Let us start this discourse by reading 1 Corinthians 3:9. his scripture informs us that we are laborers with God, we are God's garden or God's fields,
Let us start this discourse by reading 1 Corinthians 3:9. his scripture informs us that we are laborers with God, we are God’s garden or God’s fields, and we are His husbandry. We are God’s building, temple. Praise God! Please note the words ‘we are laborers’. Whether you are a paid staff of the church or you are a voluntary worker, you are still a co-laborer with God.
Take note of these important words also; commitment, excellence, strategy, purpose, sacrificial, giving, prayerful, ownership 4 out of these 8 elements are very critical in partnering with God. I want you to see God’s business and kingdom as your business. In the book of Luke 2:49 Jesus Christ said, ‘why are you looking for me?” Please, I want you to adopt that mentality as from now on. Jesus was asking his earthly parents why they were looking for him. He was stuck in the temple. ‘Why are you looking for me? I must be about my father’s business’.
You must treat the business of the kingdom of God as your business. Treat kingdom business the same way you would treat your trade, your profession or corporation. You have to treat it with the same attitude.
When something is your business you give it your all, you want it to prosper, you want it to profit. That’s why you have started the business. The bible says “in every labour (business) there is a profit (proverbs 14:23), Praise the Lord.
You must ‘own’ the business of the kingdom which is the church. God is your father. Look after everything as if it’s your father’s. We can illustrate this concept with a business being run by a man who has involved his son. If this man was diagnosed of a terminal health condition, you can be sure that he’ll do everything to hand over the business to his son and ensure that his son succeeds at it. You can view kingdom business as your ‘inheritance’. Though God cannot die, yet His desire is for His children to take kingdom business very seriously.
If the son disappoints the father, the father might be constrained to hand over the business to the manager because he is doing better than the son. May God never hand our inheritance to someone else (Amen).
Let’s look at Joshua 24:14, to see certain things about the kind of attitude we need to embrace as we go forward. It says, ‘now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth’ (take note of the words ‘serve’ and ‘in truth’), and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side’. What does Joshua mean by the ‘gods’? Anything else that will stand above God’s service in your heart, put it away. Everything else is secondary.
You must serve Him in sincerity and in truth because you fear Him. Now let’s change the word ‘fear’ to ‘love’; because you love him and you are treating it as your own. You must not serve God with any other motive or attitude. (Meditate on Judges 5: 23 and Jeremiah 48:10.) Be careful how you serve God if you want your work to be profitable and rewarded. Please, be careful. I pray in the name of the Lord Jesus that every curse listed in Deuteronomy 28 from verse 15 will not be your portion. We must be careful how we serve God as God’s staff because God is counting on us.
There are things that God cannot do. God can’t do everything. If you pray to God to bless you and to give you food and you now sit down and you say God should go to Mile 2 or Ojota market to go and buy you food. No matter how much God has blessed you, that food will remain in the market because you are irresponsible.
Or you finish cooking a meal and you say, ‘God come and eat it’. God will tell you, ‘I am a Spirit, I don’t eat physical food. The food is for you’. So there is a partnership, there is a responsibility. Praise the Lord!
Everything that I desire for God to do during any service, I often prayed them ahead, I have desires and I ask Him to take them over. In fact, I’m over prepared. Why? because it’s a business. Why won’t I be over prepared? There are people coming to the service and trusting God to bless them through my ministration. I have to position myself to be that channel of blessing.
1 Samuel 12:24 says ‘only ear the Lord’. This is the second time this phrase is being repeated’ only fear the Lord and serve Him in truth with all your heart’. Consider what great things God has done for you, by employing you. Remember God’s reward for you. God is not a debtor. When He appointed them 2 by 2, He sent them out to use the gift He had given them. He went with them. God Himself in Mark 16 went with them. God is still working, always working. Anywhere I go, God will have to work with me because i don’t know everything. It’s only He that knows everything. When you see a Pastor who God endows with a gift of knowledge or the word of wisdom, who do you think is at work? It’s God. He is only saying those things through that person.
