The Apostolic Mandate (1 of 6)

Mike Connell

Page 3 of 9
If you're called to subdue, there must be some thing you have to subdue or - and it's not a person, it's usually a spiritual issue. So we see that the first - here's the interesting thing. Which came first, the people or the assignment? See, think about that one. Which came first, the people or the assignment? I believe the assignment came, because man was created to fulfil the assignment. Think about that. See, in Ephesians 2:10 it tells us that we are His workmanship, created in Jesus Christ for good works, which God foreordained we would walk in them. In other words before we turned up on the earth and were born, God had prepared something for us to accomplish with our life. That means the assignment came before the people did.

Notice which came first, the garden or the people? The garden, so the assignment came first. Now it doesn't mean that the assignment is more important. What I'm saying is, that God produced people to fulfil a purpose, so think about this. If you are a manufacturer and you design a toaster, now which came first, the toaster or the purpose? The purpose. You started to think, I need to create a machine that you can put slices of bread in and it'll heat them up and make them nice and we can put jam and marmalade and stuff on it - so you have a thing in mind to which you design the machine, and then the machine fulfils the purpose. So you think about how God created us; He created us with something for us to do. If you can get this in your heart, you realise how important it is to discover what you're uniquely wired and called to do. Most people unfortunately live their life from someone else's script. In other words, we're acting out what someone else said was what we should do, rather than discovering for ourself what God called us to do, and passionately pursuing the mission that God has wired into our heart. Quite challenging isn't it?

I was talking to one young man recently and he'd been seeking direction from me, and I actually refused to give him the direction he should go. What I directed him to do was to find what he was wired in his heart to do, and he said well I don't know. I said well actually I know you know. The thing that's blocking you is you're trying to please everyone. You've lived under control for so much of your life, you've not actually taken ownership of what God put in your own heart. I said if I tell you what to do, I'll always be the one who told you what to do. You actually have to own your life yourself, and own your future yourself, and discover what God wired in you for you to fulfil. I showed him how to do that, starting to begin to journal and to write down and discover the dreams of his heart. Recently he came to me and he said: this is what I believe I should do. I said great, you've got it, I'll help you do it. Do you understand? If I'd told him, which is what he wanted me to do, it would have taken away from him the journey of discovering, and taking ownership of his own assignment, that God wrote into his heart.

Unfortunately many people live and they've been in abusive situations and strongholds and things form around the mind and what happens is we live out of what someone else said we should do, rather than discovering what God called us to do. How many are thinking about that one, see? So God had an assignment for us, and he created you to fulfil an assignment, so where you were born, the circumstances of your birth, the kind of nation you were born in, the locality you were born in, the education you had, the background you had, all contributes to forming who you are. Even if some of it was bad, when God redeems it, what is redeemed then becomes the powerful testimony that God can use to touch people's lives, so you are a person with a mission. Even if you don't know what your mission is, it doesn't change. You were sent, you didn't just arrive.