THE SYNERGISTIC PROMISE – The Difference Maker!
One of the hardest things in life is to stand for an unpopular truth while holding no contempt for those who seek to vilify,
misrepresent and destroy both you and the truth you speak. There are three categories of people in the world, in the
church and unfortunately even in the spiritual leadership:
1. The wise
2. The foolish
3. The evil
Paul said: “And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil people, for not everyone has faith.” (2
Thessalonians 3:2)
For the difference maker a sequence of learning and living must go together. One cannot share what you do not believe
or you become a hypocrite. It is not true till it is true to you. We can best share that which has made a difference in
our lives and ministries and have practiced ourselves to produce synergistic promises. Too often the preaching of the
truth of the Word today in the pulpit has been replaced by the entertainment and personalities of the world that
regretfully show up on the platform producing foolishness and allowing evil to appear instead of truth.
God is building gardens of Eden in the midst of the concrete jungles of Babylon some minster in today. Jesus said,
“Occupy till I come.” When you fully “occupy” your garden you are dominating and expanding your calling to make a
difference as a synergistic promise. However, men and yes women, who are spiritual leaders today find that they have
entered into a way of life that for the most part is in ruins. Our Damascus roads that knock us off our high mindedness
and self-righteousness are only wake-up calls to let us know that humanity can still touch you and can still impact you.
The question for your promise is, “Can God still find you faithful?” If you’re not a priest to your home and faithful to your
calling for example; letting snakes into what you should have dominion over it doesn’t matter what kind of preacher you
are at the church.
As a pastor, now a Bishop in the Lord’s church, I have discovered that you’ve got to be willing to take people as they
are. And live with them where they are. And not impose your will on them. Because God has different ways of being
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with people, and you don’t always know what they are. Some are wise, some are foolish, while others are yet evil. At
the root of a lot of ministry restlessness and dissatisfaction is impatience. We think if we get the right system, the right
programs, the right place, the right location, the right kind of people, it’ll be a snap and ministry and life will be easy.
And for some people it may be or appear to be so: if you’re a good actor, if you have a big smile, if you are an extrovert.
In some ways, a religious crowd is the easiest crowd to gather in the world. Today’s church is full of examples of that.
But for most, ministry is a very ordinary way to live. And it is difficult in many ways because your time is not your own,
for the most part, and this whole culture is against you and the difference you are called to make. In this consumer
driven culture, people grow up determining what they want to do by what they can consume. And the Christian gospel
and way of life is really quite the opposite of that. And people don’t know that. And pastors and spiritual leaders today
for the most part don’t appear to know that when they start out then appear to don’t care after a while. We’ve got a
whole culture that is programmed to please people, telling them what they want not what is required to reach what God
has promised according to His Word. And if you do that, you might end up with a big church, but you won’t be a
difference maker.
Making a difference in the spiritual lives of others requires preparation and sacrifice on our part. To become a difference
maker God is going to either move the arrow or move the target of your life, so aim high. Look to the hills which cometh
your help. When trouble tries to bring you down people will crucify you in your process and celebrate your wounds at
the parade! If there is a press that sometimes causes pain then truly you’re going the right way. Philippians 3:14 says,
“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
God is not calling for an echo in the earth He is calling for a genuine voice. That voice must dare to be different. It must
be the sound of the genuine. We must dare to be different without apologies. To be a difference maker takes wisdom.
Wisdom is a synergistic key. Knowledge is what to do, wisdom is how to do it. With all the knowledge that is needed
and required for you to make a difference, one must just as importantly seek and also attain wisdom. Many are
knowledgeable, gifted even anointed but don’t know how to make a difference because they lack wisdom.
The bible says, “if one wants wisdom then let them ask of God and he will give it to you.” (James 1:5) God tells us if
we lack His Wisdom, to ask for it. We all lack His Wisdom, we were not born with it but some are not willing to submit
as a child and receive it but believe they know all that is needed to know. They trust instead in man’s wisdom,
knowledge, understanding, reasoning and logic not God’s. Knowledge is the ability to take things apart, while wisdom
is the ability to put them together. Wisdom is the right use of knowledge.
