At least once every month I see a street magician set up his ‘apparatus’ at some vantage point on the streets of Accra to display his magical powers in the full glare of a captivated crowd encircling him and his side kick. I have been told that it is actually a ploy to create the opportunity for pickpockets to steal from people. I don’t know how true that is but what I do know is that the goal of a street magician is to ‘WOW’ his audience but the end goal of the miraculous is to solve a problem and glorify God.

In 2015 I was in a service and Dr. Lawrence Tetteh prayed for a little girl whose legs were unequal in length. All of us in the congregation literally saw the little girl’s leg grow out slowly. It was amazing. I had never seen anything like that before. I was wowed! It was spectacular. However, the point is God didn’t set out to impress us by that miracle that day. He has already done that enough in the splendor and majesty of the universe and creation at large. That day God simply set out to solve a problem in a little girl’s life. It was a health problem. This reality dawned on me when the lady sitting next to me told me the little girl’s story. Apparently, she knew her and long story short, the little girl was supposed to have a surgery some time ago but her parents couldn’t afford it. It was then that it really dawned on me that what just happened was a major solution to a problem in the little girl’s life only that the solution came dressed in the supernatural. The miraculous is meant to make social impact so let’s not get lost in the grandeur and forget the true purpose of miracles. In my opinion this is the reason why Jesus didn’t sin when the devil tempted him. He knew that the true purpose of the miraculous was to help people and bring glory to God. Miracles are not done to merely show off God’s power. Some of us wouldn’t have even known that the devil was tempting us if we were in Jesus’ shoes. We would have seen it as an opportunity to show off God’s power. But it wasn’t. Where is the problem solved? Where is the glory to God? If Jesus had done the devil’s bidding he would have cheapened the miraculous and dishonored God who gives us power to do miracles.

When Jesus healed the blind, the lame, the leprous etc. he was solving health problems. In the book of Acts Peter’s shadow and aprons rubbed off on Paul’s body healed sick people – a solution to health problems too. When Joseph, used his gift of prophecy (word of wisdom) to save Egypt and other nations from famine, he was solving a hunger and economic problem. When Jesus fed the 5000 men and the 4000 men, he too was solving a hunger problem. When Moses used the power of his rod to save the children of Israel from Egypt, he was solving a slavery and servitude problem. The bad water of Jericho was killing people, when Elisha prophesied over the water and turned it into good water, he was solving an environmental problem. In the garden of Gethsemane when the soldiers came for Jesus, Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of one of the soldiers. Jesus healed the soldier (by putting the ear back in its place, I suppose) right there and then he rebuked Peter. When Jesus did that, he was dealing with the problem of religious extremism. When Jesus instructed Peter to go catch a fish, open its mouth and remove some money from it and use it to pay the temple tax, what he was doing was employing the miraculous to solve a financial problem in the temple. I can go on and on and space and time won’t allow me to finish giving examples.

In our day and age though there is a dramatic advancement in science and technology yet the miraculous has not lost its essence. Healing evangelists are moving from town to town, city to city and country to country, healing the sick, raising the dead and above all restoring the lost to the fold of God. These are examples of social problems being solved by the hand of God. Advancement in knowledge doesn’t mean the miraculous is outmoded neither does the miraculous imply that there is no need for pursuing knowledge. We need Christians to function in both capacities to the glory of God. I believe the advancement humanity has made in knowledge helps us (those who haven’t experienced certain health problems before) appreciate the cost of a miracle sometimes. Until you know how expensive an eye surgery is, you will never understand the joy of a poor blind man healed at one of the Healing Jesus Crusades organized by Bishop Dag Heward Mills. We may never know what it feels like to be blind, but the fact that we can put a price tag on what it takes to make a blind man see, when his sight is restored unto him by an act of God, we too can understand to some extent what it means.

The miraculous must always be employed to solve problems in the lives of people and ultimately bring glory and joy to God. Jesus said in Matthew 10:8 “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give”. This sounds like a command to believers. We are commanded to do these things. Are you carrying out this command? Am I? The last sentence also sounds like a caveat. We are warned by Jesus to do all these things without taking a fee because the ability to do miracles is given to believers freely. Remember, when a socially impactful activity is made for sale it is no longer a noble act but a business. So may we not make profit from that which we have been commanded to give freely.

