Ministry Offices ~ The Calling

If you are called into one of the ministry offices, you know it.  It becomes known to you in God’s timing.  When the Lord calls, it gets confirmed by different sources, people and a lot of times, with the laying on of hands.  It is a call into the ministry office of God’s choosing not our own.  

God can confirm through people; through circumstances; through dreams and His scriptures.  Though it could take a lifetime to fulfill, one knows that from the beginning of the call that they were chosen for that ministry.  Though that calling can also change over time.  For instance, according to The Elijah Task (Sandford, John; Paula Sandford): “Pastors and teachers are often elevated to become prophets, and prophets to become apostles.”

Some don’t want to answer the call and the Lord makes their life very uncomfortable until they do.  And then there are those that are zealous for the call when they should be content and wait on the Lord to fulfill His purpose in them.  Either way, God will make it clear if you are called into a ministry.  He will pursue you and there’s really no turning from the right hand or to the left…He will pursue you until you answer the call.

“Once we have heard, He will confirm the call by personal signs and then through others. Not all confirmations come from members of His body. The Lord has often brought the least likely angels as His messengers to us. Strangers and unbelievers have been used to tell us things, the depth of which they did not know. This sort of thing is not uncommon among the Lord’s people… The Lord may speak through anyone or anything to confirm His message to His servants the prophets.

Whoever receives a call from God to high service—evangelism, prophecy, ministry, priesthood, or whatever it may be—should renounce whatever has formed him. This is not to insult his heritage. It is to cut apron strings. It is to deny any further formation by the old carnal life. Now he will be formed by and serve only the God who has called him.”  Sandford, John; Paula Sandford. The Elijah Task.

I might add here, that the call to ministry can come at any time of your life; young; middle-aged or older.  Whatever God wants.

See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven.  (Hebrews 12:25).

At times, the Lord changes a name during the ‘Call’ to indicate a likeness of ministry to a biblical figure.  For instance, early on in my call my mentor received a new name for me.   But before she did, I received the call by God.  Here is the story.

This happened after I rededicated my life to the Lord and received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  In the summer of 1996, praying while on a walk, I got my first scripture address. It was Amos 3:7 “Surely the Lord God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.”  I was so excited; I knew what my gift was…prophecy! 

Later, my mentor Cindy confirmed my calling with a word from the Lord telling me to study the gift of prophecy.  The Lord also gave me a new name through Cindy, it was Deborah.  The name of Deborah was given to me in 1996 but was not confirmed until the year 2000, when the child of a customer of mine called me Deborah “like the prophetess.”  When I met a future prayer partner, she also called me Deborah.  I told no one of my new name prior to it being confirmed in 2000.  In the Bible, Deborah was a prophetess and a judge for the Israelites (Judges 4 & 5).

The assignment of a new name is not unusual in the Bible. According to compellingtruth.org: “Through the course of interaction with His people, God occasionally changed someone's name. It was generally done to establish a new identity that God wished them to embody.”

A famous evangelist we all know received his ‘Call’; in a quiet way. “In the late 1930s, 20-year-old Billy Graham dropped to his knees on the dewy fringe of the 18th green of what is now the Temple Terrace Golf and Country C

lub. ‘The moonlight, the moss, the breeze, the green golf course – all the surroundings stayed the same,’ Graham said in his autobiography. ‘No sign in the heavens. No voice from above. But in my spirit, I knew I had been called to the ministry. And I knew my answer was yes.’”  

Rev. Billy Graham Found Evangelical Voice in Temple Terrace, Tampa | WUSF Public Media

“Those whom God calls to the ministry; He equips for the ministry. God anoints those called and gives them the spiritual ability to stand in whatever office He calls them to. No one can “put” anyone else in a ministry office. God alone sets people into these offices. Other people may recognize and acknowledge such a calling, but it is God who calls and sets these ministry gifts in the Church.

To enter a ministry office requires a Divine call. God gives the Divine call; He bestows the spiritual equipment for the ministry; and He requires certain qualifications of those in the ministry. What is important is a person’s obedience to the call of God.  Called and separated by God; confirmed by man using Paul’s ministry (his name was changed from Saul) as a biblical example of an apostle, we can see that a person needs to be called by God before his call to the ministry is ever confirmed by man.

You won’t find anywhere in the New Testament where believers are called and separated to a ministry office by people. Sometimes God may use people to confirm the call a person already has in his own spirit, but people can’t call or set anyone into the ministry.” Hagin, Kenneth E. He Gave Gifts Unto Men.

Another ‘Calling’ I found fascinating was heard when I attended a friend’s wedding. I met a woman of prayer who had a miraculous story of how God called her into ministry by using an open vision of Bavaria as she sat working in her corporate office.  The Lord told her to quit her job and move to Bavaria.  She saw the streets of the town in Europe and knew she had to answer His call.  She did just that, quit her corporate job and moved.  Now that is faithfulness and obedience in action!

Kenneth Hagin once said: “Higher offices do not receive any greater reward; there is just responsibility that goes along with the office.  Be faithful to fulfill your ministry.”

It would be remiss of me to end this series on ministry offices without speaking a difficult truth.  In addition to more responsibility, you can be sure that with these offices, also comes training and with training comes suffering.   Though there could be years before the answered ‘call’ manifests itself into action.  If you have received a call into His ministry, wait on Him to fulfill.  With the passage of time brings wisdom.

An inheritance gained hastily at the beginning will not be blessed at the end.  (Proverbs 20:21).

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.  (Psalm 32:8).