Whatsoever God permits, He permits for a reason, even though God cannot encourage iniquity in any form or shade. Nevertheless nothing happens to his children without his permission.
The followings are lessons I think God is using Esewaltergate to teach everyone of us.
1. ESEWALTERGATE IS AN AWAKENING:
The Church in Nigeria really needs a shock treatment, for a while now. She has become so complacent, detached and at variance with the leading of her Commander in Chief, the Church, especially of the Pentecostal inclination (which happens to be the face of the Church in Nigeria at this moment) have gone rogue, like the falcon that have ignored the voice of the falconer, she needs a reawakening.
2. PASTORIAL IMPUNITY:
Everything from the absence of responsibility, accountability, excesses like stepping beyond the boundaries set for them and into realms reserve solely for God. Basking in a glory that’s not theirs, pastors have been made to look like demigods and it’s high time something like this and several others waiting by the wings happened to remind everyone of us that All The Glory Belongs To God and He won’t share a bit of it with no one.
3. A DENIAL OF OUR HUMANITY AS CHRISTIANS:
Even Paul says he can do all things only through Christ Jesus who strengthens him. Without God we are weak and helpless. Our denial of this fact only helps a life of hypocrisy, deceit, falsehood and lies. We are not super human beings we should own up to our humanity and let God claim the glory.
“Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
If our various closets should be visited, pastors and flocks alike, Esewaltergate will be a child’s play compared to what such a visit will unearth.
Even though the aim of faith is to produce a kind of man that’s perfect in all ramifications but perfection though not a mirage is a journey. We don’t become perfect over night we journey into perfection looking up to God. Christians are not perfect people; to claim otherwise is to be hypocritical. We are only a people on a journey to perfection.
When this reality is ignored we end up projecting an image that the watching world finds hard to reconcile with our humanity, weaknesses and limitations. The Christian race isn’t won by super men but by real people acknowledging their frailties and submitting those limitations to a saviour.
4. THE ABSENCE OF LOVE: it’s every man for himself and God for us all. Before Ese Walter cracked she felt a disconnect between her and her colleagues in the workforce of COZA. The every man for himself syndrome flows down from the leadership down to Pastoral associates, workforce and everybody else in Church. “The Oga at the top” has all the powers and everybody else is struggling to connect to this privileged circle, the competition to connect and belong to this circle can be selfish and brutal, devoid of love and affection. Ese Walter could only go to the larger public for help because the Church has lost her most important weapon of unity and cohesion, love.
Another symptom of the absence of love is the issue of comparison of ministries. Each man is in a subtle, silenced but SERIOUS competition with the other minister in terms of offering, congregation size, bank accounts, building etc. I heard from the grapevine that Ese Walter have approached the Pastors of another church in Abuja for counselling and was advised to go public. This could only happen due to the absence of love.
There are a whole lot of lessons we can learn from Esewaltergate but I wish to mention a few pertinent issues about pastoring or Christian ministry.
1. God doesn’t use perfect vessels; He calls men with the right spirit. And this doesn’t mean those men lack the frailties and limitations that’s peculiar to all men
As a matter of fact people God has used people who were so weak that they even question the basis for God’s calling and their qualification for the mission.
We might perceive pastors as spiritual super men, which is also due to the general misconception of what qualifies people for spiritual leadership but every man called to exercise leadership spiritually is usually inflicted with what Paul called a “thorn in the flesh.”
“And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.” (2 Corinthians 12:7).
Pastor Biodun Fatoyibo’s thorn seems to be a high libido and an inability to control it. Let’s not deceive ourselves, every pastor has their own thorns to contend with, for some its pride, anger, envy, jealousy etc. And don’t even think that a particular frailty is better than another.
I have no doubt that Pastor Biodun has the right heart that God saw and made him the beneficiary of the unusual level of grace that COZA enjoys. He couldn’t have come this far without grace considering the fact that Esewaltergate isn’t the first incidence of sexual impropriety he has experienced.
2. No matter what happens, whether a robust defence is issued or not, it doesn’t even matter if Pastor Biodun owns up to having a sexual and inappropriate relationship with Ese Walter and other women, the church of God will still stand strong and COZA as a ministry can only fold up if that’s what God decides. Not because of anything the pastor did or say will make COZA go under.
The ministry of a pastor supersedes his human limitations. The anointing and God’s grace on a minister’s life and ministry isn’t a function of his physical or spiritual capabilities or strength but a result of an interplay of lots of factors that are connected to the state of his heart. Wherever God finds a good heart he will use it. Moreover, people don’t attend Church arbitrary; they are planted in different churches by God himself. For such people their local church is more than a mere building, it’s a spiritual home, a spiritual family, your pastor is a spiritual father.
This is a bound that’s covenanted in blood. Family remains family despite anything. We fight and quarrel only to settle and make peace as a family. We will never be able to change our biological fathers just because they are not perfect. God knew why he set everyone of us in our particular families in spite of what we think. Likewise when God plants someone in a particular spiritual family the cord that binds is so strong and important that it can’t be cast off easily without dire consequences to life and destiny.
Yes, there must be some form of tumult going on in COZA at the moment but only people who were supposed to go find their original family will leave.
Whoever leaves COZA solely because of Esewaltergate isn’t planted there by God and on the long run was only waiting for the appointed time to leave.
Crises are inevitable in the life of living cum spiritual entities. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is only getting better in spite of this entire incidence.
Forget what happened to Jimmy Swaggart, the American pastor and televangelist who failed due to sexual scandals in the late 1980s. This is not the eighties, the church have moved on. We have a much more matured church now. We no longer kill our injured soldiers. We treat their injuries. Esewaltergate will only make COZA a better, robust and more matured church.
And Pastor Biodun a much better pastor and leader. Count on that as long as God is on the throne.
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