Acts 16:6 Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10 After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
The call of the Lord that came in a dream to Paul one night was memorialized in this large stirring mosaic in Varia. The people of what was ancient Berea have built this in memory of the one who obeyed the call of God to bring the gospel to their ancestors. This mosaic pictures a man in Greek clothing calling Paul to come over here to help us.
As we read the opening verses of Acts 16, we find Paul and his companion Silas, together with others who joined them in the ministry, seeking the Lord’s guidance as to where they were to go. Who was on God’s heart? Who was the Lord longing to see come into his Kingdom? Where did they live? I can imagine Paul and his companions asking that question again and again as they encounter various problems which they see as the hand of God holding them back from certain areas of the Roman world. So they finally come to a town called Troas.
Here it seems Paul may have gotten sick since the doctor named Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, joins up with the traveling group. But one night, Paul sees a vision. A man of Macedonia is begging him to come over to his land to help. Immediately they set sail for the region we call Greece today.
So often in our lives we just know what God wants and we don’t wait upon his direction. We pursue our ways and our thoughts. But God is the one who is in charge of the world. He’s even in charge of our lives. Our plans must always be laid before the Lord to seek his will. In fact, it’s best to seek his will before we make our plans. Has your life been open to God’s plans or do you run ahead of him on your own?
Calling is the Only Currency Required to Receive Training
At Christian Leaders Institute we are providing the sort of training that makes possible the response to God’s clear call that we so often ignore. I heard people say to me many times that God was in need of people like me to serve his Kingdom. Over the years I have come to realize that was not accurate at all. First of all, God does not need people to accomplish his great work of salvation. But, on the other hand, God has chosen to call people to be his servants in the work of the gospel. The second fallacy is that God does not need people like me. Rather, the truth is that God needs me. As long as I believe that God needs people LIKE me, I can tell myself that God is calling someone else. “Here I am Lord, send George, he’s a lot like me!” No, God needs you and he needs me to accomplish his work in our world today.
Paul knew that God had called him to be his servant in the spreading of the Good News of Jesus. He did not try to escape the call, he simply obeyed the call. That is what we at CLI are affirming. In many lives all over the face of the earth today, people are hearing God’s call to them, not to people like them. We provide the training they need to be the best person they can be as a servant of the Most High God.
You may have seen roadblocks to being used of God just as Paul and his companions did. But then God gave them an open door for ministry. Here at Christian Leaders Institute we see thousands of people who are called by God to ministry but who do not have the funds needed for a traditional Bible School training. Our President, Henry Reyenga, is fond of saying, “The currency we accept here at CLI is your calling.” When God calls you, we come alongside and provide you with the tools needed to be equipped to bear witness for Jesus in your community. Do you hear the lost in your community calling for you to help them? Like Paul, you can know that by means of those lost people, God is calling you to serve. That is a privilege you can give your life for!
Elisha Masiku is a man called by God, but without the free training offered by CLI he would have been unable to pursue his calling further than his local church. Here is his testimony.
I became the beloved of Christ empowered to God’s sonship when I was 13 years of age. Indeed I should indicate that I do not have much to testify about how I got saved at that age. I only remember that the one who adopted me loved God very much. In fact he is the pastor of Peace ministries Church of God, who could not resist preaching the word of God to me. I accepted right away the anointed word of Christ. I want to follow the example of this pastor in a sense of becoming a pastor too with several college papered work experience as of Christian Institute.
Wonderfully at present as the one of the leaders at my Church do feels good to be a well trained member of Christ’s family with your CLI mentorship so that my fellow leaders and I can successfully lead people with conflict free leadership compared as it has been before. And as the pastor’s backup in my Church i am so grateful seeing that what I have obtained from the getting started course has already started bearing fruits to the work of God. Generally the Church has been so supportive of my ministry considering how they (people) and God have trusted me for this period of more than thirteen years of experience. I am also thankful to my family from grandparents through all family members for their support for me. I am thankful that I can have the great opportunity of studying with CLI. I truly thank God for this: especially for my mother who is alive by now and not forgetting those that died.
The scholarship is so important for me because it will help me understand how I can reach people who have been called by God.
I pray you that you should pray for me to have enough financial support so that God’s work can reach the remotest area of Malawi, which I am from, as well as other places hardly reached; which I pray shall be reached by those that I have reached with this God’s truth. Amen.