Therefore I sat before the vetting committee and timidly refused to take up the opportunity to serve God in a higher capacity. Very few things I have experienced in my entire life can be compared to the emotional roller coaster I went through afterward. I felt I had disappointed my superiors. I felt like a coward for choosing the easy way out. Most traumatizing of all, I felt I had disappointed my Maker. But hey, God makes all things beautiful in His own time, doesn’t he? All things work together for the good of those who love God, don’t they? Fast-forward, my roommates and I signed up to attend the Berea Bible Academy that semester. The meeting times of the Bible Academy would have clashed with the meeting times of the executives of my campus ministry. Basically, I couldn’t have attended classes at Berea (as we affectionately called it) had I accepted the nomination. The Berea Bible Academy was such a blessing to me that nobody can convince me God hadn’t purposed it for me at that point in my life. I owe so much of my knowledge of scripture to Berea. Anytime I look back, I think to myself, so what if I had accepted the nomination? Would I have pleased man, my ego, or my God? Was it my calling to be promoted to a higher position or to attend the Berea Bible Academy? Your guess is as good as mine.

Not all “God-sized” visions are from God. Many are from a god-sized ego, and have no claims on God’s provision.

— JR Vassar (@jrvassar) August 18, 2016

The conversation that ensued between Jesus and the woman at the well is one that has enormous relevance to various aspects of our walk with God. Jesus’ response to the woman’s question, for example, is one that carries so much weight. He told her there was a time coming when the true worshipers of God would worship God in SPIRIT and in TRUTH. Often we stress the part that requires us to worship God in spirit. This simply means nothing physical – geographical location, artifacts, paraphernalia, etc. – should determine the quality of our worship. I don’t have to travel from Ghana to Jerusalem to offer worship to God anymore. It used to be like that though. However, we mostly turn a blind eye to the second part that suggests we must worship God in TRUTH. To worship God in truth means to worship God in sincerity and in all honesty. Since worship and sacrifice are synonymous in Christianity, it means we must offer our acts of worship or sacrifice to God in sincerity. Therefore, do not sign up for a task that you cannot do and later resign.

No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God – Luke 9:62

Remember Ananias and Saphira? This is exactly what killed them. They pledged to offer God the full amount of the property they sold. So when they withheld a certain portion of the whole amount, it cost them their lives. What if they had pledged to give half of the amount they sold the property for and redeemed the pledge? Would they have died? Certainly not! All I am saying is, DO NOT BITE MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW. I am in no way promoting sluggishness or laziness when it comes to working for the Lord. All I am saying is, in all sincerity, take up the tasks that you can do and trust in the Grace of God to empower you to do it. It is better this way than to opt to work for God in a certain capacity that your faith won’t allow you to trust God enough to see you through. Our walk with God is based on faith. The just shall live by faith and without faith, it is impossible to please God. We all don’t have the same level of faith. Therefore, if the complexity of the task you desire to do is too much for your faith in GOD to carry you through it, just let it go… maybe for a later time. 

I still have a feeling most people might misinterpret what I have said so far, so here is another reference. In Numbers 11, Moses encountered this very problem. He was leading a rebellious generation of 600,000+ men on foot. They murmured and challenged his leadership every chance they got. One man leading 600,000+ men was certainly more meat in his mouth than he could chew. After Moses complained bitterly, God instructed him to select 70 elders from the tribes of Israel and the Lord himself took of the spirit that was upon Moses and placed it on the 70 also. Imagine the relief that Moses felt. It means he was doing the work of 71 men all that while and didn’t even know it. The stress! 

Undue fame, exposure, and recognition can kill you. That is how David orchestrated the death of Uriah. He ordered that Uriah be positioned at the place where the battle was fiercest. Usually, the soldiers who fight in that position are the ones who come back home with ample stories to tell of their heroic deeds. Uriah wasn’t qualified to be fighting in that position. Nevertheless, it is sad that in his case he couldn’t have declined the order because it was a decree from the king. But here is a typical example of what I have been saying all along. He was killed because he got promoted. In fact, he was promoted to be killed. All was lost because the spotlight was placed on him. God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called. 

