Monday 25 March 2024

Motivation, My Story

Allow me to share my story as a victim of motivational doctrines, if I may call them thus.

As I have written in a past post, I was an avid consumer of motivation, probably from the time I learnt to read well, that is in the seventies (1970s)

I have read everything from books to magazines on everything motivational I could lay my hands on.

The other reason is that motivation really sells. People love hearing what they love to hear as opposed to what they need to hear. Motivation is not energy consuming, at least in the spiritual. It is not demanding on the person, except for the gifts the motivator needs to continue churning out newer motivation. Motivation will rarely demand a study, an examination to verify or even refute what one is consuming. It is simply exciting, sweet morsels for the soul like gossip.

That is why students can spend hours reading forbidden romance novels instead of the text books that will be used to set the exams they will need to move to the next level. That is the reason I equated motivational preaching with fast food.

I have also severally written about my earlier struggles as a believer in Christ, especially as concerns the many questions I had and the responses that did not attempt to provide or even guide me to a place I could get answers.

As I look back today most of my questions had to do with my consistent intake of motivational content. Plus of course the fact that my spiritual ‘parents’ and family then was not open to anything different.

Simply speaking, motivational doctrines have no place for struggles and discomforts. Motivation has no real answers to uncertainties and insecurities. Motivation has no responses to actual life because it simply wants to paint life as one would want it to be.

In short, motivation is the doctrine that guides its practitioner to subtly reject reality and create an alternative reality, a reality that has no capacity of becoming real.

The answer to pain is not, ‘you can have your best life now’ or, ‘claim your breakthrough now’.

The answer is understanding what caused that pain and what you can do to deal with it.

Motivation is for the most part escapist.

However, because it sells, its preachers live very well. What with all the bounty poured on them for that motivation!

In many ways it is like gambling. Millions are betting so that one of them can hit the jackpot. And he will be displayed to demonstrate to the addicts that betting pays really well. This ensures a steady supply of fools pouring all that money into those bottomless pits of destruction and despair. And because there is always a winner, very few will ever question the narrative.

Another similar thing is the pyramid scheme. Again, someone is always at the top. And someone else is climbing that pyramid. And it will continue until it lacks enough fools to sustain it and crashes.

Motivational preachers are churning out book after book, sermon after sermon. Their popularity ensures that they are doing much better than the average preacher who insists on preaching the word as God has released it.

Before they started preaching motivation, they used to walk to church. Years after switching to motivation, they are driving the latest fuel guzzler that they do not even need because the fools he preaches to ‘insist’ (don’t mention his subtle hints) that he needs to live as per his preaching. I suspect that the devil is in that detail to block the preaching of the cross that transforms.

Allow me to add another shortcoming of motivation, and the reason I call motivators false prophets.

Motivation is very short term. It has very little to do with any long-term progressions unlike true prophecy and scriptural preaching.

People fear true prophecy because its immediate proclamations may be unsavory, even dangerous. But then prophecy never ends with the immediate or present.

Let me give an illustration.

Jeremiah was a prophet of doom to the Jews because he was always challenging their faith and announcing judgment because they did not repent. That is why many times they wanted to silence him, even to the point of plotting to kill him if slander failed to stop him.

Yet was it all doom?

This verse we so love from Jeremiah is one such message.

Judah will be exiled for seventy years. But God will be with those who are taken to Babylon. The Jews will eventually return.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. (Jeremiah 29:11)

That favorite verse is not floating for us to grab it when we need it.

Look at another incident in this prophet’s life.

He has been preaching about the exile for many years.

Then God tells him to buy a piece of land and have adequate evidence for the same.

Until Jeremiah wonders.

You see it would have been impossible to expect him to outlive the exile.

Why do I say so?

He has been a prophet for at least forty years by then. Assuming he was called at twenty (since he was still young as per his call) he was already sixty. This means he would have been way over a hundred years by the time the exile ended.

He had also been forbidden to get married and so he did not have any children to inherit that land.

Yet God still orders him to buy that land.

Why?

Because God was giving a dramatical lesson. he wanted to assure the Jews that the exile will end since that was in His plan.

That is why obedience and motivation are not good friends. Simply because obedience for the most part is painful since it calls on us to sacrifice our comforts for God’s assignment.

Unless you can prove to me what is so pleasurable for someone leaving his job and moving his family across the world to be able to reach to an unreached community where there are no amenities. Unless you can demonstrate to me what was enjoyable when Noah was building that ark yet not a single drop of rain had fallen on earth. Unless you show me the joys Abraham had contemplating sacrificing his only son, the son of the promise no less. Unless you can show me the excitement Christ had going to the cross.

The long and short of what I am saying is that motivation is short term and completely selfish. The one who devours motivation can accurately be called a spoilt brat in more ways than one. He must have his own way irrespective of what even God says or he will push God to say what he wants to hear.

That is why they pamper those motivational preachers so much to continue fueling their rebellion by making it appear otherwise.

But I was on my story. Yet as a teacher of the word it sometimes is more important to digress when a point comes than stick on the narration. And those who have read my posts know that I do it all the time.

I was fed on motivation in my growing up though as I have said many things did not make motivational sense. No wonder I had those many questions that did not seem to have any answers.

Getting into the Bible answered many of those questions as I have written elsewhere.

But my operating system was basically motivation. In short things worked well when I was Christ’s follower. There were exceptions but I do not think they were enough to reform my theology, many times because God would always show me the big picture and eventually fight for me.

Then God asked me to leave employment.

In my mind, God wanted me to continue the very fruitful ministry I had amongst an unreached people group. Like I have said elsewhere, probably God spoke to me about what He wanted me to do but my system was not attuned to anything else but what my heart had assumed was God’s will.

I eventually had to leave that mission field due to circumstances beyond my control.

Then I went home, the only thing I was sure was that God had called me to ministry outside employment or other occupations, what people call full time ministry. It was for me the culmination of the call I had responded to over ten years prior to that, a call that had led me to quite some adventure and many testimonies of God’s faithfulness.