If you read Luke 18: 22 – 30, you will see Jesus leading by example as a worker and as a leader. When you say you are a worker in church, you must lead by example. As workers of God, we are appointed and employed by God. Acts 6: 3 says “Therefore brethren look out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Spirit who we may appoint over this business”.
Now in the Pentecostal charismatic Church you don’t really go into the office of the deacons; but the office of the deacons is employing you as deacons and deaconess. It’s employing you over the business of the church.
When you talk about re branding of our gospel, the marketing of the gospel, the packaging of the gospel; the first thing you must be concerned about is building outside because that’s what people see. The second thing is the interior of your church; the interior of the building. We call that second packaging. Take a box of cereal It has a box. Inside that box there is a cellophane bag that the cereal is inside. The cereal is the product, which is the gospel. You must come for all trainings, meetings, services, bible study, etc. We should put on some business mind in the things of God. The gospel is the product, you must sell it.
Now as a sales man who want to sell something, you must look good. Imagine if a Pastor, on a Sunday morning, shows up in golf wear (shorts, tee shirt and sneakers), even if he is a good preacher, his packaging will not attract the congregation to buy his product. You must package yourself very well.
If you had strong ‘B.O’ you have to spray some things on yourself. If you know you have bad breath, you need to use mouth wash in addition to toothbrush. You need to look nice because the sales man is critical.
Now one of the things is this, the first person that you will first package is the Pastor because the Pastor is the number one person in the business. You know it is a business; you must be about your father’s business. It’s a business. Look at the way they talk about Jesus: he used ship to sell the gospel. He had a ship. That meant he must have had a good ship. He dressed well and his clothes fulfilled prophecy. They cast lots for it; they said his cloth didn’t have any seam. That’s designer dress.
This is what to do; you promote your church by these 4 things:
(1) the outside of your church,
(2) the interior of your church,
(3) your personal appearance and hygiene
(4) the packaging of the pastor.
In addition to these, you become an addicted student of the gospel; you must eat the word and meditate only on the gospel because you must know your product: its taste. I went to a place to minister where a lady took notes. She came to me after the ministration and said I quoted 52 scriptures which she went to check out whether all of them were correct.
She asked astonishingly, ‘how do you do it?’ I’m addicted to my product; because that is the only business I transact. I don’t do anything else. That is the way you must attend to your Father’s business.
Don’t use YOUR MOUTH TO PUT YOURSELF IN TROUBLE. Just like Job that cursed his own day with his mouth in Job 3:1. He prolonged his own problems with his own mouth. The church belongs to the Lord Jesus. I pray your mouth will not prolong trouble in the church and house. Where there is unity, humility, harmony, the blessing of the lord will automatically be commanded. Words are like strong wind Gob 8:2). We have to be careful with our words. We have to be careful with our ears. Don’t let your ears be receptor for sister ‘bucket mouth’. Wickedness is hidden in the tongue and sweet in the mouth. Isaiah said you can destroy with your words in your mouth. 2 Corinthians 2: 11 says the mouth is a dangerous doom.
If you want to be successful don’t let your mouth be for satanic use (psalm 34: 13) If you want to see good days, keep your tongue from speaking foul language or spreading false rumors of what you do not know 1Peter 3:10;. Stop all manner of evil speaking (1 Peter 2:1). Pastor Taiwo Odukoya doesn’t make negative comments about Nigeria, his country. He will always say Nigeria is the best. Words can destroy an organization. I beg everyone of you; your mouth can do wrong because it is a sword.
Proverbs 12:6; Ps 5:9-10;for there is no faithfulness in their mouth, their inward part is very wickedness, their throat is an open grave, it’s a burial ground. They flatter with their tongues. Look at verse 10, “destroy them oh Lord Let them fall by their evil counsel,’ cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions. They have rebelled against you.” It is a rebellion.
Rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft. Whenever we repent God blesses us. He says blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven.
Pastor Roy Mosaku.
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