Address of the Youth Director, New Life For All Nations Ministries during the Youth Week for 2012
Any time you hear the word command you are quick to remember the word ORDER. Someone gives the order for others to obey. In most cases, there is one Commander at a given time. Though the Commander is just one person yet his followers may vary from one to hundreds of thousands and more. This is the case with our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the Commander of His army.
This army of the Lord are not riff-Raff. They are trained, nurtured and well equipped for the task before them. Despite that they are well trained and are reputable army, yet they are not Lions, wolves, goats and vultures. They are sheep! You know what that means. That is why He is called the Good Shepherd. You know that sheep don’t have any physical weapon to fight with. His warfare is not physical where artilleries are used – 2 Cor 10:3-5, Eph 6:12. If you check through His armoury, you will discover that you need some special training to use them to win a battle – Eph 6:13-18.
You need to listen carefully to His commands whenever He wants you to use them and how. By the time you start to hear of weapons like the Truth, Righteousness, Peace, Faith, Salvation and Prayer, you start to wonder how you use all these to conquer a war. Jesus must really teach us how to use them. We must then be ready to use them AT HIS COMMAND. That is why He said without me you can do nothing – John 15:5. If you think that the weapons of Jesus are similar to machetes, guns, bombs and arrows, then you are missing the point and completely out of the way. The type of commands He gives is also different from what many think it should be.
Have a look at some of them:
- Acts 10:42 – And he commanded us to preach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.
- John 13:34 – A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
- 1 John 3:23 – And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.
- Titus 2: 11-12 – For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.
You can now imagine the type of warfare that will take these commands and still win. No battle slogan, no indiscriminate killing and destruction of lives, Peace is even one of the weapons to be used for battle. No man can control this type of army except the Lord Jesus Christ – the Great Commander. It must be at His Command. It is a peaceful war. It does not require any use of dangerous tools or weapons. It is not a do or die affair. It is base on Grace through Faith. The war is between the powers of Light and Darkness. It is a war that we are certain to win, because wherever the Light and Darkness meet, the darkness goes into hiding. The Darkness shows off whenever the Light is not present. We are the Light (Matt. 5:15). Let us come out of our hiding to displace the Darkness. We shall achieve good results if we face this war at His Command.
Now, you need to Come and See how to carry out this command from the Lord especially the first one given above that has to do with witnessing Christ to others. In this Youth week, these shall be taught and demonstrated for you to see. As you open up yourself to getting all it take to obey His commands you will be bold to tell others to COME AND SEE what the Lord has done for you.
It shall be so in Jesus name. Amen
Yours.
Pastor Isaac Boboye
National Youth Director.