– Pastor Bimbo Animashaun
Many years ago, the Lord asked Dad Hagin to open a HEALING platform to minister to the sick. He obeyed God and God began to confirm His word through diverse healings of the sick.
As the number of people began to increase, Dad deemed it fit that it was a good thing to begin COUNSELLING the people and he began to do it but God said “No”.
The Lord told him that He hadn’t called him into the pastoral ministry of counselling, and that he was to only minister healing to the people, and that anyone who needed counselling should go meet their respective Pastors in their local churches, save anyone under his own direct spiritual oversight.
At another time, the man of God, Dad Hagin, based on his own calculation, placed his teaching ministry above his prophetic ministry and that decision didn’t resonate with the Spirit of God.
As a matter of fact, he sustained a fracture of the upper limb and the Lord Jesus told him that he had opened the door to the enemy by disrupting the divine order and arrangement in his calling.
Jesus told him that he was FIRST A PROPHET and SECOND A TEACHER and not the other way round.
He got the order right and adjusted it properly and he speedily recovered in his health.
Now, to a nominal Christian, these are not really serious issues because the motive is pure, but to those called into ministry, we cannot take things for granted – we need more than good intentions; we must follow and adhere strictly to God’s system of protocol.
Lessons:
(1) Don’t add to what God has said. Don’t add to God’s instructions in ministry. Always seek to cross-check and verify things with God before taking critical steps.
Certain decisions may seem good to us but may not seem good to the Holy Ghost – there must be synergy and balance.
We must always strive to make decisions that SEEM GOOD TO THE HOLY GHOST as we go about to carry out our divine mandate.
The First Great Christian Council meeting in Jerusalem made a decision that SEEMED GOOD TO THE HOLY GHOST in the wake of heretic teachings on the doctrine of Grace.
ACTS 15:28-29
28 FOR IT SEEMED GOOD TO THE HOLY GHOST, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things;
29 That ye abstain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well. Fare ye well.
(2) Don’t make FIRST what God makes SECOND in your calling and don’t make SECOND what God makes FIRST in your calling.
Understand the structure and setting of your call and put everything in order.
Like the Apostle Paul, in most of his opening statements in his letters to the churches, he always referred to himself as AN APOSTLE.
Little wonder he singled out THE APOSTOLIC OFFICE as what he projected the most:
ROMANS 11:13
For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am THE APOSTLE of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office:
Yet the same Paul was also A TEACHER and also functioned as AN EVANGELIST but he put THE APOSTOLIC OFFICE FIRST – he understood the order of the arrangement of his divine calling.
2 TIMOTHY 1:11
Whereunto I am appointed a preacher, and an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles.
The thought is that ministers cannot take things for granted in ministry despite good intentions
We must do all things decently and in order – 1 Cor.14:40 because the stakes and standards for us are very high and we have higher responsibility especially to God’s precious people – Heb 13:17.
These are just two out of the MANY LESSONS I was privileged of God to learn under the ministry of Dad Hagin.
You can’t follow men like this in ministry and do ministry anyhow or treat the call of God upon your life with contempt.
I believe this comes with a timeless ministry lesson for us Sirs and Mas?
May the Lord help us all!
Amen!!
Shalom!!!
Aphorism CITY 