To Spiritual Prefects

Ezra and Nehemiah were contemporaries, meaning they lived at the same time. In fact we see Nehemiah talking about Ezra’s ministry.

This means that their circumstances were more or less similar.

Yet I want us to see something strikingly different in the way they reacted to situations to get us appreciate that who we are determines how we respond to situations. It explains why some will call others insane just because their reaction to the same situation is so different.

Nehemiah was raised in the palace while Ezra was raised as a priest, a minister.

Each of them is given a blank cheque by the king to return to Judah. But above that Ezra is given immense treasure to carry back to the temple.

Nehemiah is all logistics; letters and more letters. He met challenges with clear logistical excellence.

Ezra sees a serious security challenge. Imagine ferrying billions through enemy territory!

Of course he could have like Nehemiah requested for an army to escort them. But what does he do?

He calls for a fast. Requesting for protection to him was akin to compromising his witness to the king.

Why the difference? I dare say that the difference is that between a believer and a minister. Though both are believers, one has a higher threshold of faith than the other.

Yet what is even more striking comes later.

Judah has compromised the marriage institution by marrying into tribes God had forbidden.

The logistician does what they always do; call them, scold and shame them, pull out their hair, etc.

What does the minister do? He goes into prayer and repentance.

Nehemiah shows them how bad their situation is. Ezra prays them into repentance.

I am not saying that one is better than the other, unless we are like many who create a caste system in ministry, where an evangelist is the most junior and an archbishop or apostle is at the pinnacle.

Nehemiah was as called as Ezra. It was their calls that operated differently, as all calls do.

When Peter talked about deacons, he was not saying that serving widows (tables as he said) was beneath his calling. He was simply stating that there were others in the church that had been called and equipped for that ministry.

That is why the bar placed on them was as high as the apostolic one. No wonder the eloquence of one of them astounded the Jewish leadership as to scheme for his stoning! We also see Philip running a revival in Samaria and later sharing the Gospel to an African. The deacons were as good as the apostles with the difference that they had been equipped for the ministry of tables.

God will equip one according to the calling He places on him.

Nehemiah did not have less faith than Ezra. It is the equipping and enablement of that faith that differed from that of Ezra.

Why is this important?

Have you ever scolded or rebuked (probably in your heart) someone for the folly that they were saying is faith?

I once overheard my friends talking about their friend who had many children and I was disgusted. I am sure they talk the same about me because I also have many children. And to imagine it was their friend!

How does someone call someone an idiot because he has children?

Have you ever judged (again probably in your heart) someone who decided to leave a very good and well paying job or business to join a ministry that had no potential to compensate them? Did you wonder what drug they had ingested to get into such folly?

Yet it is in the specifics of ministry that things become weird.

People have approached me to equip them for ministry whose calling in my view never existed or was fabricated. I equipped them nonetheless and God has proved my opinion wrong again and again.

Like I always say, God will never consult you before He calls anybody. Neither does He inform us the kind of ministry He calls one into.

God calls us to be the best as per our calling.

I suspect that if Nehemiah had had a meeting with Ezra and learnt of the fasting he could have thought it as insane especially as the king had no issues with sending an army to accompany Ezra’s team. Why bring God into simple security matters? Would it not be akin to tempting God?

Fortunately it never happened and so we have both stories to benefit from.

What am I driving at?

Probably you have been an expert at demonstrating who is called and how according to your understanding. Probably you are very hard on those fools who argue for faith against your logic. Probably you have no room for those pretenders to a calling when they approach you for support.

You might be one person who is known far and wide as the expert in all things ministry and calling because you are called and use that calling as the yardstick for any other calling. You have no room for the fools who use their faith to argue straightforward and logical issues.

I want to free you from that prison. God does not and will not consult you when He is dealing with His children. What is folly to you may be what gives them approval in God’s sight.

Allow God to deal with His children whether you understand or not, and especially when you don’t understand.