It is sad that mentoring is no
longer a common thing amongst believers. It is fading and I believe this may be
a hindrance to the spreading and passing on of our faith especially to
generations coming after us. Everybody is in a hurry to get to the ‘next level’
with or without God and as such do not have the time to be properly mentored.
Also, people no more feel the need to be mentored since ‘we all know everything
and can read up on anything we need to know’ coupled with the ‘busyness’ of
life. Meanwhile, there is also a scarcity of mentors because we are either very
self- absorbed or too busy to give of ourselves to facilitating someone else
coming to maturity. Some argue that they don’t want to be hurt because mentees end
up behaving badly when they think they have ‘arrived’ and don’t need the counsel
of the mentor anymore. The truth is, at the end of the day, our faith suffers.
How can people learn and mature if they are not taught/“parented”? There is no
doubt that it demands a lot from the mentor and the reward from the mentee may
be ‘ingratitude’ but our God is a rewarder. People need to be taught to rightly
divide the word and proper application of that word in our everyday life. These
are terrible times when satan is working very hard at engaging people; believers
need to be mentored as even the mentors are themselves mentored by other
believers and the Holy Spirit. This is the way to make disciples for Christ
whilst remaining His. It is one thing to study the scriptures and another to
understand and then find its proper application in our everyday lives. God is
looking for more Philips who would go to great lengths to ensure that other
people understand and live the scriptures.
Acts 8: 30 “Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet
Isaiah. Philip asked, do you understand what you are reading? The man replied,
how can I, unless someone instructs me? And he urged Philip to come up into the
carriage and sit with him.”
Oxford dictionary describes a
mentor as an experienced and trusted teacher so that a Christian mentor is
clearly not a novice; he/she apart from having a good understanding of the word
and strong desire to know more about God, must have piles of experiences that
have tested their faith. Mentors are not just teachers for their great teaching
skill or many degrees, but more for the several tests of their faith which has
worked experience and a willingness to teach or share all they have learnt and
help their mentees live life in to the fullest in Christ. They teach in word
and deed. The mentees become a part of their lives so that they can observe
them and learn from what they see or how they live which ought to be in
alignment with the word of God - Christ. The mentee also has to allow the
mentor access to their life and yield or submit to them in a way, so that the
mentor can guide them properly also bearing in mind that the Holy Spirit is the
master guide. Both parties have to consent to having this relationship; and the
mentee is required to have the humility of mind that makes learning from their
mentor easy whilst the mentor is also humble enough to take seriously this God
given responsibility of more or less ‘parenting’ maybe even an adult who is
born again. We see this happen over and over again in scriptures as Moses
mentored Joshua, Eli mentored Samuel who attempted to mentor Saul, Naomi who
mentored Ruth and the list goes on. Obviously, it is one means of transferring
knowledge and Spirit/anointing that is acceptable to God. We are not born
knowing everything just like we don’t get born again knowing it all; parents
are a necessary part of our growth otherwise we wouldn’t need natural parents.
Acts 18: 26 “When Priscilla and Aquila heard him preaching boldly in
the synagogue, they took him aside and explained the way of God even more
accurately.”
The fact that our mentors have experiences
and knowledge that prepare them for this role does not suggest that they know
everything or are perfect. They are human and still make several mistakes; they
also are learning on another level. They are work in progress just as much as
the mentees but they have made a lot of progress and are still progressing as
they help their mentees make progress also. The Holy Spirit is the Master guide
for all believers but most of us need a man who is yielded to God and we can
see and touch, to “explain the way of God even more accurately” to us. There is
need for a period of grooming or preparation for every next level of life and
we ought not to skip it. We just need to be certain that we are groomed by the
persons God has ordained to help us. If we honor them, we will most likely receive
their anointing and maybe even more but please note that the expression of the
anointing will be according to God’s working through you. The same anointing may
express itself in different people differently, after all there is only one
Holy Spirit, but God uses all the variety for His purpose.
2 Kings 2: 15 “when the group of prophets from Jericho saw from a
distance what happened, they exclaimed, ‘Elijah’s spirit rests upon Elisha!’
and they went to meet him and bowed to the ground before him.”
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