Man was created to give glory to God. Revelations 4:11 talks about How God is worthy to receive glory, honor, power, strength, riches and blessing. “You are worthy, O Lord, To receive glory and honor and power; For You created all things, And by Your will they exist and were created.” David on many occasions spoke of his soul blessing the Lord and not forgetting His benefits according to Psalms 103: 1. “Bless the LORD, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits…”

What is God’s Apostolic mandate today for sufficiency? And are we walking in it? If not, what seems to be the problem? Many of us are not in that position to bless God not because He has not done or become a blessing to us but we lack understanding and so we suffer losses. There are different types of blessings. We have the blessing of the womb, the blessing the earth, the blessing of the heaven above, the blessing of the earth beneath, the blessing of the breast and the blessing of the Lord. Of all these blessings, there is one you must work for, others can come because you love God or through God’s sovereign acts. The blessing of the womb must come through the supply of what can be conceived, no matter how hard you pray except God wants to have another virgin Mary experience. The Ecosystem of God has always provided the family as an institution that mirrors the pattern of His sufficiency upon the face of the earth. The father and mother must provide for the children without being begged to do that. The father especially is saddled with that responsibility to provide sufficient support such as financial, physical, spiritual and emotional support. This is why a man must be responsible above all things to have a partner for his supposed future. All a man needs to forge ahead in his quest for his future is not just to realize that he is lonely but to realize his responsibility. This is the global problem we nurse in the family structure and that’s why responsibility has now come upon women and even the children. It is a curse on any man when another person is responsible for him. It is not God’s own structure. Whether he is struggling or groaning, he must understand what being responsible means and he must do everything to man up to his responsibility. He called for family not because he felt lonely and if that was the problem he thought he had then he is in trouble ever before realizing it. A man that doesn’t see responsibility as his first call of attention is a failure in waiting, a disaster waiting to happen in future and woe betide the people that are in the same boat with such a man. Responsibility doesn’t come easy. It is that which must separate a boy from a man. A boy can be excused not because he doesn’t exist but because someone is carrying him as a responsibility and when his own time comes, he must learn to carry and bear such person as his own responsibility without any grudge or resentment. Most men have gone ahead to have partners and borne children thinking the responsibility has to be shared. So, they transfer their own responsibility either to their own parents who should be enjoying their old age while he takes care of them. Some even transfer their own responsibility to their siblings and friends. What an unfortunate way to start a family. Such is a cursed life. Not knowing you have a responsibility to be called a man or a father in the first place is a curse. God is our Father because he is the multi-breasted one, not only because he is God but because He knows how responsible He must be for the earth to remain and function as it should.

 

In every aspect of life, humans have been saddled with responsibility. God created man with the responsibility of glorifying Him. He put him in a garden to tend it for Him so other creatures can be cared for and nurtured, not to devour and destroy what was created. Other creatures also bore their own responsibility because there was nothing God created without given it responsibility. The earth was to produce and yield increase. The firmament was to contain the water of the heaven above and would later be saddled with the responsibility of showering rain to the earth, starting with Noah’s era. The sea was to produce all living creatures and to provide facility for the resources of God therein, both beasts, animals and other natural resources. Man was to co-ordinate all creation for the glory of God. When sin happened, man fell short of this and that was why it was written “all have sinned and COME SHORT of the GLORY of GOD” Romans 3:23. Redemption was to reverse this shortage so that God can stand again to RECEIVE all glory, honor, power, might, strength, riches and blessing (Rev. 4:11) from man and other creatures. If other creatures understand responsibility even in their bestial state, then a man without understanding of responsibility is worse than any beast on earth, infact it’s only an ostrich that God deprived of such responsibility. So, it kills her own offspring for that purpose. Job 39:13-17. “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are her wings and pinions like the kindly stork’s? For she leaves her eggs on the ground, and warms them in the dust; She forgets that a foot may crush them, Or that a wild beast may break them. She treats her young harshly, as though they were not hers; Her labor is in vain, without concern, Because God deprived her of wisdom, and did not endow her with understanding.” Certainly, no human being should be devoid of understanding and operate like an ostrich. It is dangerous to be incorrigible as an ostrich!

 

Man and woman are saddled with the responsibility of blessing the Lord even after the fall. The man provided for the entire family spiritually, physically, financially, and emotionally, the woman nurtured the children because it’s her responsibility to do her bit in that regard while she gives peace to the man. Her own hands are meant to be productive and blessed as the Proverbs 31 woman. When God wanted to raise a nation to explain the ecosystem of His blessing on earth, He used Israel as the nation. Moses would stand before the Lord to bear responsibility for the people. Aaron would stand as priest to minister to the people before the Lord while heads of families were meant to bear responsibility for their clans and the fathers of those families were to represent their own wards responsibly. A man that knows he has responsibility and accepts it will always find a way sooner or later in life, no matter how rough things are. That sense of responsibility and his ability to have a brain in his head to receive such is in itself a great blessing because failure to have that is a curse to him and his entire generation. A truly blessed man is not that man who has all things but the one who accepts the responsibility to live a selfless life for the betterment of others. This is why any a man that runs from his responsibility is cursed. Any woman that shies away from her responsibility is worse than an ostrich who kills her own children.

