not perform one miracle. Spiritual gifts are not a measure of importance. Spiritual gifts are what you need to discharge your ministry. The critical leaders may not need signs, wonders, miracles in the normal course of their ministry but they may once in a while be in a situation where a miracle is required.
If the brother who drives the leader is faithful in his driving and satisfies the heart of God, he will have the same reward as the leader he is driving. Rewards are a matter of being faithful in what has been given to you. A man’s eye is to be faithful just in seeing; it is not required to be a mouth to savour chicken. What would happen if your eye wanted to be a mouth?
You should be the best of you that God meant you to be! Be utterly good! Be utterly faithful. Faithfully be and use all that God has made you to be and given to you for His sole glory.
We are not called to compete with each other. We are called to complement each other.
I thank God for my brother’s gifts, I don’t need his gifts to fulfil my own ministry, and each of us will receive his reward according to his faithfulness.
The gift of helper—The helper is one who puts all that he is and all that he has to help one person to succeed. He sees only that one person, he can have the whole world but he sees only the one person he is called to help. He does everything and all he does is for the success of that one person.
The gift of service is almost like the gift of help, but the gift of service is to invest all of oneself and all that one has into a cause, so that it can succeed for the glory of God.
The helper invests into the success of a person!
The servant invests into the success of a cause!
These gifts are divine impartations; they cannot be manufactured. You cannot get them by fasting for forty days or having a prayer crusade for forty days. They cannot be manipulated and you cannot pretend about them. Only God can give someone the extraordinary capacity to put all of himself and all that he has into one person, and forget himself in all things and see only one person in all things. It is an endowment from God to advance the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. We need helpers, we need servants.
Let us not try to manipulate people. There are some people present here who, will fail if they do not give up being pastors. If you are given a nation to conquer, you may receive and talk with people from morning to night; you will not conquer the nation. Receiving people is all right for a pastor. But if you have a nation to conquer and you do not stop that, you will fail. Your heart will break because you love people but you must close the door to people. You must give yourself to find God. You must steal away to move to the next town. If not, your pastor-heart will tie you around a few people and the work will be grounded. As the work grows, the shepherd of individuals must become the shepherd of shepherds and someday the shepherd of the shepherds of shepherds.
A national leader who gives ten minutes to a national missionary and two hours to a young convert is a fool. If you invest in a regional leader, he will bring you a region. If you invest into a young convert he will bring you another young convert.
Jean Prince, on his last visit to us, told me, “Don’t sacrifice the world for Cameroon!” One selfish individual can help you to lose a nation. Such a one is always talking about his needs and takes the time a nation would have taken: don’t sacrifice a nation for an individual. He spoke as a seer. We had not started the missionary work then, but he saw ahead.
There was a day and an occasion when my wife and children publicly gave me to God and to the nations. If you love your leader and you want him to take the nation, give him to the nation and do the pastoring.
- Know your spiritual gifts!
- Develop your gifts!
- Multiply your gifts!!
You cannot multiply your hours. You cannot pray for thirty hours a day. But you can multiply your mouth and hands and feet through multiplying yourself. In the year 2007, bring me a list of twelve people whom you are preparing to take your place. They will not take your place but you will multiply the work twelve times.
- CKC should give us 12 CKCs
- TA should give us 12 TAs
- BK should give us 12 BKs
- BM should give us 12 BMs.
More and more time should be given to the senior leaders to dismantle them and to rebuild them. Everyone can be involved in church planting; enable specialist church planters to function.
Who will be in heaven? Those who have believed! However, we shall not all be in the same place in heaven, each one shall be in the place in heaven that corresponds to the depths, breadths and heights of his personal relationship with the Lord!
For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done (Matthew 16:27).
He will reward each one according to what he has done. He will reward WORK DONE!
Excerpt from: Moving on With The Lord Jesus Christ- Z.T. Fomum
