Today on Leaderview, our beam of light will be projected towards spiritual leaders, but this does not mean that leaders in other spheres of life cannot benefit from the same word. They can actually benefit as well. So, irrespective of your sphere of leadership influence, I want you to please pay attention to this podcast.

 

One of the many things that is so fundamental in spiritual leadership and one that many spiritual leaders cannot afford to be in the dark about is that as a spiritual leader, you cannot afford not to understand the scope of your mission. What do I mean by “the scope of your mission?” The scope of your mission in this context talks about the extent of the area or subject matter that your mission covers. In a number of places in the Scriptures when God entrusts a man or woman with a mission, He gives them the extent or areas in which the mission covers.

 

For example, in Ezekiel 16:1-2, the Bible says: “Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations, ³ and say, ‘Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem” In this case, the word of the Lord through the mouth of Ezekiel was to Jerusalem and her inhabitants at that time. So, this word is location specific. If Ezekiel had taken that word to say, Netherlands, he would have been working outside the scope of his mission. Another example is in Jonah 1:2, the Bible says: “Arise, go to Nineveh (Still talking about location specificity and her people), that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.”

 

Now, moving away from location specificity, there is another fundamental thing that we quickly need to talk about in that verse 2 of Jonah chapter 1 which I believe is important for every man or woman on a mission to understand, especially when it comes to understanding THE SCOPE OF YOUR MISSION as a missionary or a man or woman on a mission. It says: “Arise, go to Nineveh that great city, and cry out against it…” My emphasis there is on the phrase “cry out against it…” There is a difference between "speaking for" and "crying against" and every spiritual leader must understand this.

 

As a spiritual leader that you are, has God sent you to a people to speak for them or cry against them?  Let me show us the difference between the two with Biblical examples. For example, God raised up Moses to speak for the children of Israel before Pharaoh to set them free from bondage and slavery. Exodus 3:7-10 shows us this. The Bible says: “And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. ⁸ So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. ⁹ Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. ¹⁰ Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” So, in this case study above, Moses became the spokesperson for the children of Israel as commanded by the Lord.

 

The other leg is when God sends you to cry against a people as we saw in the case of Jonah and the people of Nineveh. In this regard, you are not to form any alliance with the people or have anything to do with their ways of life or thinking. Trying to do that would jeopardize your mission and this is a dangerous corner to be. Jesus said "even though we are in this world, we are not of this world." That tells us that though we are on a mission to this world, we are not of this world. Another delicate part of this is this: When God sends you to speak or cry against a people, and you refused to execute that assignment, God says He will require the blood of those people from you if they perish because of their wickedness.

 

Ezekiel 3:18-19 shows us how delicate this aspect of the assignment is. It says: “When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. ¹⁹ Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.”

 

The root cause of ineffectiveness of many spiritual leaders is that they go outside of the scope of their assignment. The moment you step outside of the scope of your assignment as a spiritual leader, struggling is inevitable. So, if you don’t want to struggle in spiritual leadership, endeavor to understand the scope of your assignment and where God wants you to go. Don’t rush out of the presence of God thinking that you understand the mission whereas, you haven’t enough. See what the Scripture says in Jeremiah 23:21-22;

 

“I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran.
I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
²² But if they had stood in My counsel,
And had caused My people to hear My words,
Then they would have turned them from their evil way
And from the evil of their doings.”

 

So, in conclusion, the starting point is not rushing into the mission or assignment that God has given us. The starting point is sitting at His feet and understanding the scope of the mission that He has committed or He is committing into our hands. The first question Saul ask Jesus after his encounter with Him was: “Lord, what do You want me to do?” (Acts 9:6). As a spiritual leader, you must take your time in the presence of God so that you can get to know the scope of your mission. Failure to do this, you have only set up yourself for failure. It is my sincere prayer that we will not disappoint God in this assignment He has committed into our hands.

 

I believe you have learnt something!

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am Obayomi Abiola Benjamin!

Feel free to share your thoughts or testimony in the comment box below. I promise to respond to them as soon as possible!