IT IS A CALL TO HONOUR 1

"AND NO MAN TAKE THIS HONOUR TO HIMSELF, but he who is called by God, just as Aaron was."
Hebrews 5:4 (NKJV)

• The Call to the ministry work is a call to honour.
IT is a call from above, you do not put the honour on yourself.
IT is a call to honour, dignity, and prestige by GOD who is the Owner of the work.
IT is not a call to shame or reproach, as some people think.

• When God called you, He called you to make you, not to unmake you.
  HE called you to bless you and to lift you.
  HE has not called you to ridicule you, put you to shame or reproach.
  YOUR calling is a call to honour.
  AS it is a call to honour, there are different stages in the call to ministerial assignment.

-> Ministry has different stages and phases.

• In the Ministry work if you do not pass God’s test, meet His requirements in a stage, you might not be promoted to another stage.

• The truth is: God may deliberately allow you to face some difficulties, expose you to challenges, in various stages of your ministry; to determine your lifting in the work of ministry (1 Peter 5:10).
• Another truth about the ministry work is, God will never promote you on trial basis, to know if you will be able to perform in the next stage or not, your promotion would be solely based on how you fare in the tests He brought your way: "For there is no partiality with God" (Romans 2:11).
• Some Ministries and Ministers have been on the same spot for years, because they failed to pass God’s tests.
• If you failed to pass God’s tests, you cannot experience promotion you strongly desired.
• God is not partial in His dealings with mankind, His children in general: "For there is no partiality with God" (Romans 2:11).
• The God we serve is a just God, and he is a disciplined God—He is a principled God.
• He will not bend His Word because of someone’s disobedience or uncared attitudes, No (Acts 10:34,35).
  HE means whatever He says, and He stands by it (Numbers 23:19; 2 Corinthians 1:19,20).
• God may allow or permit you to taste some sour, bitter, things and pass through difficulties; all is to mould you and bring the best in you out.

• Some of the stages in the Ministry work:

I. The stage of not enough: the stage where you do not have enough resources for all you want to do.

• The stage of not enough of the money or whatever material things needed, both for your family and the ministry work.
• It is a time when you do not have enough for the assignment God has given to you.
• You believed God is asking you to do something: organize a programme, get a better location for the work, or what have you; yet there is NOT enough money to do it.
• At such a time God is looking at your faithfulness in the work.
  ARE you going to quit or continue and stay put?
• He is watching you whether you will compromise your faith by putting your hands in sin, looking for help from other source apart from God. Or going about begging and ridiculing the name of God: Degrading yourself, making mockery of the call of God on your life, because of morsels of food—like Esau did: "lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright" (Hebrews 12:16).
• It is a stage where you desire more people to come to your Church, or attend your meetings, but the people are not coming.
• God is watching how you handle the situation to determine whether to promote you or not, to give you more responsibilities or not, to expand the scope of your commission or not.
• Some have sold their birthrights like Esau did, because of the need they have in their private lives and the ministry.

II. The stage of just enough: at this stage God has approved your work in a measure, a little, and has appreciated what you are doing.

• At this stage God will be giving you what you need for your home and the ministry.
• It is what He provided that you have, it is not the time to make a choice.
• It is the clothes that God allows the people to buy for you that you wear, the food they give to you that you eat, it will just be for the hour or day. It would be a daily manna!
• You will always have what you need for the hour, as God provides, but there would be no extra, reserve, or surplus.

"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. AND THE PEOPLE SHALL GO OUT AND GATHER A CERTAIN QUOTA EVERY DAY, THAT I MAY TEST THEM, whether they will walk in My law or not."
Exodus 16:4 (NKJV)

III. The stage of more than enough: this is the stage that before you ask, God has done it.

• It is a stage before a need arises in your life and ministry, you already have enough to meet that need.
  IT is a stage that blessings run after you.
  THE stage where the people strive to bless you and your work with material things.
• At this stage you do not persuade the people to give before they do—they do it willingly as you ask them.
  YOU have more than enough to even give to others.

• Take note: Only few people get to this stage in the work of ministry.
MAY you be one In Jesus' name.

• To get to the stage of more than enough you must have proved yourself faithful before God in other stages, not enough and just enough, before God considered you for the stage—the level or stage of more than enough.

• You will not fail in Jesus' name.
Peace!
TO BE CONTINUED