As I continued waiting on God’s word on what He wanted me to do in my ministry, I poured all my money into a farm I had bought when I was working.

Then El Nino swept all that investment away.

I couldn’t look for work or even start a business because I was not in doubt that God had called me out of those.

Then things became very thick. But I couldn’t back down on God’s call on my life.

Now think with me how a motivator would think in that circumstance.

Things are not working because of sin. Or isn’t it what Job’s friends said? Isn’t that what motivators teach?

And that is what I presumed. Because I could not fault my faith or obedience at that point.

I then looked for sins to repent of. Still nothing worked.

I even created a few more sins to ensure that I left no sin since according to motivation that is the only block to a breakthrough.

Even then nothing worked.

Remember I recently shared that the motivator has no answer to God’s silence?

That is where I was, for a few years.

Then God spoke and opened doors, the doors that required me to have been weaned out of motivation, though I didn’t know it then.

From then I could identify motivation and its dangers though I did not know it as such.

It was many years that I could point at motivation as the great danger it is to the church of Christ.

Be it what is erroneously called the prosperity gospel, name it claim it, and many other variations, motivational preaching is a very virulent cancer to the church of Christ.

I hope you now understand where I am coming from.

You can ask for any clarification, though for the most part reading the Bible plainly and without motivational shades will make God’s doctrine clear.

I hope you now understand where I come from in a nutshell.

I will share more as God prompts.

 

Wednesday 20 March 2024

Genieus

I have started with a made-up word intentionally as I always do to communicate.

I know someone is screaming to correct me but I want to advise them to keep a rein of their desire to correct until they get to know why I have cooked a word like that.

Who is a genius? What is a genie?

That is where I want us to start.

A genius is an exceptionally endowed person with way above normal acumen for this or the other skill, sometimes many such skills.

A genie is a mythical spiritual being with an unlimited power that is only subject to his master who is limited to a few choices.

We hear of people with genies in their employ in witchcraft and some religions. The genies are kept for the purposes of making the said people wealthy or dealing with their enemies.

Why then am I connecting innocent people with the demonic? I know someone is wondering.

Exodus 31 talks of God’s call to Bezalel son of Uri.

Incidentally that is the first time the Bible talks about someone being filled with the Holy Spirit and not Acts 2:4 as charismatics and Pentecostals believe and teach.

It is that filling that enabled him to be the exceptional artisan and instructor towards satisfying God’s demand for the items to be involved in His worship.

We can comfortably call him a genius and we won’t be wrong because that is what he was.

Yet it is clear from the Bible that it was the Holy Spirit that gave him that enablement.

That is what I want to demonstrate today.

I will start by giving my definition of genius.

A genius is a person who has been endowed with an exceptional gift or many such gifts for the purpose of serving God and helping others connect with God better.

A genius is therefore someone who, from his mother’s womb, possesses such attributes (allow me to call them gifts) that will stand out when compared to the average person.

It therefore means that this person’s path has already been drawn and his assignment arranged.

He arrives on the scene to actualize what he had already been prepared for.

Genius according to me is a spiritual release with a particular purpose in mind.

That is why you find many inventors are not normal people as normal goes.

Their acumen for whatever they do is not attributable to their education or training because what they do is beyond any training they might receive. It is beyond any exposure they may have had.

Another thing you will notice is that they do not do anything for recognition or even reward. They are content to just solve a problem.

I am sure you know that many people we call inventors actually invented nothing. They just connected with the genius doing the invention and, because the genius was content with solving a problem, were able to make those inventions theirs because they were the assistants the genius was using.  They had all the documentation and witnessed all the processes and so can comfortably own those inventions.

But the geniuses are content with the solution they helped solve. The inventor of the rubber tyre (or tire as per your English) died penniless even as other people were being made millionaires by his invention. Yet he didn’t die bitter since he was content to have sacrificed his wealth and health to provide a solution. And we know of many medical pioneers who died from their experimentational hazards to provide what we now take for granted. Many freedom fighters sacrificed everything for the freedoms we enjoy and eventually died in poverty since others hijacked their struggle and made a different narrative to bury them in oblivion. Again, we do not see them bitter. It is others who were never near the action who have become the champions fighting for compensation.

That is why I am connecting the genius with the genie since they are intrinsically connected.

Let me get us to the Bible before you lose track of what I am saying.

Moses had something that his mother saw. The Bible says he was no ordinary baby even at infancy.

It simply means that the spiritual release in his life was evident to all.

In fact, it was that spiritual spark in him that caused Egypt to order all the boys to be killed since their spiritual gurus could see it when he was released from the heavens.

We get to clearly see it through his leadership.

How can a single man lead over three million people singlehandedly for forty years without the gimmicks leaders employ? How could he be so connected to people and God at the same time? How could he be so focused on his role to the point that he made a single error in forty years? And how could that error be so grave to God that he disqualified him from entering Canaan yet Aaron was forgiven for among other sins, fashioning the golden calf?

Then us get to David. Again, we can clearly see it through his life and leadership.

How could he be so gentle on lambs yet so tough on Goliath? How could he play so softly on the harp yet leap over a wall? How could he act (feign madness) so effectively in Gath yet be so real to Israel? How could he spare Saul’s life two times yet curse Joab? How could he invite Maphibosheth yet condemn Shimei and Joab to death by the sword? And how could he turn very desperate and hopeless characters into the kind of army he raised?

The lives of these, as you will see with many others, was consistent with a spiritual release to accomplish a task God had in store for them. Accomplishing that task was enough for them

Probably it would help us some if I included another person in this list before we go to the New Testament. And that is Jonathan, Saul’s crown prince.

Do you realise he surrendered everything that represented his position when David came into the picture? That for me is baffling, beyond reason except for this one reason.

