GIFTS AND MINISTRIES (Part II)

By Odon Bulamba (Friday 29th September 2000)

2. BEING A MINISTER IS DEMANDING WORK

This is what God is teaching us. He gives us everything that’s necessary for us to learn. When we learn, we must practice these things to become someone in God’s work. People often think that serving God is funny and easy, but I tell you that being a minister in a country is a very, very demanding job. Every 5 minutes the phone rings and every 10 minutes a problem arises; and ministers need secretaries in their offices to help them with their work. And because their workload is so heavy the government takes charge of the cost of their houses, transport etc. The minister might have a driving licence, but he will never drive, he has a chauffeur so that all his thoughts can be focused on the country’s wellbeing. If they drove with such a busy mind, they might cause an accident.

The Christians’ head is the Spirit in us. This Spirit in us must work, must think of our future and prepare God’s plan in our lives; God has already provided for us a chauffeur, a house etc (spiritually).

When the applicant minister agrees with the President of the Republic to become minister, he must remember he is the boss of the department: a little mistake means destroying the reputation of a whole country. That is exactly what we are called to do now. God has helped us since the beginning to be equipped and get to that level.


3. FIRST THINGS FIRST: THE LIGHT

The very first thing God gives us is in Proverbs 20:27

Proverbs 20:27
The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah,
Searching all his innermost parts.

So, the Spirit of God is given to enlighten man, and the Spirit of God never enlightens the physical man but the spiritual man. Someone prophesying hasn’t been enlightened by God in their physical being but in their inner being. What is able to be enlightened in man, his spirit, must in turn enlighten the world.

The Bible recalls how some people served God and could dialogue with Him. God was very close to them. I was wandering how this could happen, how every 2 or 15 minutes, they say, ‘God said this and that’ until I discovered that God enlightens their spirit all the time. And there is only one way to be enlightened by God; it is to obey the Word of God, to be flexible before His Word and answer His call. Most people today don’t read the Word that’s why they don’t have the Spirit of God in them. Their spirit is darkened because they don’t obey it, and although they always cry out to God,
- God, we want to see, we want your light

God answers
- If a child refuses to study, nobody will force them.
Their parents might try everything to push them, if the child refuses, nothing else can be done.

4. GOD GAVE US A BODY BUT ASKS US TO REGARD IT AS DEAD

And the same thing is true between God and us. God always offers to enlighten our spirit, but we refuse it because we are disobedient and don’t want to be humiliated by the world or by the Word of God and we don’t want to be flexible in our decisions and our actions.

My Mum told me one day,
- Have you ever seen a corpse refusing to be put in a coffin?
- Never.

We must be corpses regarding the Will of God and may God treat us Christians how it pleases Him. If He decides that eagles will eat the corpse meat, let us accept it. If He decides that the corpse will be buried somewhere, let it be so. In that way, the Spirit of God will enlighten us. And Paul said, ‘I treated my body harshly’, so if you don’t treat your body harshly you can’t benefit from the gifts of the Spirit of God: you might have a minimum of them but you will never have what you actually want.

God sent Paul in the desert for 3 years, and he suffered greatly, but it was for God’s glory. What about you and me, have we ever suffered for the glory of God in our lives? Have we accepted to put what we have been taught into practice yet?

1 Corinthians 9:27
but I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means,
after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected.

Paul declares he must buffet his body in order not to be rejected in the end.
Why did he say that? He knew that among all what was in him, the Spirit had the greatest value. If we are not careful with our body, we might fail in the end.
This is the first problem with the Christians today:
we might know the Word of God but we refuse to buffet our bodies.
GOD GAVE US EYES, BUT ASKED US TO BE BLIND

When I see someone doing something I don’t like, I feel in my heart I hate them but if I didn’t have eyes I couldn’t hate that person but because my eyes belong to my body, they push me to hate. Therefore, I must buffet my body and tell my eyes, ‘My eyes, calm down. If you saw a mistake, it is not your problem; your only concern is the spirit in you’

You have learnt something from someone,
- You know… Ange drank beer yesterday
- I knew it. I knew she will do it one day.
- Why do you judge Ange that way? says the Spirit in you.
So, if you didn’t have ears to listen to that person, you couldn’t hate Ange. So, we must buffet our body, and close our ears. Everyone has two eyes, but we must treat them harshly so that we might be blind, let’s lock our mouth and become mute and the Word of God will teach us freely how the Spirit works in us.

When I was young, I had a little sister who one day went to a neighbour’s house. This person was disabled and would always hit my younger sister with his false leg. One day my sister found the false leg and she took the leg saying, ‘Follow me if you are a man’. The person couldn’t walk because something was missing.

Similarly, if we combine false and natural members and the false thing is stolen, we will become disabled. The false prosthetic members is our body, the one we have on earth and if we use it to do the spiritual work, we can be sure that one day, Satan will steal the prosthetic thing and everybody will see who we really are.