You also have to avoid being seen as weird or trying to be different. Too many people are trying to be wonders in
today’s ministries. Trying to be big when little has got them. There must be a difference between being different and
creative, or seen as just being weird and strange. To make a difference you must maintain a balance to offer what is
inviting and not be looked at in such a way as to render the difference you can make as void. People don’t successfully
follow or even gravitate long to weirdness or wonders to be successful they must soon follow wisdom that makes a
difference.
Making a difference means you have to accept the wilderness that comes with it. When you accept the challenge to
be different God begins to reveal His greatest secrets and strategies when you are in the wilderness. Although it is a
place of grace it is still an isolated place. A dry desert place is a lonely place. Everything in this place is not flowing or
moving the way you think it ought to. But it is here in the wilderness, dry and isolated place where you get God’s
greatest insights and instruction. Where God offers synergistic promises to bring you to a place of gratefulness and
worship.
The wilderness season is not sent to destroy or crush you. The wilderness is used as a catalyst to provoke those things
within you to be brought gloriously out of you to focus you on those synergistic promises which are ahead. When you
accept the wilderness that is going to come where there will be dry moments, isolation, no other support but your
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willingness to press toward the mark of a higher calling. Where there is no one to celebrate you and you must be your
own fan club and holy cheerleader. Once you accept that wildernesses offer places of grace, synergistic promise, silent
answers and secret divine strategies you will begin to walk in the difference you’re required to make to become a
difference maker. You will not be making copies of originals but realizing your own creative worth and be a new normal
making a difference in your world.
God is raising up difference makers. Embrace the challenge to become a change agent. There are no limitations just
your imagination and your press to understand the call of God to be the difference maker God has called you to be in
the earth.
Not only is a wilderness requirement apart of the synergistic promise of God for difference makers, but if you run from
the warfare you cannot be effective in ministry. The anointed are not sent by God to places of ease and recreation.
God uses giants, demons, Satan himself, and places where battles must be waged to do ministry.
When the battles of warfare emerge we cry out asking why have we been sent this burden of warfare when the truth
of the matter is God is not sending you to warfare he’s calling you to ministry. Warfare is just a part of the synergistic
promise. But the secret is that you must not allow your wilderness or your warfare to deny your worship.
In the warfare of worship you have to not struggle to defend your praise but let God prove to your enemies and your
haters that though weapons are formed against you they will not prosper. Your tight situations, challenging positions,
weary warfare, or unnecessary nuisances is only to get you to birth in the tightness, challenge, weariness and nuisance
a burden and a vision for your synergistic promise and call to be a difference maker.
The general sense that occurs in the writings of Scripture is that when God shows up, people get blown away. They
fall to the ground, they hide their face, they get radiant like light bulbs, they beg for mercy: “away from me, Lord, I am
a sinful man.” They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “speak to us yourself and we will listen, but do not have
God speak to us or we will die.” (Exodus 20:19)
It is this sense of worship as the often fearful, overwhelmed, convicted transported, sometimes euphoric response to
the disruptive Presence that creates a worshipful place for synergistic promises to be realized. Worship is not a service
we come to and attend occasionally but is a life altering recognition that “Someone” has shown up and changed the
rules that our society tells us govern our human existence. Worship is a new way of seeing and feeling that redraws
the boundaries, rewires connections and redistricts how we govern ourselves. It subverts the way we decide who
counts and who doesn’t.
Everything that you do has an effect on the world around you, whether you see it or not. This is especially true when
you are coming from a position of faith in God’s word to see His promises fulfilled. Every day, you put a little crack in
the enemy’s wall. Every day that you put faith behind what you do, you are destroying spiritual strongholds (Eph. 6:1018).
To fulfill our synergistic promise will require developing a love for the lost, building up courage, and making a determined
plan to save the lost and correct errors as a difference maker. Is this you or shall we look for another?
Soli Deo Gloria – To Him Alone!
J. Faraja Kafela
P.S. You can NOW order our new book, “The Synergistic Promise: Positioned to Possess” by visiting
http://mkt.com/churchguy-ministries for pick-up or delivery via USPS. E-book is coming soon!
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