FAITH AS PRECIOUS AS OURS

By Akin Ojumu

Anointed man of God. Powerful man of God. Great man of God. Mighty man of God. Special man of God. Supreme man of God. Monikers such as these ones are now commonly thrown around in the Church to describe ministers of the Gospel.

Expectedly, given the propensity of human beings to crave adoration, admiration, and adulation of people, whenever these preachers are referred to in such glowing terms, they tend to preen like peacocks, spreading out wide their beautifully colored feathers of pride and vanity.

What sort of mindset do people have that makes them want to shower such haughty accolades on any pastor? Why do you suppose they have such lofty views of preachers? You’d be surprised that the motivation is not as far-fetched as one may think.

Many Christians, sadly, have been programmed to see shepherds of God’s flock as demigods who belong to a special category of Christians. As a result of years of manipulation, the perception has been planted in the hearts and minds of a vast majority of Believers that the ministers of the Gospel live in a rarefied spiritual atmosphere from which they themselves are locked out. The faith of the man of God, they’ve been told, is higher and superior to everyone else’s.

To reinforce this elevated view that people have of them, you often hear preachers tell tales of their mystical experiences. Coloring themselves in the most grandiose terms, Churchgoers are indoctrinated into believing that pastors have an uncommon intimacy with God that grants them access to the throne room in Heaven. Because of their unrestricted access to the celestial realm, they are privy to the deep secrets of God. Such is their top-level security clearance that they are regularly read into some of the most highly sensitive classified materials of the Trinity. In fact, there have been instances when the Godhead have had to seek the pastors’ opinions on serious matters.

Having built such an aura of hyper-spirituality around themselves, it comes as no surprise then that they no longer use phrases such as, “Thus says the LORD” whenever they want to tell the people the “word” they purportedly heard from God. What they now say is, “Daddy asks me to tell you.” Of course, calling God, “Daddy,” is their way to letting their enchanted followers know how close they are to God, and it definitely sounds more intimate than ordinary, “Thus says the LORD.”

Incessantly, heavily anointed men of God regale their captive audience with stories of trips they’ve taken to Heaven. They boast about seeing the Almighty God face to face, notwithstanding what Exodus 33:20 says. With well-rehearsed eloquence, they brag about receiving direct instructions from the Lord Jesus when He casually walks into their bedroom; which happens to be on a regular basis. Likewise, the Holy Spirit reveals to them, in dreams and visions, events that would happen in the future.

Guess what? This is all a canard. These farcical claims of esoteric encounters are nothing but a ruse these preachers use to exercise control over their Church members and followers. The exotic tales they spin are nothing but figments of their vividly imaginative minds.

All Christians have the same faith. There’s no Christian whose faith or spiritual experience is superior or of a high-ranking than another Christian’s. And this is not just me saying it. Hear it from Apostle Peter, the leader of the twelve disciples.

2 Peter 1:1

“Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Here in this text, Peter emphasizes that our faith, i.e., the power to believe for one’s salvation, is obtained by an act of divine will. It’s not something anyone attains by personal effort, skill, or worthiness. God gives it in the same measure. And as far the quality of our faith is concerned, yours is of equal rank, position, honor, and standing as mine. There are no first-class or second-class Christians in God’s Church.

“Every saved Christian has received a faith of the same kind as, and of equal standing to, that of Peter and the other apostles. There is only one faith in Christ – not multiple faiths, not better and lesser faiths – and that one faith is something we receive by the righteousness of Jesus. Nobody is righteous because they were smart enough, or special enough on their own, to have faith in Christ. Leaders within the church are not morally or spiritually more valuable than others. It is only by Christ’s righteousness that we receive this precious, enormously valuable faith. Jesus secured this faith for us.” (Source: BibleRef).

How God operates His Church has not changed. The same way the giftings of the Holy Spirit operated in the first century Church is the same way they are meant to be today. Individual Believers are differently-endowed, differently-equipped, and differently-assigned. Yet we all serve  one another with equal value, purpose, and meaning within God’s Church.

1 Corinthians 12:4-11

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills.”

Preachers who promote or practice a spiritual caste system within the Body of Christ are windbags with a bloated sense of self-importance. Blowhards such as these have notoriously fragile egos and can’t help but keep feeding their insatiable sense of self-worth with fantastical whoppers of celestial escapades. 

Jude spoke of these loudmouths in his Epistle.

Jude 1:12

“They are clouds without water, carried along by the wind; fruitless trees in autumn, twice dead after being uprooted.”