To be ordained literally could be seen as having been decreed, appointed or formally established by some authority. To be ordained by God as a minister is being made ready to take over the mantle of leadership that comes from service in the vineyard of God to pasturing God’s people as shepherd to the flock in God’s house.
This involves the process by which individuals are consecrated, set apart and elevated to handle spiritual offices in God’s house and authorized to function in a ministerial capacity. By this, any believer appointed to take up certain duties in God’s house is opportune to be exposed to grace, divine empowerment by the Holy Spirit backed up by a spiritual endowment for the ministry’s work.
Such believer, being a servant of God by God’s grace and being conscious of the call to serve, must understand the supernatural workings of God to be a minister and devote his life to God’s service. He must also obtain spiritual gifts to enable him fully perform the assignments to which he has been ordained. In so doing, his actions will reflect who he is and what he believes. It means that he is every day a Christian, walking as Christ would have him walk, seeking the Lord for grace, power and enablement to obey His word daily.
The story is told of a young campus minister who would often appoint ordinary workers to teach and preach at fellowship meetings and whenever he made such appointments, the immediate response would be a decline from the worker on the ground that they are unworthy and unskilled to divide the word of truth. In compelling them to do the work, he leaves them with this charge…”in appointing you for this assignment, I am presenting you to God that he might sanctify you a usable vessel for His glory; I am exposing you to the grace of God reserved for the office of a minister.”
It is evident in scriptures that if God must use a man, He first prepares him. This preparation encapsulates sanctification, empowerment and enduement with grace to qualify him for His calling. “For whom He did ordain, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His son” (Romans 8:29-30). Gods’ ordination enhances the spiritual growth of any sincere Christian. This is true for the young beginner as it is for an established minister.
As God’s demand and the scope of one’s ordination becomes wider, God is apt to supply grace per time to meet the newer demands. For this reason, He reassured Apostle Paul, “my grace is sufficient for thee and my strength perfect in times of your weakness.”
Our prayers are never fervent enough, our knowledge is never sound enough, our zeal is never fiery enough, our religion is never pious enough and our love is nothing close to being perfect, so we are not sufficient of ourselves to rely in our own abilities. Our sufficiency is of God; in Him we are complete and as duty demands, God’s grace is supplied.
Ponder on the call of Jeremiah for when the call of God came to him and he said, “Ah Lord God! Behold I cannot speak for I am a child,” the Lord put forth His hand and touched His mouth and said, “behold I have put my words in your mouth” (Jeremiah 1:4-10). This is amazing grace and should not be a license for presumptuous trifling or negligence of scripturally prescribed means of grace but rather, when we have truly done all we are required to do, we may now rest by faith in God as our EBENEZER!
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