In a book entitled Treasure in Clay Jars, we can find this statement which (among several others) describes a congregation on a mission from God. “The church understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death, and resurrection of its Lord.” (Barrett, et al, Eerdmans, 2004)
A congregation that is going to change the community in which it finds itself needs to understand this fact. In a class I once took, we studied “the mission of God in the Old Testament.” In that class, we focused on the many facets of God’s mission as we see it in the prophets, in the temple rituals, in the everyday affairs of Israel in the ancient times, and in the role God gave to the leaders of his people. In many ways the people of God were expected to be noticeably different from the culture that surrounded them. They were to be a unique people whose lives and culture raised the question of “Why?” among the nations surrounding ancient Israel.
A couple of “for examples” might be helpful here. The nation of Israel, in its infancy, had no king by God’s won design. They were to live in God’s Promised Land without the need of a King who would be their national leader. They had God as their king. They did not need a cheap knock-off of the real thing. The question would arise among those who saw it, “Why would no one take control of this people and its land?” The answer would be that God’s people already had all they needed in God’s Book of the Torah to shape their lives with justice, with mercy, and with humility. What more could a king do? Or, as another for example, all the rituals in the Temple which had been carefully circumscribed by God as He taught Moses how worship was to be carried on were for the purpose of creating a “Why?” in the minds of those who observed their worship. Why was there no visible image of God? Why was there just one family whose lineage gave the whole nation their priests? Why was there just one central location for worship? From our perspective thousands of years later, it is clear that God was demonstrating that he was not like anything humanity could imagine for themselves. He was the One who was the Truth, and there was no other.
History teaches us that such wonder was simply too great for the humans who made up God’s people in the ancient times. It was a treasure that was carried around in clay jars. Those pots would crack and break and fall to pieces. In the process something of the wonder of God among his people would be lost and the “Why?” of the peoples around Israel would be muted. It looked all too often as if God’s people were just like the culture around them and the beauty of life in the presence of God would go unlived and unknown.
But God was not deterred for He was committed to bring his Good News to the lives and hearts of the people he loved. Finally, in the fullness of time, as the Bible puts it, Jesus was born. God’s own Son came into the world. Finally, here was a jar made of clay that could withstand the threats of breakage. It was because God himself was in Christ so that he could reconcile the world to himself. Of course, there were those who thought they could destroy that clay jar. But, in his death, Jesus paid for the sinful debt of mankind, in his resurrection he demonstrated for all that the clay jar could withstand even death itself. Now he lives at God’s right hand as the Great King that he is. No, cheap knock-off, Jesus is the real thing!
We are Clay Jars, Jesus is the Treasure!
Today the church/congregation that sees itself as participating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus finds that the mission of Jesus becomes their mission as well. We will readily admit that we are clay jars! But we carry the treasure of God in these clay jars and we know that in Christ, we shall change the very life character of the communities of which we are a part.
At Christian Leaders Institute we are providing training to Christian leaders so that they can participate more effectively in their churches in enabling the churches to be caught up fully in the Mission of God in the world today, For example, Vee writes the following:
“The main goal I feel I am being called to and hope to attain is to be an active working tool of God. I want training so that I can help give light on the foot paths of so many who have accepted that a dark and brooding way of life is all there is for them. To be able to share the love of a wondrous and caring God through His word and creation is a huge blessing to so many. To be able to help someone over what might seem like an insurmountable hurdle, all the while watching God grow inside of them and feeling the peacefulness that blossoms, is such a truly wonderful miracle.”
Another of our students, Uwegba writes of how he sees his calling to participate in the life of Jesus and so bring the light of Jesus to others who do not have that life. He writes,
“I have a project I am currently about to do in Nigeria which is a medical outreach for people in rural areas. I am currently gathering medical and nursing Christians who have volunteered to be part of our mission. My dream is to put a smile in the faces of many by introducing them to Jesus through doing good for them, just as Jesus went about doing good.”
While each of us and our congregations as well may only be jars of clay, the treasure we carry is extremely valuable. You too, even if you see yourself as a cracked jar of clay, maybe thinking you are useless, you can participate in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In so dong, you can carry the treasure God has been entrusting to his people for millennia.