By Bishop Dave Chikosi
There are many of us living in the diaspora who are rooting for the success of the prophetic movement as well as the proliferation of mega churches in Zimbabwe. We know that the flourishing of a nation is bound up to its worship of the one and true God.
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he chose for his inheritance” (Psalm 33:12)
But we are also painfully aware that there are evil, demonic forces hell-bent on stalling and frustrating this wonderful move of God. The modus operandi of these powers is to use human agents to sow seeds of strife, competition and division.
These agents will attempt to pit one man of God against another, usually by making dumb and ignorant comparisons between ministries and ministers.
But this sort of foolishness is roundly rejected and denounced by the Apostle Paul:
“We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they show their ignorance” (2 Corinthians 10:12).
The truth of the matter is that every Gospel minister has his own race to run and can only do his utmost for His highest when the minister stays in, and not stray from, his God-given track.
The last thing the church needs in Zimbabwe is some dubious organization handing out dubious awards to God’s servants, based on dubious rankings that use dubious criteria.
We need such organizations like we need a hole in the head.
The work of God is very different from the work of politicians, economists or educationists. Influence in the Kingdom is measured by a very different standard. When it comes to making judgements about who is influencing or changing more lives, all such evaluations just have to wait until the Day of Judgement.
“Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved–even though only as one escaping through the flames” (1 Corinthians 3:13).
Indeed, all human rankings and judgements of Gospel ministers on this side of the eschaton are foolish and premature:
“Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart. At that time each will receive their praise from God” (1 Corinthians 4:5).
We need more, not less, true and genuine prophets
There are some among us, including Christians, who think Zimbabwe has too many prophets. The level of spiritual ignorance revealed by such statements is nothing short of astounding.
May I remind these cynics of the time in the Old Testament when Moses was ordaining Seventy Elders to lead Israel. At the end of the ceremony, Moses releases the Spirit upon them and the Seventy Elders begin to prophesy.
Absent from this glorious ceremony are two elders, Eldad and Meldad. Evidently they had decided to skip the ordination for no good reason or legitimate excuse. But instead of getting punished for their truancy, they are blessed with the same Holy Spirit that the others received, and they begin also to prophesy.
This doesn’t go down very well with some jealous Israelites in the camp. They send a young man to report this travesty to Joshua, who at this time was Moses’ assistant leader. Upon hearing it, Joshua is livid.
“Moses, my lord” Joshua hollers, “stop them!”
The response he got from Moses is instructive:
“Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!” (Numbers 11:30).
No, we don’t have enough prophets. With Moses we wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets. We pray that God would raise up more prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors and teachers in this spiritually beleaguered nation.
The fact is that prophets are the eyes of a people/nation. Apostles bring order and divine governance. Evangelists gather the harvest. Teachers ground the saints in eternal Truth, and pastors care for and nurture new and old believers.
Are there some bad apples among our church leaders? You bet. Bad apples are found in every human institution. But we don’t question the legitimacy of a divine gift or a God-ordained office given to the church by its Master because of a few bad apples.
“Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn” (Matthew 13:30).
Fellow men of God, may we be reminded that together and united we achieve more. The output of our ministry synergy when we come together is greater than the sum of our individual efforts.
“One can chase a thousand, but two can put ten thousand to flight” (Deuteronomy 32:30).
[Bishop Dave Chikosi can be reached by email at [email protected]. You can watch his YouTube videos at https://www.youtube.com/user/faithcoach4u. He also blogs at http://davechikosi.blogspot.com]
