When Integrity is not Enough

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Ephesians 6:12)

I have been reflecting on the recent happenings in the government and political scene and am more convinced than ever that the spiritual realm is more organized than we think.

But it goes beyond that. Spiritual structures are such even that opposing armies will not break the protocol demanded. For example do you know that if a junior officer arrested a general it would be criminal to kill him as his prisoner? Only a general can kill an opposing general. And it is not much different in the spiritual realm.

And he said unto Jether his firstborn, Up, and slay them. But the youth drew not his sword: for he feared, because he was yet a youth. Then Zebah and Zalmunna said, Rise thou, and fall upon us: for as the man is, so is his strength. And Gideon arose, and slew Zebah and Zalmunna, and took away the ornaments that were on their camels' necks. (Judges 8: 20, 21)

I suspect that the boy, though potent on the battlefield, was spiritually impotent when confronted by the spiritual power and authority of those captured kings.

By the way that may be the reason Saul was unable to kill Agag the king of Amalek. His sin may have lowered his spiritual stature to the extent that it was beyond his status to kill a king.

What am I driving at? I am sure many are wondering. There is more to authority than being able to do a good job. There is more to authority than occupying a large office with a big title. There is more to authority than integrity and excellence. Though they are essential accessories to authority and the lack of them may spell doom to that authority, they are not definitions of it. This is why I thought to prepare this post.

People in the Bible who pursued spiritual authority got more than that authority.

Jacob was the wrong type of character though his lack of moral fortitude was ably compensated by his hunger for the spiritual. That was how he was able to bribe his way to get the birthright that gave him the spiritual authority of the firstborn. I believe that is what God looked for when He chose him above Esau. You see a hunger for the right kind of authority is always useful in God’s hands. And we see the same with Judah. Reuben who possessed authority lost it when he abused it.

But I want us to look at authority in relation to a delegated office in a ‘secular’ structure. By secular I mean a structure that does not strictly qualify to be called a spiritual structure though all structures are actually spiritual. The point I want to make is that there are only two sources of spiritual authority. I will repeat by saying that all structures are spiritual whichever way one looks at it. That is the reason a boss attracts ‘fear’ whether they are fearful or not.

The academia is a spiritual structure. No wonder terms like ivory tower are used to describe it. And it explains the reason it is the bastion of secularism and atheism. Knowledge is the front the prince of the world uses to deceive the world that it is just the innocent pursuit of knowledge that one gets there. Sure, knowledge is the thing people go to pursue there. But in that knowledge is packaged some other agenda by the head of that spiritual structure who is the devil even if you now feel offended.

It is instructive to note that education was a positive spiritual pursuit started by the church to give her members adequate knowledge of their faith as Matthew 28: 19, 20 commands. Even universities were started to instruct men called into ministry into greater grasp of their faith and the pursuit of their calling. In both the Bible was the main text book that guided from the study of Geography to Geology, leading to the appreciation of the Creator.

It is when it took the human oriented direction that its ruling spirit was changed by default. And that spirit is the one ruling nowadays, sadly even in some seminaries. Why do I say this? Very few of them nowadays are concerned with a purely ministerial or theological/ Bible training; they must include humanities and marketplace dynamics to increase their clientele. The qualifications required to join have also changed basically due to the focus on the marketplace. Incidentally that is the direction most premier universities took before becoming bastions of secularism and atheism.

One is therefore thoroughly disadvantaged when they think they are joining educational institutions for purely academic reasons because they will encounter a ruling prince they do not even imagine exists. It is no wonder that many students backslide when they join university. And I have heard that there are seminaries that are expert at extinguishing the zeal of those who join them to be prepared as ministers. Many join full of zeal and leave as cynics. No wonder we hear of homosexual pastors and bishops.

Sadly, many believers join such bastions thinking to influence them for God and end up having their spirituality swallowed up by the structures.

I remember when I joined the media school. Many of my classmates were believers and the Christian Union was packed when we joined.

Then for the first attachment we were taken to the various stations. I remember the shock I met when I said that I was a Christian, never mind the fact that I was deep in ministry.

They laughed me and asked me whether I knew the history of the broadcaster (it was the only broadcaster in the country then) and I said no.

‘Nobody stays saved in the media’, they countered; and continued giving me statistics and evidence of people who were even ‘hotter’ than me who could not be even remotely connected to a life of faith ever in their lives. They gave me three months to join the statistic.

I countered by assuring them that if it was depended on me to stand, then three months was too long to give. But if, however God was the one who was responsible for making me stand they will count until they forget the math. One thing I was sure, though, was that God is the one who had sent me there and I was therefore on His assignment. Like I have stated elsewhere He took me there after forbidding me from joining a seminary that I thought was the automatic destination after school where I heard His call to ministry.

Interesting enough after the 3 month attachment more than half had backslidden. After three years of college there were only three of us who were still in the faith.

I dare say that we did not stand because we were stronger than the majority who fell by the wayside. I strongly suspect that it was because we were there on assignment from above and our focus on that assignment made it impossible for us to be swayed by the structure we had joined simply because we were outsiders to it. Reminds me of this;

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. (Hebrews 11: 13 14)

It is the sense of ‘otherworld-ness’ that will keep one strong enough to handle the secular spiritual structures without crumbling. And of course there are Biblical examples.

Joseph was a slave in Egypt who got everything he may have desired. Why did he consistently refuse a time of pleasure from his boss’s wife probably with the willing though maybe secret permission from his boss himself for his seed (my suspicion)?

He had a higher allegiance to heaven’s standards and was stable enough in them. No wonder he even excels in the prison he is taken.

He therefore is not rewarded with the huge position by the pharaoh just because he was good at his work. It was his position in the spiritual realm that left them with no choice when faced with the challenge ahead.

And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is? And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, Forasmuch as God hath shewed thee all this, there is none so discreet and wise as thou art: (Genesis 41: 38, 39)

Any other justification for a believer’s entry into a secular structure is misguided and as temporal as temporal stands. They will take you to stand in until they get their own to take your position and probably kill your faith in the process.

That is why all over the world we are seeing serious Christians being edged out of key positions, especially when constitutions change. It is because they are being changed to prepare the ground for the antichrist. It is therefore imperative that people who have any serious spiritual leanings are removed from such positions since they can easily see the games being played. Many times they will play the integrity card and fake evidence so that the spiritual have no chance.

Still on the media I will state something most people choose to ignore though it is in common knowledge. The ruling spirit of the media is the devil as I have stated again and again. He therefore sets the rules of engagement to anyone joining. Again I need to state that ‘Christian media’ is not exempt.

Fame and popularity are other structures also run by the same ruling spirit. In fact they are interconnected and will normally work hand in hand with the media.

Before you shout me down I will give some ‘evidence’. There was this girl who ran a very good program on a ‘Christian’ radio station and of course became very popular. But in a short while she was divorced. I have a friend who was serious for God but thought it was no harm becoming visible and so became a TV personality. He died of what I will not speculate. The sad part is that girls came from all the country to get a piece of him. He showed me some letters he used to receive (we are talking about the 90s when letters were the only mode of communication) and I tried to warn him as much as I could without much success.

How many songstresses and globetrotting business and corporate magnates are comfortably submitted to their normal husbands? And why is it that girls who are normally modestly dressed when they release their first popular hit slowly by slowly start increasing the exposure to their bodies as popularity grows?

Parliament is a spiritual structure with a ruling spirit who sets the rules of engagement. And it is the same with political structures. It is no wonder that any Christian who goes there to simply make a difference has the difference made on him. And the simple reason is that you are going to a structure on its terms. It is impossible to break through something you are submitted to. Your integrity and excellence become liabilities since that structure has its own standards. How many pastors have gone to parliament to make a difference and ended up needing redemption?

Daniel, like Joseph, was different. And like Joseph we see the difference early enough. His allegiance to heaven is bold enough to scare his boss in captivity that he had to reassure him with a test for heaven to intervene. He therefore was given responsibilities because he was the only one who could handle them, because the spirit of the holy gods was on him.

Babylon knew that he and his three friends served another deity and would defy anything that stood between them and that deity. And that is why we see Daniel being trashed yet being remembered when crises arose. They did not subscribe to that God but knew that they could depend on Daniel to call on Him to solve their issues without bias.

The judicial and legal structures are spiritual too. No wonder world over the choice of judges is such a high voltage exercise. And again I have seen judges who were known for their spiritual leanings simply being trashed though their integrity was not in question. Many times this happens so that they do not challenge the decision to have the ‘right one’ taking office because they are many times better than the choice of the structure.

We have see sabotage in the uniformed forces because the boss happens to be a seriously spiritual person to make sure that he resigns. Then the ‘right’ one according to the structure will replace him.

Healthcare and the medical field are also spiritual structures. Again I will remind us that their genesis was Christian though in our search for worldly relevance exchanged the ruling spirit. If you hear some of the things I hear about hospitals, especially the high end ones, you will have no doubt about this fact. There is a lot of spiritual manipulation that goes on behind the seemingly innocent pursuit of treatment for the sick. But I do not want to venture into that at this point.

There are sicknesses that I am convinced are not sicknesses in the purely medical sense. Some are spiritual attacks from hell. Their main purpose is to take as much money as possible from the ‘sick’ before eventually killing them. And I will leave even that to your prayerful consideration.

The business environment is a spiritual structure.

And sadly the visible church is an ‘other’ (not another) spiritual structure. By this I mean that for the most part the ruling spirit in the visible church structure is not the spirit of the risen Christ but the spirit of the world. But I will quiet your hearts by the truth He gave me when He was teaching this to me through His word and adequate examples. In that structure that is not His are His people that constitute His church. These walk according to His revelation, live by His word and are sold out to His agenda. Their allegiance to that structure is therefore subject to their submission to and worshipful relationship to Christ.

A Christian in all those settings is therefore thoroughly disadvantaged when he thinks that he serves that structure from a purely secular direction as that spiritual structure could kill him if it fails to kill or at the least neuter his spiritual connection. His excellence and integrity are only useful when they bury their heavenly connection. Otherwise they are a liability to the structure. An inefficient and corrupt individual who is submitted to the ruling spirit will always make a better servant than your integrity and excellence.

The thrust of this post is to prepare God’s people for their involvement in the secular sphere from a point of knowledge and strength instead of ignorance. Like Joseph and Daniel we will invest our all in our spiritual development to suit us adequately for the tasks we will be exposed to when we join those ‘secular’ spiritual structures.

How well do you know your God? Would you bear fruit for Him if you are thrown at a place where nobody knows or has ever heard of Him? Would you still broadcast Him if you went to a place and people where He is hated? Is it evident to even your enemies that you live by standards that are holy and completely removed from the secular world you live in? Do people say about you like they said of Joseph and Daniel, ‘the spirit of the holy gods is on him’?

How well do you know His word? Does Joshua 1:8 and Deuteronomy 6: 5 - 8 describe you? Do you live by that word? Could Ezra 7: 10 and 2 Timothy 2: 15 be used to describe you by an adversary?

That is the marketplace dynamic we need to be taught from our pulpits if they really served the interests of the Kingdom of God.