We know that he was not a coward since we even see him confronting the Philistine army singlehandedly. We know that he had enough spiritual stature because he was able to clearly see David’s spiritual release. And we know there was no threat to his inheriting his father’s kingdom since he was the only son Israel identified with leadership like we see when Saul seeks to kill him.

And the kingdom was all his since even David had no desire to fight for it. In any case David was a child when he came to the scene and Jonathan was already a family man.

But Jonathan was able to see what even David had not seen and was willing to submit to it

That is the genius I am talking about. Jonathan handed his kingdom to David without reservations and offered to serve under him.

Probably Jonathan ought to be the focus of any leadership training.

Just imagine a manager seeing a tea boy (I wonder why they are always called boy when they are grown men) possessing the leadership higher than his doing what Jonathan did to David!

Yet that is what Jonathan did.

But even as you digest that I want to include another genius we might not all agree about his genius. And that is Caleb ben Jephunneh. How could a single person stand against three million against all odds, even plain evidence the other spies had seen?

That genius was in his faith. His faith was such that nothing could stand against God’s promise. That is why I include him in my list of geniuses.

Let me get to the thrust of my post by repeating that the genius is a person whose assignment is accompanied by an exceptional gift or set of gifts.

And I do this because removing the spiritual from it makes the genius just like the next person apart from their exceptional enablement. It is also the whole purpose of this post because the misunderstanding of the same is the reason many geniuses waste their lives doing irrelevant things, things that will put their assignment in jeopardy. That is where I want us to go.

Remember Samson?

His assignment was crystal clear even before his conception.

But what do we see with him? He takes his gift for granted, even plays games with it.

Incidentally that is what the enemy, who knows about that release even before we know it, takes advantage of.

Due to his assignment, however, God still uses him, albeit in a much-limited way due to his entitlement or assumption that it will still work.

You see, as a nazarite, it was against the rules for him to interact with the Philistines. But he did. He was not allowed to touch any unclean thing. But he took honey from a carcass of an unclean animal. He couldn’t interact with a whore, even an Israelite one. But he visited a Philistine one.

But since his assignment was still intact, he continued to perform the roles God had set up for him.

But that dabbling with the forbidden was his undoing since it eventually took him to a point that God removed him from his assignment. The Bible says that God left him.

Yet even after that, God is able to use him even in his death wish so that he could accomplish his assignment, even in death.

The enemy targets the gifted from all fronts, but there is one place he deploys his best arsenal in. and that is where most gifted men fall as we see with Samson.

Or do you not remember that it was at the same point Joseph was tempted? But he escaped, though he went to prison for it.

It was the same that led David to the only blot to his leadership.

And it was the same point Solomon was felled.

Yet in the whole confusion of all that sex he still performed what God had released him for. But it led to great regret as we read in Ecclesiastes. That whole mix up also almost aborted God’s complete assignment for him since it caused the bulk of his kingdom to be snatched from David.

But it is hard to imagine satisfying a thousand women sexually and still perform all the other roles his assignment brought about as king and sage. But that is what his gifting included; enough energy for accomplishing his assignment.

Yet we know that all that dabbling with women, especially forbidden women, eventually brought him down as well as tainted his assignment.

Women are the first attack the devil releases on the genius since you even see David and many others falling for them.

The other attack is focused on his ego.

The devil tries to make the genius to focus his gifts on himself.

Think about pride because it is unmistakable to everybody that the person is gifted way beyond normal. It therefore does not take much effort to make him clap for himself since everybody is doing it anyway.

We even see that with Jesus’ temptations.

Aren’t you the Son of God …

If he is able to shift the focus from the assignment to self, he will have completely obliterated that assignment and transformed it into his assignment.

If he can make the genius focus on the remuneration from his assignment, he will have, as he did with Samson, watered down the whole purpose of the giftedness.

If he can make the genius echo all the horns being blown in his honor by blowing his own horn, he stops being the weapon God had created and actually becomes His enemy.

You see, the success of the genius lies within his focus on his assignment and nothing else.

That is why many die poor even as their inventions make others stinking rich as they see since that is what they were created for.

Whether it is music or herbs, his focus must always be on the assignment. That is his prize and his all-consuming desire.

And I repeat; this is the reason many of them die from the dangers pursuit of their goal exposed them to. And they will gladly die since their assignment more or less defines them.

I will say something that makes them succumb to all the praise they get.

Just like with women, the pursuit for the genius will be relentless. The praise will be unwavering.

That enablement draws women and applause like a flower does to bees.

Sadly for them, even the defilement that may be caused by them does not diminish the gift.

I have mentioned Solomon sexually satisfying a thousand wives when God had indicated that a man should not approach his wife before a worship session.

Though it killed his spiritual stature, it in no way reduced his acumen for his assignment.

Do we not also see Samson carrying a whole city gate (uphill for some distance) after a session with a harlot?

Geniuses will drink themselves silly and still function better than the sober. They could ingest drugs yet seem unaffected by them. It is simply because of the assignment God has for them.

But it will dilute their spiritual stature and cloud their spiritual awareness for the assignment as happened with Samson and Solomon.

They could go for days without sleep yet not even sense any sleep deprivation.

I am sure someone is wondering the geniuses I am talking about. Allow me to give a few examples.

There is this person whose hands can make music out of any instrument without any training or exposure. There is this singer whose voice simply elevates the listeners to another level. There is this preacher whose sermons can convict the hardest heart. There is this handyman who appears like he started handling tools in his mother’s womb. There is this herbalist who will smell a leaf and tell you what it can treat. There is this businessman who can see opportunities that do not exist and make handsome profits thereon. There is this seer who can see the future with a clarity that is simply insane.

Simply speaking, we are looking at someone whose spiritual release for whatever task he has been entrusted with is beyond question, someone people will run to solve their problem without any reservations, even someone without an idea whether he can solve their problem.

That is why I am calling it a spiritual release. And it is visible beyond the narrow confines of his environment.

Anybody coming across him must look for any opportunity to take advantage of his presence because he must flourish in whatever he attempts.

Remember Jacob and Laban? And Solomon and his neighbors, far and wide?

Sadly, most of those alliances are not driven by mutual interest but by someone who seeks to take advantage of the spiritual connections the genius can access by his giftedness. Yet others are driven by his enemy to bring him down as happened with Samson and Solomon.

But I also need to add that even the other spiritual side has its geniuses released for the purposes of enlarging their kingdom as we see in Genesis 6.

But I am writing about God’s release in this post, though I need to state the fact that the devil seeks to divert God’s release to serve his purpose. That is where I want us to focus for now.

Solomon knew the purpose of his gift since he is the one who prayed for it.

Simply said he needed wisdom to lead his people to God, or in other words as God would have him lead.

That leadership drew many nations to him as had happened to David his father.

But, unlike David, he drifted from his purpose when all those partnerships overshadowed his assignment.

I will give you another verse to help you realise that even David became overwhelmed at one time.

And Absalom said unto him, See, thy matters are good and right; but there is no man deputed of the king to hear thee. (2Samuel 15:3)

Yet David was not swept over. But it was what his son rode on to overthrow him.

Why he wasn’t is the only solution to the genius. That is the only solution to that extremely gifted person.

Look at these verses.

And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites: And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them: That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel. (Deuteronomy 17: 18 – 20)

It is evident that David took that order from God seriously, especially when we read his psalms. He loved God’s word. He read God’s word. He meditated on God’s word. He lived according to God’s word. He sang God’s word.

That is why fame and wealth was unable to shake his faith. That is why women could not distract him from his assignment (and we know he also had many wives). That is why acclaim could not swing his character. That is why those partnerships could not sway his love for God. And that is why busyness could not affect his sense of justice.

But it was not so with his son.

Those seven hundred princesses came on their kingdom’s terms, terms that even Solomon’s wisdom was unable to bend towards God and His revelation. They therefore did not submit to the God who had assigned Solomon his kingdom because he was unable to control them. The only way to control them being submitting to God’s word by constantly interacting with it as God had commanded.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. (Joshua 1:8)

It is the same instruction to another genius.

It was the same with Jesus. His assignment and connection to His Father was the reason the devil could not get to Him.

What am I saying?

It is of prime importance that the genius literally drowns in God’s word.

It is as important for the normal believer also. But for the genius it becomes a life and death situation because the obstacles stacked against him by the enemy are way more than those for the normal believer. And this because the normal believer leans on the genius for support.

Using an illustration I use, when a small tree falls in a forest, very little happens. In fact, nobody may even notice that fall. Yet when a huge tree falls, not only is there a huge thud, but many other small trees and plants collapse under it. In short everything around it is affected.

That is why Moses was judged for a slip when Aaron was forgiven for making the calf. That is why David was judged for adultery and murder while others seemed to walk Scot free for worse sins.

It is like Christ said, he who has been entrusted with much carried more weight than the one entrusted with little.

Some common flaws that are easily overlooked in others stick like a sore thumb with the genius.

Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. (2Samuel 12:14)

The genius is that towering mammoth of a tree that many, probably all, other trees lean on and look up to. Their fall is therefore a fall of a huge portion of the forest.

Is it any wonder that a philandering pastor never lacks a partner? Is it any wonder that many choirmasters can sleep with almost any member of the choir they teach? Is it any wonder that we are always hearing about sexual abuse in Hollywood and other film making institutions? Does it surprise you that many people associate media with immorality?

But for the genius they are not the villains, at least most times. They are the victims of that entrapment to bring down their spiritual stature. And effectively curtail or abort his assignment.

I will close this by challenging you to look at the exceptionally gifted and endowed persons around you.

Do they know their assignment? Are they content in the pursuit of the same?

Are you a genius, even in a very small way like Caleb?

Lead them and yourself to the scriptures.

With our generation it has become much easier as we have unlimited ways of accessing the Bible.

I for one goes to sleep with an Audio Bible playing. And I have done it for years.

Then I have consistently read the Bible through for almost forty years, some times going through it two or even three times in a year.

That is the only way it can shape your worldview as well as sharpen your discernment. That is the best way to be clear on what God wants you to be and do. And I am addressing all of us, geniuses or not, since God has an assignment for each of us, the only difference being that the genius has an assignment off the ordinary like the ones we have seen in the Bible.

In fact many received that genius assignment because they were found ready for it as they swam in God’s revelation.

Wednesday 13 March 2024

Motivation is a Snare

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. (Luke 9: 23 24)

I have intentionally started with verses that are antithetical to my message.

This is because I feel it is important to establish what motivation is really against.

Many may think that I am a wet blanket because I am opposing their favorite preachers. Many think that I am aggrieved by one or more of these preachers and am behaving as Jeremiah was behaving towards the Jews.

Many think that life and ministry has dealt me a very cruel turn and made me bitter.

But nothing could be farther from the truth.

The truth is that God actually delivered me from motivation as I sought to know and live according to His word. I was a passionate believer and practitioner of motivation since my childhood, devouring vast amounts of motivational content in Christian books (there were no tapes and videos then)

From the positive thinking books in the 70s to the speak it claim it later, I really enjoyed those books.

As I said in the first message about motivation those messages are like fast food, easily digestible and requiring little actual engagement or work. And their aroma is very inviting of course.

You can therefore look at me as an insider who jumped out of that snare. I was actually snatched or rescued from that snare. And I will be eternally grateful to God for that rescue.

It is therefore in the context of Luke 9:23 that we can accurately gauge motivation. And it is there that we can easily distinguish between motivation and encouragement, though I will probably write about encouragement later. But I trust you will find posts about encouragement on my blog somewhere.

Motivation will never talk about denying self, unless it is for the purposes of taking what you have denied yourself to the superstar and his structure. Even then that denial will be material and not spiritual. And it will be prompted by that conman and his structure.

Motivation is always the easy way in the short term. That is why those churches are full to overflowing with people who have no qualms about sin. That is why those conmen are defended with so much vehemence even on issues that are plainly undisputable because the motivated have chosen the easy route as opposed to Christ’s route of denial of self and pursuit of holiness.

Get to the point. I know someone is shouting.

Motivation is a trap to the motivator as well as the motivated.

As such, it must be set up to be able to ensnare. That is what I want us to look at.

How does a preacher get ensnared into motivational preaching? How does a believer get swallowed up into discarding solid scriptural preaching for motivation?

Allow me to go back to the study of rebellion and look at one character, Balaam.

Simply speaking the king dangled before him an irresistible order, an order that made him doubt what God had clearly told him. And from that point everything else went downhill.

A preacher must be baited to switch to motivational preaching. And the stakes are normally very high.

Allow me to give a somewhat comical current example.

There are characters in the church I attend that have been scheming for years to overthrow the pastor because he was at the pole position of taking over some big denominational position. The person who was to leave the position did not want to relinquish that position though he was clearly disqualified from continuing. He therefore joined the schemers in their pursuit because he also had a bigger stake in it. But I didn’t know about that scheme, though I had been suspecting something of the sort.

I was approached by one of them and told that I was the right person to occupy that position the pastor would occupy and that he would talk with the churches electing to ensure I got the position.

I of course refused since I have no interest at all in any denominational, or even church, leadership. I am just content to serve God where I am.

After the elections, the same people cooked such damaging allegations against the pastor, even cooking minutes of meetings. We are still fighting that battle.

But suppose I had desired that position and agreed with that schemer. Do you think I could be at the position I am at fighting for the truth? Do you think I could be having the moral authority to call out their scheme and the wickedness therein?

Of course not.

Though it is interesting to know that only the pastor was qualified for that position. I was simply being baited with a position that I couldn’t have been given.

But do you think it could have mattered if I had joined their scheme?

Allow me to give another example that repeats itself enough times.

Imagine you are a pastor of a huge congregation. This means that you know very few people beyond superficially.

Suppose with me that a lady brings you a very expensive suit or dinner set. Then does something similar a few other times.

After a long time of enjoying her bounty, you get to realise that she is a high-class harlot.

What will you do?

Will you look her in the eye when God gives you a message against harlotry? How will you feel when you mention prostitution in your sermons?

I will close with another example and you are still the pastor.

A member approaches you seeking your prayer and involvement before establishing his hotel in those far-flung places.

You gladly go to lay the stone of the building, even mobilizing the church for prayer.

He then asks you to come open the hotel, giving you free access with your family any time you need to holiday.

As you continue enjoying all that favor, you get to realise that it really is not a hotel but a sex trafficking den and brothel camouflaged as a hotel.

What will you do?

I know your answer is simple, because you are not that pastor. But imagine for once that you are that pastor. It will rarely be a black and white answer.

Let us get back to the Bible

Now after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and made obeisance to the king. Then the king hearkened unto them. And they left the house of the LORD God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass. (2Chronicles 24: 17, 18)

At this point Jehoiada the priest had died. This means that the powerful influence he had exercised over the king died with him. Though his son was also a prophet, the power of the prophetic voice that he had carried more or less died with him.

It is at this point that what I have been trying to explain happened.

The princes came to the king and feigned submission, loyalty and of course love that the king could not resist. No wonder he joined the motivational bandwagon so quickly.

I will at this point state that motivation’s main purpose is to dull the prophetic voice and eventually replace it. This is what happened to a once godly king.

He eventually killed the prophetic voice, completely forgetting that it was that prophet’s father who rescued him when all his brothers were being killed, eventually making him king at seven.

Yet that is how motivation operates.

It will distance you from your loyal friends who can see better than your compromised reality and not be afraid of confronting you with the truth as we see with Jehoiada’s son a few verses later.

They will fight to convince you that they are the only friends you can count on and completely shield you from your real friends, eventually demonizing them in your eyes.

There are friends we were very close who will never agree to a meeting with me or even receive my calls because they fear I will confront their compromised faith and ministry. And they are right.

In the process, however, they have locked out probably the only sober prognoses of their situation.

And I know there are many other ministers who have been locked out of positions and relationships because their radical nature is deemed too damaging to motivation and the resulting chaos it creates.

Incidentally, the ensnaring does not stop when you take that bait. This because a believer has the capacity of seeing their error at any time. Conviction and rebuke can come from any direction. And repentance and restoration is assured once one has repented of their sin.

The ensnaring must be on a continuous tense. One is not allowed enough time to swallow his saliva as we see Job complaining to God.

They will move from one gift to a bigger and better one, from a little flattery to a whole undiluted dish of the same to blind the baited to the dangers inherent in motivational preaching.

They will fill your life and thought with so much noise that the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit is completely stifled since they will effectively crowd everything and everyone else apart from them out of your life.

That is why motivational preachers live far from the people they motivate. They drive cars that block any interference that may occur if they mix with the rubble since in that rubble are people who can accurately hear God’s voice and are not scared of speaking it.

Should I leave it here?

I just hope you are getting something here.

I have not mentioned the snare for the motivation victims and hope God will have me share one soon.

Motivators are False Prophets 2

Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her: and the LORD hath hid it from me, and hath not told me. (2 Kings 4: 27b)

I am sure that most believers who follow motivational preachers already hate me. And I am fine with that because I am convinced that God is very clear about those who minister to Him.

I am therefore not seeking to win you to my argument or convince you to be my friend or supporter.

I am content to share as clearly as I can God’s message, however much it might hurt some of you.

My hope is that just as surgery, however painful and death threatening it is, is always better than a cocktail of painkillers, however effective in dulling pain they may be, my message will remove one person from the deception the enemy has succeeded in rooting in contemporary Christian ministry through motivational preaching.

I will start with the verse above.

We know that Elisha was a prophet mightily used of God, a prophet who always knew what to do whatever situation he met.