 

God used the life of the Levite to show how the ecosystem should work in a nation. Moses was the first Prophet from the tribe of Levi. Aaron was the first official priest from the Levite family. Moses wasn’t meant to work. His work was to daily seek the Lord on behalf of the people of Israel. His occupation was to give counsel and provide guidance for them so that they could go about their own duties and whatever blessing came upon their wards and businesses, Moses had a stake in it. They were to bear that responsibility to bless God back through Moses and other Levites. They weren’t to be thanked for it because Moses wasn’t to be thanked for doing his own part of bearing the responsibility for a nation before the Lord. From the blessing that comes from the Lord through Moses’s counsel and guidance, the man of the house and the woman of the home were to bless the Lord first, bless the Lord’s servants and then their own family (Parents, children and wards). This was the order! Whatever we do today not in this order is not in line with God’s plan and purpose for us as His people. We are just living on a borrowed standard of life from the world system and no matter how we argue it to our favor, this is the order and cannot change just as God doesn’t change.

 

The late Prophet Joseph Ayo Babalola understood the true apostolic pattern for global impact when he made himself available by example such that he dedicated a particular day of the week where anyone could come to the church for counsel and guidance. People would come in droves; the church gate wasn’t closed like the madness we have today in our generation. He would respond to them all and compel the leadership of his movement to do the same. The blessing of God came upon all his people and they blessed him and his ministry. However, there was pressure on the movement to either make these people pastors in the ministry or to give them chieftaincy titles in the church just in an attempt to recognize them. Today, the same movement that Babalola laid down his life to show God’s own way of life has deviated from this truth. Many of the people have benefited from the counseling and guidance by the church and have blessed the church but the church feels compelled to recognize them with titles and chieftaincy recognition. The movement bowed to the pressure of making church financiers pastor or prophets just because they support the church financially due to the benefit of God’s grace conferred on them by God through the leadership of Babalola and the movement. Some of them who didn’t have any business being in Bible seminary were found there now and we can see what some of them have become in that movement – Prayer contractors and liars. What a shame! Anyone you benefit from today and bless in exchange for being recognized is a sin to the Lord. You are commanded to bless the Lord, even your soul is to bless the Lord. God must receive His blessing from you through the way you bless His own men and women. Whoever is your father and someone you benefit God’s guidance from, you must bless with all joy even when you are in pain. Their blessing is not when it’s convenient or when you are comfortable. Many wait to be told, it is a great shame! There’s no child that will receive the blessing of God when he expects his parents to always provide for him even when he’s mature enough.

 

A man who is meant to honor his parents by blessing them but does not, is heaping curses upon himself. A man who provides for his parents, whether spiritual or physical or both, especially in pain and struggle, is truly a blessed man. He will be honored by God and blessed in all things. Blessing must not only be during the time of comfort. It must be at all times. The early church model followed this principle of life. Apostles provided all the guidance and counsel through the Holy Spirit while the people blessed them in return. They used the proceeds to provide for their own needs, the widows, the orphans, the less privileged, missions and the household of God. Everyone did as they were led by the Holy Spirit. They sold their possessions and brought the proceeds to the feet of the apostles. Those who lied to themselves after the Holy Spirit had directed them on what to do went the way of Ananias and Saphira. They didn’t die because they lied to Peter but because they didn’t do what the Holy Spirit has laid in their hearts. This was why Peter asked “was it not in your hands when you sold?”. Did they just know what to do? Didn’t they agree together to sell that property? Before they sold, didn’t they have the direction from the Holy Spirit? Yes, they did to all these answers but when the proceeds hit their bank account, greed set in and a curse on them was pronounced to be death. Greed for gain will always take the life of its owners. Even when you give to your parents and those you benefit real spiritual guidance and counseling from, once you do so with grudges in your heart you miss the full blessing from the Lord. You must do all as unto the Lord, with no grudge or resentment else it’s all philanthropy.

 

Don’t get it twisted, giving to your parents and those who provided you with true covering and blessing is not philanthropy. You are not doing it to help them. God will always have a way to care for the mad man walking naked whether anyone cares for him or not. He provides for the animals that man don’t even know how they feed. What you are doing is meant to be done and it’s for your sake, not for your parents and spiritual guides. You will not have the blessing of the womb, the one that breathes on your storehouses and your barns if you don’t bless the Lord and your guides. This is the true gospel for the pattern of Apostolic Blessing for global impact. This is why a lot of God’s people are not truly blessed. God doesn’t need to answer the prayer of the priest, parents, prophet or guide crying in suffering and agony because He has provided their money in the hands of God’s people and children that were blessed by their existence. None of them should suffer on your account. It’s a generational curse especially your physical parents and most especially your spiritual father and guides. Those of them like me that are even quiet about this topic aren’t doing their generation a great favor. What must be taught must be taught without thinking of what or how people feel. Very genuine men of God have what they can do to fend for themselves but truth must still be told. You don’t give them because they lack and you don’t stop giving them because they have enough. You give them because it is your way to bless the Lord. 

 

It is your responsibility to know those who truly labor over you. This is where most people get it wrong. While it is wrong for any man of God to demand it forcefully, it is also wrong for the children not to know who truly labors over them. This is not philanthropic giving to your church but giving to bless the Lord who blessed you with the gift of that father in the Lord and guide as well as the parents you have. Most Christians give to ministries that are big enough not because they were blessed by the set man of the ministry but because of their own greed. They want to be big too, like that man of God. Remember you are giving out of the increase of your produce from the counsel or guidance God helped them to provide to you. This is not that you were led by God or touched to give one time. No! You must always give to that recognized source whether it’s convenient for you or not. Most times God will make it inconvenient for you to see what you’ll first take off from your list. Whatever you take off from your list in the hour of struggle you can never bring it back in your time of pleasure. Carry it through, bear it up and suck it all in during your time of despair but do it because you understand responsibility. As much as it lies with you, follow peace with all men, not only because there’s a fight between you but understand that peace is the foundation of increase. Whatever you do, do it as unto the Lord not by compulsion or grudge but as unto the Lord.