Obedience To God In Our Calling

Obedience To God Isn’t Always Easy

Jonah can be known as the reluctant missionary. He was disobedient, selfish, and sinful. He was totally prejudiced and found many times without faith; and yet God saw fit to use him. Now that gives great hope to many of us. Some of the things we are asked of God puts us in a stage that isn’t comfortable. But how can pure gold become pure without first going through the fire to rid itself of impurities? It can’t. And neither can we. Obedience to God isn’t always easy, but a requirement of what it means to have true faith.

“When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.”   -Jonah 2:7

Tadios Msipa, a student of CLI, experienced his own command from the Lord. He found obedience to God isn’t always at the best convenient times in our life as he writes, “The call of God is one call I have tried to do a Jonah on, however the callings of God are without repentance. My name is Tadios Msipa. I am a pastor at House of Refugee Global Ministries in Maseru, Lesotho. I was born more than four decades ago in the Southern African republic of Zimbabwe. It was while in my Junior High School that I became born again and became a Christian. I have been a Christian for more than twenty-five years. After getting born again, I was privileged to work in several high profile positions in Financial Institutions and Non-Governmental Organizations. Earlier on in my life, I received several prophetic words concerning my call to ministry. I chose to ignore those words over a very long period of time. I did this primarily for two reasons. The first one being fear of poverty. I grew up seeing a lot of struggling pastors and I thought pastoral work was certainly not my piece of cake. Over the years, I wrestled with God and told Him that I needed my two children to first graduate before I entered into full time Ministry. The second reason I could not get started in ministry is due to the lack of know-how on the part of what to do when I needed to start ministry.”

Without Obedience To God, Trouble Comes Our Way

Isn’t it so true how trouble in so many different ways come our way? We will criticize ourself in the behavior or lack of faith we have. We know better and struggle to completely surrender to God’s will. We fall on hardships and begin to see little by little things go from good to bad or not so good to even worse. Is it our disobedience? What is God teaching us in this trial? If we begin to have obedience to God, will we too be thrown up out of the whale as Jonah discovered? But even as Jonah faced the storm, God was always with him. And with us, God is with us during rays of shine or stormy weather.

“In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials…”    -1 Peter 1:6

Here is what trouble came to Tadios as he states, “In 2006, there was a serious economic meltdown in my country and I came to Lesotho in search of greener pastures. I joined a leading charismatic church in the nation. I continued to serve the Lord as a minister for seven years. The Lord again reminded me of the call upon my life. I was willing to obey, but I did not know how to get into ministry, especially given that I had no papers for ministry. The Lord then sent a prophetess I never knew to rebuke me about my refusal to obey God. It was at that point in time that I chose to get started with a new ministry as the lay Pastor. I have been in that role for the past six months and I realize that although I have the call of God upon my life I need equipping in theology, but since our ministry is relatively new they could not send me to any bible school. However, by the grace of God, as I googled on the net I saw Christian Leaders Institute, which offers free Ministry Education.”

Obedience To God Fulfills Many Purposes For Self And For The Seeds We Bring Forth

Now, the record of Jonah is not just the biography of a reluctant missionary. He does have some redeeming virtues, and God has placed it here for our edification; the point that He wants to make is how God can recover such a person. Once Jonah received redemption, his obedience to God was willingly there to be used and a whole town was saved by God’s grace. We must fulfill what God is asking of us. You never know who God is trying to reach by using you. We are a vessel for God’s Spirit to indwell in. 

“Even if good people fall seven times, they will get back up.”    -Proverbs 24:16

With Tadios surrendering to the Lord and in his own obedience to God, he has been bearing fruit through the Spirit of God. He claims, “I have since completed my high quality certificate in Basic Christian Leadership and hope to go all the way to the diploma. I am grateful to all donors and sponsors who sponsor this Godly Institute to empower kingdom workers who are fully equipped for Kingdom business. It is also our hope that as our Ministry grows we will also donate to CLI so that other ministers may also benefit as I and many others are doing. This certificate will certainly help us impact the nation of Lesotho for Jesus as we populate heaven and plunder hell.”

Let us pray for Tadios and all missionaries to stay on the path God is taking us on. Let us not be led astray by fear. For we are on a mission. We must reach the lost. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen!