Selective Amnesia

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2Chronicles 7:14)

And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God. (Deuteronomy 28:1, 2)

The LORD shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. (Deuteronomy 28:12)

I am thinking of all the double speak preachers are speaking when they talk about Kenya and it saddens me. Why are we selective when we are speaking about our issues? Why do we always speak blessings to ourselves instead of the obedience that draws them to us? Why speak so encouragingly to the people we lead instead of accurately as God’s word speaks?

Why are we so selective when speaking about God’s promises?

Lest you forget I am also a preacher, having been in ministry for close to thirty years. It is only that these days I use a different type of pulpit to preach.

2Chronicles 7:14 has several instructions. What makes us think that selecting the easier tasks will make us acceptable to God? Why do we expect our land to experience healing when we have neglected other instructions?

Praying never covers for complete repentance. In fact it might make the situation worse as we are adding rebellion to our sin. In the first place it is because of sin that the land is afflicted. Can it be healed before we deal with that sin? How does God forgive sins we have not acknowledged, leave alone repenting from?

Preachers are deceiving their listeners when they preach blessing before preaching repentance and obedience.

Again let us look at the blessing themselves. What is the indicator of a blessing? Is it something I can manipulate or something out of human domain? Of course for a blessing to be ascribed to God it must leave no doubt to anyone that it was simply and only from God. There must not be another explanation, however much we might stretch the truth. God does not entertain competition and that is the reason He will not perform ‘miracles’ that can be explained away.

I do not have to be in God’s blessing blanket if I was able to get a million as I can be able to get the same selling drugs. I do not have to drive a big car to be blessed as there are prostitutes who drive even bigger.

God’s blessing denotes that He has done something NOBODY or NOTHING ELSE CAN.

Which brings me to my next quick point. Nature may be the clearest we may get to see God’s view of things. That is what you see in the Deuteronomy passage.

Sin causes nature to rebel against the sinners by withholding its bounty.

It surprises me to hear preachers parading the blessings of God on our land when for over ten years we have not had consistent rains. How can God withhold predictable rain to a land He loves as we like to paint our land? How do we have recurring droughts if God is really so satisfied with our land?

When will we stop pampering our flock in their sin so that they can keep us in comfort? When will we start telling them what God says in His word even if we stopped listening to Him?

May we lead the people we shepherd to complete the whole dosage God has given as opposed to throwing aside the parts we do not like or that threaten the support we are receiving from these people we are misleading so comfortable.

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2Chronicles 7:14)

I do not think there are two ways about it.