God cares for your soul as much as he cares for the souls he will save through you. This is why sometimes we see very anointed men and women of God serving in lower capacities (than WE would expect them to) or away from the public eye. Stephen is a typical example of this. He was chosen together with 6 others to serve food on tables to widows. He was assigned to serve food like a waiter. Meanwhile, the bible describes him as  “… a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”. Yet he was ordered to serve food on tables. Stephen was the first martyr ever! The first person to be killed for his faith in God after the death of Christ. His knowledge of scripture was impeccable (Check out his speech to the Sanhedrin in Acts 7). He understood the things of God and operated in spiritual gifts. Still, he was assigned to serve food on tables.

If you’re desiring for God to grow your platform… just understand what you’re really asking is to increase your capacity to serve others.

— Ezekiel Azonwu (@wordsbyezekiel) August 16, 2016

Not every opportunity to minister in a certain capacity is the will of God for you. Sometimes we accept these opportunities to tickle our egos. We may have genuine reasons why we would want to serve God in a higher capacity, but we need to understand that a higher capacity is just more grounds to serve more people.

How will you know if an opportunity to serve God in a certain capacity comes from God himself? I believe one sure way to know this is when you don’t desire to get noticed, recognized, or rewarded by a man for your work in that capacity. In all this, it is imperative to trust that God can promote any and everyone and still work on them to fit into that position. Would you still do what you do if you wouldn’t get noticed by men? Knowing that your father who sees you in secret will reward you openly is enough motivation to serve God in any capacity. It is the motive of your actions that matter and not how visible they are to man.

References: Numbers 11, Acts 6 and 7 and John 4

We sound really petty anytime we want to figure how much attention God deserves. Some want to treat him like a personal property that they are unwilling to share with the world. Others think the big stages of this world are too sinful for God to feature on. *as if He didn’t know that*. If the volume of sin could deter God from showing up anywhere then he wouldn’t have appeared on earth to save humanity from sin. He could have stayed in heaven and basked in his own holy presence,  but he chose to do otherwise. There isn’t a place on this earth or in the universe that God doesn’t deserve to be present or displayed. God quizzes us in Jeremiah 23:24 ‘… do I not fill heaven and earth?’ Can anybody ever get any more mainstream  than that? So thanks … but no thanks for your help, God isn’t insecure about his place, he already knows it.

This issue remains a never-dying argument amongst Christians: whether God deserves recognition on the mainstream level or not. It isn’t ours to decide, but the verse quoted from Jeremiah above reveals to us that God isn’t one to fit into boxes. It is just not in him to do that. The last time I checked, even foxes refuse to go into boxes because they are too big, so why should God? Let’s not make the issue about whether or not God deserves to be in the spotlight on the big stages of this world. We must rather be concerned about how he is portrayed on those stages. Is he being depicted as the God he is? Are people misrepresenting him as Aladin’s genie who is simply there to satisfy human desires? Or is he being portrayed as sovereign, gracious, loving, just, holy etc.? These should be the crux of the discussions we have on this matter. The size of the stage God is put on doesn’t matter as compared to what he is doing there.

One thing we must always bear in mind is that, with God it is not a matter of being on the big stage but rather drawing small and big crowds to himself so he can save them. This is evident in the New Testament where we can see Jesus himself not forcing to be recognized as one of the elite in the society but rather mingling with the lowlifes in such a profound way that even the elite set out to meet and be with him. First of all, Jesus was born in a manger – this isn’t mainstream at all. He is the King whose birth had been prophesied centuries before it actually happened, so one would have expected a more royal entry into this world. Nope… none of that. He was born in a stinking manger. Here is the depiction of the assertion I made earlier. At his birth, shepherds came to worship him. When he was a little older, wise men (Kings) came all the way from the East to present gifts to him. God can transform a small stage into a big one. As I said, he doesn’t have to mingle with the elite to get their attention, but he knows how to pull a crowd to himself when he is allowed to. The same thing happened in John The Baptist’s ministry. He was described as ‘.. the voice of one crying out in the wilderness’. The headquarters of his ministry was in the wilderness yet people came from the city to be baptized by him. Even the Messiah went to the River Jordan and John baptized him too. It is not about being in the midst of the elite. It isn’t really about being in the capital. God will and can use you wherever you are; whether in the city or in a remote village. He really can use you if you give him pre-eminence on whatever stage you are on.