Yet at this time we see a dumbfounded prophet.

Here comes a friend and supporter who had sacrificed so much for Elisha, and not after any prompting from the prophet.

She is clearly hurting, and bitterly so. Yet the man of God had no idea, not only about what was ailing her, but also what to do in the situation.

How can a man of God fail to have the word of God? Is that even practicable?

Yet that was the reality. As Elisha himself said, God had hidden it from him and refused to reveal anything concerning the situation.

You see, God does not speak because we want to hear Him. He does not speak because we need those answers.

And that is where the motivators get it so wrong.

Incidentally, what we see with Elisha was also prevalent with many other prophets, probably all the prophets we have longer stories about. Allow me to give a few.

Daniel prayed for some time before receiving the answer Nebuchadnezzar was looking for. We later see him fasting for three weeks before receiving the eschatological revelations we so love.

Jeremiah prayed for ten days before receiving God’s orders concerning the remnants. And it was so complete because it even dealt with their rebellion.

Moses never had an answer as he had to ask God about each and every situation brought to him.

Let me stop here though I could continue for page after page about prophets and the delays they encountered before receiving those revelations.

The motivator always has those answers already cut and dried. He has no uncertainties. He has no dark places. He has no delays.

The motivator has all his answers. But they are always one sided. They only speak one message, call it the message of hope as if hope is all there is to life.

Though hope is essential to our Christian lives, it is only a portion of the totality of that life.

The truth is that God speaks. I will be the last person to question that fact since He speaks to me.

God is also very clear to those who are sold out to Him so that they do not guess what He is saying. This means that they are able to clearly hear when He speaks and know when He is silent as we see with Elisha. And that is not the only time we see Elisha in such a predicament.

Simply speaking, God’s servant knows that God is at liberty to speak when He wants and how He wants. We do not determine how or when He should speak.

Those who have followed my writing for long know that I have written quite a bit on Job’s three friends.

Yet did you know that those friends were actually motivational speakers?

If you follow their speeches, you will realise that they started speaking so motivationally. But they ran out of steam because Job’s situation was not as cut and dried as other situations they had faced.

That is why they then used their motivational knowledge to full capacity simply because motivation is closed to anything else.

Motivation has no answers to pain. Motivation has no answer to God’s silence. Motivation has no answer to uncertainties.

That is why we see them starting with a message of hope, the only message motivation has, to extreme condemnation once they realised that Job’s situation was outside their neatly packed theology.

Like I always say they were using the scriptures to advance their theology. And for the most part their theology had no issues. When people quote from the book of Job, very rarely will they want to know who spoke those words because the theology behind them is fine.

They were wicked comforters because their theological persuasions did not include Job’s situation. And they were judged because they did not seek to know what God had to say about that situation.

That for me is the greatest danger of motivation. It is so one tracked.

It is not that the message is irrelevant. It is only that the message applies to a very narrow constituency, if I may call it that. The rest of the population and situations are completely left out of their ministrations.

You see, there are times you need hope to survive another day. But that is not all the time.

Most times you need focus and direction to be able to work.

Allow me to explain.

A farmer needs hope to be able to prepare his land after several seasons of crop or rain failure.

But he does not hope the weeds will not grow once the rains come as that will require hard work.

A parent educates his children in hope that they will come out fine. But he does not hope their characters will just happen. He must pick that rod to, like many parents say, drive that foolishness and evil away.

Paying fees is done in hope. Discipline does not need hope as I know that I will reap what I sow.

Motivation seeks to help me build my tabernacle around hope alone.

That is why Job’s three friends had a problem. Hope motivates people to start working. It does not get into the nitty gritty of the actual work.

To the worker therefore, hope can many times be a distraction.

Hope will get me out of bed amidst those exhausted and paining joints. But hope will not be the energy that will lift that hoe in that hot sun. though it will challenge me to use my savings buying that seed, it will not put that seed in the ground.

I know some of you are getting confused.

There must be a context for motivation. Motivation cannot be open ended. And that is why I have given those examples.

This also is the reason I am calling the motivator a false prophet.

You will again allow me to give an example using the church pulpit for emphasis.

The pastor is preaching and in his motivational preaching, whether it is comedic or not, chooses to play the prophet.

‘God is saying that you will get that job. That interview you have been invited to will get you the job you have always dreamed of’.

Now imagine with me that there is a person in that congregation attending a job interview, and in big congregations that is practically impossible not to have a few such. That prophecy is flush on for that person who leaves with their hopes in the clouds.

Suppose in the interview the boss says that the job is yours for the taking. But …

Do you think that person will have qualms sleeping with that boss or taking a loan to buy that prophesied job?

Would you call what that preacher said prophetic?

Yet week after week, year in year out, this is the fare congregations are living on. Pastors and bishops are competing with each other on who is a better motivator than the other instead of simply teaching the word and allowing God to use it to motivate His people if they so need motivation.

The focus of their sermons and whatever they may call those deceptions is on making people feel good about themselves even as they aspire for purely human ambitions.

In all my life I have never heard a motivator prophesying or even telling someone that they will need to leave that dream job to go take the Gospel to an unreached people group. In fact, I have never heard them even praying about ministry and ministers except themselves and theirs. And this is something I have challenged some of them about.

You see, they need those gifts, gifts that could very easily be redirected to other ministers and ministries if the revelation leaked to the congregation.

Yet I am convinced that the motivators are most destructive around the area of sin and guilt. That is why I have started with God’s silence.

That is the battle true prophets fought with most vehemently.

Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah; The LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will cast thee from off the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the LORD. (Jeremiah 28: 15, 16)

Jeremiah had been given a difficult message to deliver, a message that required him to walk with a yoke on his neck I don’t know for how long.

The message was, repent and then submit to Nebuchadnezzar. He even warned against false prophets. It is also worth noting that some Jews and vessels of God’s temple had already been carried to Babylon. I am sure Jeremiah had been speaking over the years about the happenings since at this time he had already occupied the prophetic office for over thirty years.

