The Sunday Mail
Founder and Senior Pastor of Assigned Ministers Ministries International, Apostle Freshman Gwasira (FG) is no newcomer to our readers. Last year, he shed some light on the current phenomenon in the Pentecostal/Evangelical movement – anointing or anointed water. Tendai Manzvanzvike (TM) recently spoke with him about their 2015 proclamation: ‘Year of Great Grace’, including the controversial prophecy by a Malawian prophet.
TM: Compliments of the New Year. We introduced your 2015 theme in last week’s issue – Year of Great Grace – together with a few others. I want you to expand on it, giving practical examples and also saying what Assigned Ministers Ministries is looking at in 2015.
FG: Thank you so much for inviting me. I’ll start by saying that the Lord inspired me to tell the body of Christ that this is the season for grace. We have been given great grace (Acts 14:33), so when we operate under great grace, what it means is that we have come in the dispensation of grace. And this being the year of great grace, we begin to have an intimate relationship with the Lord; to know Him more, and understand Him and His word.
TM: Is this a message for Zimbabwe only?
FG: It’s a global message in the sense that it is unleashed to the body of Christ, and not a particular church. We are supposed to understand that this is the season of grace and be able to acquaint ourselves with the ways of grace than to follow the law which is not what we have been called for. So, we are supposed to realise the grace that we have been given by God.
TM: You said that God spoke to you about that message. However, these messages are given on New Year’s Day. When exactly did you get the message?
FG: Usually, I have my quiet prayer times before the end of the year to get prepared for what God wants to say to His children. So, I normally have that message before we come to the New Year. I keep it, and it keeps on building from one level to another so that I would be able to feed the flock for the entire season.
TM: So it’s like you build up on the great grace message?
FG: Yes. We begin January with teachings and as we get to February, we start preaching. I also want to say that we don’t work in isolation. When God gives something for the body of Christ, He provides the means and it becomes divinely orchestrated or disseminated.
TM: How has the message of great grace been received so far?
FG: There are wonderful responses from people in different countries like the UK, USA. They were following us to find out what God had said. When they saw what we said, they were happy. We also point them to the word of God because it is very vital. It is the pinnacle of everything. We can’t do anything without the word.
We only hear what is in the Bible. It is His word that gives us guidance because whatever is done in the body of Christ should be examined by the word of God. So we can’t do anything apart from the word of God. It’s the foundation. Without it, we can’t know the mindset of God and therefore we will not know the will of God. We can’t do anything because Jesus Christ is the word, the word that was with God. If we indeed say Christ is in us we need to have the word. The word needs to be right in front of us every time as it says in Psalms 119:105: “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.”
TM: How do you assess your 2015 message, vis-à-vis the other messages, not just those messages we published?
FG: I can safely say that almost every message we saw has something to do with grace and I was very happy. It applies that we are now hearing from the same God because everything to do with grace has got to do with the power of God and His anointing, because grace as I said means unmerited favour. The unmerited favour would cause you to be at a place where you’re linked to what God has.
Acts 4:33 says: “And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.” And a few verses down, it says and there was no one among them who lacked for all of them who were possessors of houses and land sold them and brought the proceeds and laid them at the feet of the Apostles and they were distributed to anyone according to their need. The church was enriched because of the grace.
So, it is the grace of God that gives us the ability to contain even the anointing that God gives us. It is the same grace that gives us the ability to contain the prosperity that God would have given us. Without the grace we won’t be able to stand. In other words we would be put to shame.
TM: But to someone who right now wants school fees for their children, or is looking for a job or wants a meal, they will ask where that grace is when they are lacking.
FG: Zechariah 4:7 says they will come amid shouts of, “Grace, grace to it!” and the mountain before them would actually melt. It means that we can command grace or rather call forth for grace in times of need, as in the book of Hebrews 4:16 which says, “ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Do you see that it is grace that helps us in time of need? Grace is very vital. A lot of young pastors or church folk will ask God for the anointing. They want the power of God, but they miss one thing – grace.
That’s why many people who really ask for the power don’t get it because they are forfeiting the grace. They need to ask God for the grace because it is grace that when you’re send somewhere, God will find the means to protect and provide for you. Everything that you need is in the grace.
TM: Men and women are rising up as prophets and are proclaiming that God has spoken to them. However, some raise doubts. One example is the Malawian prophet who on January 1 is reported to have said that he had received a word of God to say that President Mugabe would pass on this year. As a man of God and Zimbabwean national, how would you respond to that?
FG: What I can say is that with the gifts that God gives us, there is need for maturity. God wants us to be mature, and he wants us to have a character. These two things, being mature and having a character that is fit for His use, will help us go a long way – not to offend governments, not to offend individuals – but to admonish. The gift of prophecy is given to admonish, to encourage the body of Christ. The world is supposed to be brought on its knees and say, indeed, God is in our midst. But if prophecy brings us to a place where we are going to make enemies, it becomes questionable.
TM: It becomes questionable?
FG: Yes, yes!
TM: And your final words of admonishing, encouragement.
FG: I’d want to say to everyone in the body of Christ that it’s important we do not look at this message as a ministry message or a message for a local church. It is important for everyone in the body of Christ to begin to say, ‘Lord, I need this great grace.
Apply it on me.’ As Acts 4 says, the great grace was upon them all. Not just the 12 Apostles, but everyone in the congregation. So, the great grace must be upon all the sons and daughters of God out there! May God richly bless us all!