With that being said, one thing I have noticed is that Christians often criticize Men and Women of God who are in the mainstream for absolutely no reason. I find that particularly strange. It is as if once somebody’s ministry grows the person is assumed to have sold his soul to the devil. Or once a particular preacher is on TV, then it means he is doing it for the money. The most pathetic of all is the way people doubt the credibility of a man of God when an uncommon miracle is recorded in his ministry. That is actually blasphemous. You expect your God to be doing the normal things … like healing headache and flu? Not the God I know.

It appears you are spotless before God because you have a congregation of 50 people right? Wait till your congregation grows to just 1200. I was the head of a department in my Campus Ministry; a department of about 15 people. The long and short of the story is, managing people isn’t cool beans. Your ministry seems flawless because you are not on TV. Your voice seems amazing because your songs are not on radio yet. Wait till the critics hear you sing. Wait till the modern day Pharisees here you preach. Let us not merely tear people down because they are in the mainstream. Some are actually there because God has appointed them to influence the culture that way. When we do that, we sort of accredit every single ministry that isn’t big. As if having a small congregation is the indicator that your ministry is pleasing to God. When Jesus fed the 5000 men, it was because 5000 men had followed him to be blessed by his ministry. That is mainstream. At another place, he fed 4000 men – that is mainstream too. On the day of Pentecost, when Peter finished preaching 3000 people joined the church. Paul preached in the Synagogue in Antioch (Acts 13), the following Sabbath almost the whole city came to the synagogue to hear him preach. That is mainstream! Is there an auditorium that can accommodate half of the people in your city? These were the sizes of the crowds that Jesus and the Apostles pulled in their individual ministries. If you doubt the credibility of a man of God merely because he is on TV; Radio; at every crusade; on social media etc. you might as well doubt the credibility of Jesus and the Apostles. People hail Joshua as a better leader than Moses because he led the children of Israel into Canaan. They do this forgetting that Moses had a much bigger congregation. How can you manage a ministry of over 600,000 people? Moses deserves a lot more credit than we give him for his leadership skills and the anointing upon his life.

At a point in time, Paul was described in Acts 24:5 (ESV) as ‘a plague’ because of his zeal for the things of God. Can you imagine what Paul would have done if he had social media, TV, Radio etc.? He was called a plague just because he walked on foot spreading the word of God to the masses. I am sure Paul and the rest are looking down and shaking their heads at how Christians are not taking advantage of the new media available to us. Stop hating. Study the principles of the ones who have made it and follow suit. The reason you can spot their mistakes is because they are on TV. They are human; when your ministry reaches that level too people will look at you through the lenses of a microscope to point out the minutest errors in your ministry.

I won’t sit here and pretend every mainstream ministry is of God. There are wolf in sheep’s clothing on TV these days. We have seen gospel musicians who watered down their message to suit mainstream standards. All these are pathetic. I believe in a gracious God who is intolerant of sin and the misrepresentation of who He is. All these people shall be punished by God if they don’t repent – it is not in our place to do that. So instead of generalizing and making it look like the mainstream corrupts the gospel, let us pray for the ones doing it right so their lights will forever shine. Jesus and the apostles never made the mainstream corrupt their message, they stayed focused.

They weren’t moved by the crowds; they moved the crowds.

When Jesus saw the crowd he was driven by compassion because to him they were like sheep without a shepherd. He didn’t see the crowd as a money-making venture. His aim was to impart into their lives. I appreciate people in village evangelism and pastors who pastor small congregations because every soul is as precious as any other soul to God.

Let us see ourselves as co-labourers in the Lord’s vineyard. If we were in a literal vineyard, I doubt anybody would criticize the labourer who has the largest portion of land to work on. Many would rather offer to help him instead of point accusing fingers at him. The pastor with the biggest congregation is actually the labourer with the largest portion of land to work on. His task is enormous. He needs your prayers, encouragement, advice etc. Don’t tear him down and later go on your knees to pray for what he has. It is highly hypocritical to do that.