In the midst of that message appears a very effective and powerful motivational prophet.

He trashes Jeremiah’s prophecy and even breaks that yoke on his neck. He then goes ahead to say what everybody wanted to hear.

Not only did he nullify the prophet’s message he goes ahead to prophesy that the people and objects that had been carried to Chaldea would be returned.

Now who do you think the Jews heard? Which message was more palatable?

That is what made God so enraged that He not only prophesied his death, but He also did it in less than two months.

This is the clearest indicator that the motivator fuels rebellion against God by dulling the cutting edge of conviction thereby making the sinner comfortable in their sin.

Allow me to give situations I have come across in ministry.

Take this example of a wife who commits adultery.

The guilt will be crippling.

She then goes to her pastor or close friend who is a motivator and what do they tell her?

God has forgiven and received you because Christ died for you. You simply need to walk in that forgiveness. And it stops at that.

When the husband learns of that betrayal, he will justifiably become enraged. Do you know what this wife tells him?

I was forgiven. I am walking in freedom.

She then starts blaming her husband for unforgiveness especially if he seeks a solution to that sin.

The motivator has turned the sinner into a saint and victim of persecution and the offended into the villain because he wants to resolve and properly heal his marriage.

I know of wives who sneak for days from their marriages to go to those motivators, spending a premium on those escapades (and I use this word intentionally). Yet that conman is not ashamed of being called a conman.

But I will not stop calling them so.

For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, (2Timothy 3:6)

How does someone allow someone’s wife in their company (what they call ministry) for days without the express permission of her husband? Interestingly, the purpose of the same is prayer for that husband.

Yet that is how narrow motivators are. No wonder their churches overflow with women.

You will then see she said motivated woman bashing her husband from all fronts because of the motivation she received from her man of God (is it not god?).

You will see her waiting for her husband to repent for judging her sin that the motivator told her was done away with just by confessing to him. She will do everything in her power and even to outsourcing ‘logic’ to convince him that he is the sinner who needs to repent since that is what her motivator told her.

How do you expect that motivated woman to submit to her ‘unreasonable and unforgiving’ husband? How do you expect that marriage to survive?

Yet motivators do not mind that because they feed off that rebellion they have created and nurtured.

I know of motivators who rush into marital problems for the single purpose of getting their newest lay. They will pretend to resolve marital issues when all the time they are looking into getting a new woman to sleep with.

I know of situations where motivators ran off with their friend’s wife, even offering to pay for their divorce fees. Until the friend discovered that his wife had become the motivator’s concubine, since he had a legal wife.

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, of Ahab the son of Kolaiah, and of Zedekiah the son of Maaseiah, which prophesy a lie unto you in my name; Behold, I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon; and he shall slay them before your eyes; And of them shall be taken up a curse by all the captivity of Judah which are in Babylon, saying, The LORD make thee like Zedekiah and like Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire; Because they have committed villany in Israel, and have committed adultery with their neighbours' wives, and have spoken lying words in my name, which I have not commanded them; even I know, and am a witness, saith the LORD. (Jeremiah 29: 21 – 23)

It is practically impossible to speak for God against His revelation or silence (which is what most motivation ultimately is) and live right amongst His people.

And the world is rife with story after another of this or the other motivator caught pants down (whatever that means) in illicit sexual situations.

Very respectable ministers have had to dish out vast amounts of cash to cover up their infidelity or perversion. The abortion industry thrives because motivators must continue to project that perfect marriage front against the reality on the ground.

Covering up God’s silence with motivation not only deceives people into believing a lie it worsens the situation by making sin and rebellion fine by making conviction and guilt uncool.

Jeremiah was for years screaming, repent, using all the means at his disposal, when these motivators were shouting, receive your restoration, have your best life now, receive, the season of your restoration is now, and many other motivational messages.

Is it any wonder than that Judah went headlong into the judgment Jeremiah had been threatening all those years?

That is what is happening to the church of Christ in our generation due to the overabundance of motivation in the church.

When God’s ministers (and this is an assumption), focus on positive vibes instead of God’s revelation and especially painting God’s clear portrait to those people under their instruction, they are in effect driving people against God.

This means that these motivators are clearly enemies of the Gospel they presume to be propagating. This because they are offering comfort to rebellion instead of confronting it.

Our spirits are much more receptive to motivation than they are to a challenge to change just as it is easier to swallow juice than it is to chew and swallow meat.

I do not know whether you are getting what I am saying or you are still sticking to your conman. And I will not ply you out of him.

What I want is for you to know the kind of message you are interacting with and especially how God looks at it.

Interact with your Bible in prayer to ascertain that what I am saying is scriptural or not because your response to this message will have serious ramifications either way. And this, you must know, is not a threat, though I wish it was one.

  

Thursday 7 March 2024

Filthy Beauty

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away (Isaiah 64: 6)

There are two verses anyone involved in evangelism knows and may have memorized very early in their evangelism training. One is at the beginning of Isaiah and the other is towards the end; the verse above.

We have always used them to plead with people to respond to our call to receive Christ.

But today I want to add another dimension to these very famous verses by starting with the statement that probably they are more indicative of the rebellious heart than they are of a seeking one.

The verse above seeks to show a person who is seeking to please God, unless righteousness does not mean seeking to live right in God’s sight.

It shows someone who is trying their best.

Why then does all that effort receive such a negative response from the One they seek to please?

I dare say it is because it is being done with the heart in the wrong place.

Explain. I know someone is shouting.

I will start with children.

Why do we call children sweet little rascals?

It is because of their innocence. We know that they are very genuine in their trying to please us, even if it means putting sugar into our food and salt in our tea.

Simply said, we are sure their heart was in the right place. That their effort was as genuine as genuineness itself.

How would we feel if our spouse did what our toddler did so wrong yet we smiled, even appreciated?

The difference is what the verse is addressing.

