God's Call Of The Hour

When God spoke to me His words in Jeremiah 23:3-4 saying, "I Myself will gather the remnants of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing, declares the Lord", I immediately felt the Lord's displeasure over the condition of His flock at this point in time. This is well attested by His utterance that He will raise-up a new breed of shepherds to oversee the affairs in His vineyard.Well-meaning servant of God will sense that the prevailing situations in the greater part of the Body of Christ today truly call for God's intervention. Many Christian churches are run like human organization by people who are in sheep's clothing whose priority of serving is not the welfare of the flock of the Lord entrusted to their care and protection, but themselves. Personal growth, social connections, and financial gains define the meaning of their blessedness. The call to give up life for God's service is becoming foreign to most. The Lord's sounding off His approval of what is happening in the lives of His people- the people He saved with His blood, demands our attention.I was fully persuaded to act on this cause of the Lord when He spoke to me again on September 19, 2001 using the same Scriptures. This led to the bithing of a new Ministry after I met another servant, Ptr. Samuel Bontilao, whom the Lord also touched with the same burden. Thus, Christ's Shepheds and Flock Ministry International came into being on January 11, 2002, exactly a year after I've received God's word in Jeremiah23:3-4 while I was in Sacramento, California visiting my spiritual father in the faith, Bishop Wally Magdangal. But like young soldiers entrusted with a big mission, we were stunned upon realizing the immensity of the task involved. But thanks be to god because He fully understood our frailty.God did not fail us. He honored the hours we spent before Him by allowing us to see the things He wanted to accomplish through this Ministry. The greatness of the vision He showed us made us wondered how we would accomplish it. It was at this instance that He made it very appparent to us that we are not alone in this blessed endeavor. He constantly reminds us that the task to prepare, equip, and reproduce Spirit-filled servants of God who are faithful and stand ready to answer the call of the Lord Jesus Christ to shepherd over the flock that He gathers, making certain that none of them are found needy and are missing, is not a work of one man but of everyone who love Him. This was made plain to us in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 when the Apostle Paul said, "For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again."From this enlightenment, we no longer feel the heaviness of the load that the Lord burdened us. Instead, the joy of serving Him and His will has overtaken us. we come to realize that every person who tasted the goodness of God through the life imparted to him by the Lord Jesus truly find full meaning of his existence in serving the Lord's Will. Only the complexity of our life's needs hinders most from carrying it out. This disabled many, even highly dedicated servants of God, from delivering the first fruit of their labor to the Lord's work.The Lord Jesus Christ is very familiar with the condition we are in now. He too was exposed to the same situation during His time on earth. The Gospel account vividly shows us how those people who have the heart for Him and His work managed their affair through the account in LUke 8:1-3 saying, "After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means." Their enthusiasms to serve God were never affected by their predicament.These early beneficiaries of God's goodness demonstarted to us that they served the Lord not because they have the time, but rather they serve because they have the opportunities. We know that the Lord Jesus called the twelve and He gave them opportunities to work with Him, thus they made the time for these opportunities to serve His purpose. Others were blessed materially and were confronted with opportunities to give, thus they made the time for these opportunities and served God's purpose through their wholehearted giving.Now, an opportunity to serve the purpose of the Lord is opened before us who love God and are called accoeding to His purpose. We have now some of the people who are making the time because they were called by the Lord to serve Him. (we believed that there are lots of them yonder.) They are now being prepared for the work of the ministry in formal Seminaries. To us, this opportunity to help them is God's call of the hour for us, through whom He will accomplish His plan - restoration of His vineyard.