And that is why I want to get us back to our study of rebellion.

Isaiah 1: 19 and 20 are addressing the same topic. And I refer to it because we so love verse 18.

Verse 19 mentions two words; willing and obedient while verse 20 mentions two words; refuse and rebel.

The first two words actualize verse 18 while the second two words negate it.

Allow me to explain.

God has called us for a dialogue. But it is not much of one because the papers are ready to be signed. It is like being called to write a statement when all that is required is for you to sign it.

There are actually two choices. Will you sign it or not?

That is the condition set in that reasoning together.

Will we allow God to deal with our sins or not? Will we surrender our attempts at dealing with our sins completely or will we continue attempting to deal with them?

The willing and obedient surrender their attempts and justification for their sins to God who then makes them white as snow.

The rebellious continue cleaning themselves up with the notion that God will be compelled to favorably respond and recognize their effort.

That is what the verse above is talking about.

Their feeble attempts at righteousness, however gigantic it might seem to them, is really worse than if they had not attempted at all just as filthy rags are far worse than dirty clothes.

In my earlier writeups about rebellion, I had indicated that rebellion is not refusal of acknowledging wrongdoing or sin. It is explaining it away and seeking justification for the same.

Second is that it is rushing to correct the sin instead of allowing God to deal with it.

Third is wanting God to allow you to set the conditions of your reconciliation.

We saw that very clearly in our study of Saul, the first king of Israel, and Balaam, the prophet turned soothsayer.

You will realise that Saul’s last effort at getting any word from God was so desperate that he sought the intervention of an enemy of the same God to get. This is the filthy rags we are addressing. Yet the result was the same; God rejected you and so you remain rejected.

You see, we can not serve God on terms that are not His. We cannot follow God’s rules on our terms. We cannot please Him on our terms.

Yet this is what we are seeing in this verse.

Someone is seeking to please God on terms that are not God’s.

No wonder it is worse than not even trying.

But that is what rebellion continues to do.

Let us even look at human relationships.

I will condense and paraphrase an ancient story I posted some time ago titled Nka, Nka, Nkauga.

Two siblings are playing when one accidentally breaks an old and treasured item in the house.

He seeks to hide but the other sees that as his chance, threatening to tell their father unless ….

From that point, the offender becomes the slave of the witness; giving the best food and going for the most difficult errands so that the other does not tell.

Eventually he gets tired. He has lost so much weight because the sibling gets to eat all the best food even as he does the most tedious tasks. Sadly, he can’t tell his father why he is losing so much weight or is doing all the jobs around the home.

He decided to die and confesses to his father, only to be surprised to know that his father had known all along and was only waiting for that confession.

The only problem is that most rebels would rather die than confess. And the two suicides we see in the Bible; Ahithophel and Judas, are a testimony to this.

The reality is that only repentance has the capacity to deal with sin, either against God or people.

Trying to cover up sin with good deeds, instead of softening the heart of the offended, actually amplify our sin in the eyes of the offended.

You see, we do not set the rules for forgiveness when we offend. That is why even in courts people plead for the mercy of the court after their conviction.

Only the offended knows the weight of the offense and so can accurately or fairly set the rules for his acceptance.

The only thing the offender knows is that he is guilty. He has no idea as to the depth of his offense.

That is why I so love David.

Never once do we see him explaining his sins away. Never do we see him transferring or sharing the sin with anyone else even when the sin involved others. Never once do we see him trying to soften or share the sentence passed for his sin.

The only thing we see him doing is pleading for mercy. No wonder God also loved him.

Remember him asking God to spare Israel and deal only with him when he had ordered a census!

But we see the complete opposite with his predecessor who was always blaming someone else for his wrongs. There was someone or somebody who was also responsible for his sin.

At one time it was Samuel coming a wee little later than he said. Another time it was the army that wanted to sacrifice what was supposed to be destroyed. Another time it was the priests who were plotting with David ad infinitum.

The reality is that our effort at pleasing the one we have offended, be it God or people, stinks to high heavens because we want to assume that our effort to please will delete our offense from the memory of the offended.

We assume that grown ups are like children who will forget the hiding they have received or toy they have been denied because they have been given a treat, sometimes only a very cheap sweet (candy). We assume that God is also like that.

But that is not true at all.

That is why David was forgiven and Saul was damned. That is why Peter was forgiven and Judas was damned. That is why one thief on the cross was forgiven and the other damned.

My effort stinks before God. My repentance pleases God so that He can completely forgive and forget the sin.

Incidentally, it is the same with relationships.

Nothing you do to the offended can reverse the offense. No price can be paid to exterminate the memories of the offense. No effort can assuage the mistrust the offense created.

That is why only the falling down in repentance praying for mercy can offer another chance. And it is the offended who gives that second chance, and not because of the pleading of the offender.

What am I saying?

Have you offended someone? Have you broken the trust of someone who loves you? (I am saying who loves you because you couldn’t have loved them when you broke their trust).

Have you sinned against God? Have you broken your vows to Him? Have you lost your passion for Him? Has your love for Him waned?

Break before them. Do not try to revive something that you killed. Do not attempt to light a fire that you extinguished.

Joining all the ministries of the church has no capacity to cover your sin. Giving everything you have has no capacity of dealing with your sin, either before God or the one you have offended. It is like those acts addressed in 1 Corinthians 13.

It will never work. Your effort will be like filthy rags even as you think you are wearing your best. You will be like Adam with those leaves covering his nakedness. No wonder he hid from God because he realized how flimsy his effort was.

Allow the one you have offended (be it God or man) to decide whether they will dress (cover) you. Allow them to decide whether they will accept you. And allow them to set the terms for that reconciliation.

Please keep quiet and allow them to slowly go through your offense. They are hurting far worse than you are because they trusted an untrustworthy person; you.

Walk out if they decide to kick you out of their life since you are the one who walked out anyway.

It is only their mercy you seek and not their understanding.

I hope I am being understood.