Packaging

I want us to continue looking at our last message (Advertisement versus Life) to get a better picture of the state of our churches.

Remember commodity shortages? Have you ever seen any advertisement of the things with a shortage? Have you ever encountered any shortage of the nonessentials and luxuries? Things you must not have and do not need always seem to be available. In fact they appear more plenteous when the essentials are unavailable.

Another thing you will realize is that the one with the essentials sets the rules and prices for anyone to access them. There are times a shop or supermarket will set the limit to what you can buy irrespective of the quantity you need or money you have. They may limit to a packet per customer and you may need to hire people to shop with you if you must have more. Some customers bribe to buy extra.

Was that not the way Jesus behaved? Do you ever see Him pleading with people not to leave Him? Did He not sometimes seem to be chasing them away?

From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. (John 6: 66 – 68)

The fact that the ‘stock’ of disciples has drastically reduced does not make Him lower His standards to ensure the remaining ones do not desert. It appears like He was telling them that they were free to also go if they so chose.

Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? (Matthew 23:33)

How does one use such terms and expect followers? And there are uncountable other offensive statements and messages Christ issued that seems to indicate that He didn’t care for anybody to follow Him. On others He placed a great premium on anyone showing interest, like

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

And

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. (Luke 9:23)

Following Me is akin to choosing shame and death. Some statements were downright insulting.

Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. (John 6:26)

Yet why did they still follow Him? He had what they needed from their inmost beings. Like animals in the desert no danger or obstruction can block it from accessing the watering holes. The presence of a lion is not a strong enough deterrent to a thirsty deer in accessing water. That is what we see with Jesus.

Does this say anything about us who are scared to death of preaching about holiness or hell because it may scare people from coming to church? Does it say anything about all these uplifting and motivating sermons and books that make sinners feel ‘blessed’? What about these obnoxious and bad mannered politicians who are respectable members and faithful givers in our churches?

Another thing you realize with someone offering life is that there are expectations of growth and change. And we see the same with Christ and other life givers. This is probably the most glaring difference between it and the advertisers (of inessentials of course). The peddlers seek to benefit from what they sell as opposed to changing those who consume, though they will argue differently.

Lack of growth was judged very harshly. Remember these statements?

Get behind me Satan…, have I been with you all this time…? you do not know the spirit you are of…, whitewashed tombs etc.

But it is not only Christ who expected change and growth. Remember Gehazi being judged with leprosy and Saul losing his kingdom?

Come as you are is the Biblical invitation. Go and sin no more applied to anyone who came under Christ. Remain as you are can only be found with the peddlers of a false Gospel.

Again it explains all these sermons that will keep the sinner coming to hear year after year without needing to change from their sinful lifestyle. A prostitute will enjoy uplifting sermons that will never confront her sin. She may even be able to acquire a few customers from the congregation as it is possible to even join the worship team due to her ‘hot’ looks. She even comes dressed as a prostitute and the pastor doesn’t mind since she is faithfully tithes. The very corrupt may be pariahs to a nation but find great comfort in preaching from the pulpits, some even getting leadership positions because ill gotten wealth is not stingily held to, meaning that they may give the pastor a car or house among other gifts to the leadership.

A pastor preached a sermon that lightly scratched the surface of sin in a congregation (he mentioned the flimsy dressing of ladies) and was taken to the Sanhedrin (leaders) for scaring people from church. He was eventually run off that church and had to move elsewhere. There are people who have all the spiritual qualifications for any leadership position in church warming the pews even as spiritual tramps get those positions without a sweat.

But I also want us to look at packaging with this topic in mind.

Life does not package neatly as it is not looking for a buyer. Like minerals it is many times hidden underground or something like that. You must therefore invest to be able to access it.

Marketing is therefore not a requirement for life. Life is pursued to be got. I am sure you can remember the parable of the pearl of great price. And that is what we see with life in the Bible. And that is what we see with life through all the church ages.

What has happened that all of a sudden we must package life in such an appealing way that seems to break all the rules that applied through all the ages? Why are we so desperate to bring people to church or raise support that we will trash clear directions of the Bible to get givers?

We are selling a fake, an unnecessary, probably useless commodity. What we have done is to package it in such a way that it resembles the real in some way. We use the Bible the sharers of life used. We use similar buildings. We behave in a way similar to how they behaved.

But the requirements we have for life paint us clearly as fakes because life is such that one will just need to see or taste it to sell everything they have to access it. No ‘insult’ is strong enough a deterrent to chase one from its pursuit. That is the reason we see people running away from the offense Christ caused in the process of ministry eventually flowing back to Him after a short time because they realized that He was the only one with what they needed and craved from the depth of their being. We plead with people as if we are a temptation as opposed to the wellspring of life that we should be but suspect we are not.

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (John 7:38)

Water offers life as it flows. It does not announce its presence or advertise its qualities. In fact, unless you drink tasteless water (mildly salty), you will think that water is tasteless as most believe.

It therefore goes that those who possess and dispense life are for the most part unnoticeable since they live the life and are not looking for any profit as life is enough profit, if it could be called thus. The only visibility is the source of the life that operates in them, in our case the Gospel and Christ who is the source of the same.

We see the same when the apostles were being harassed by the spiritual leaders. We do not see them being harassed with the common ‘who are you?’ or ‘who do you think you are?’ It was the Christ who was the reason of their persecution and even death.

Never once do we see them quoting what we foolishly quote to defend our selfish grandeur with ‘touch not mine anointed’. We see the exact opposite. They hold a thanksgiving service for being given the privilege of suffering for the life they were offering

And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. (Acts 5: 40 – 42)

Look at the advertisers and peddlers and their motivation.

For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. (Romans 16:18)

I also need to mention giving as it could be the driver of all this worldliness.

Life has no price tag. Those who share in it are thus driven by the potential life has on those it will touch. And this explains why most died violent and shameful deaths as their comfort was not a consideration in the business of life.

Only the peddler considers what they should get before getting involved in the business of sharing out life. One having life will naturally release that life. As Christ said the life within him will become rivers of living water. And rivers do not fight or require motivation to flow. It is in their nature to flow from their source to places needing it (lower ground).

Why must we always mention giving whenever we preach? Why must we sell our books even to people we know will have to sacrifice necessities to be able to buy that book we must convince them to buy, many times very expensively?

Let me surprise you. When God asked me to be giving out my books, the greatest argument everybody brought (still bring) was that people do not value free things. In fact one pastor friend of mine told me so definitely that God could not have given me that order. My experience of close to ten years in the writing ministry gives that argument an indisputable knock out. Why, you may ask.

I initially would sell a few books and give others as God would direct me. One interesting fact I will tell you is that I do not remember any book that I sold giving out a definite feedback. In fact there are some fans of mine who confess that they have not read those books they bought. A few told me that they have a special shelf for my books but have not read them.

Interesting enough is that there are uncountable testimonies from those who read the books I gave; testimonies of transformation, direction and many other positive things. Ministries have sprouted from some of those books I gave. Many doors have been opened by those books I gave, not only for me but also by people who have read the books. And some I have almost forgotten since I wrote many years ago still continue bringing in those testimonies.

Could we be arguing with our stomachs instead of Christ’s revelation?

And our argument of course runs counter to Christianity because if free is valueless then salvation is also valueless and therefore unappealing. And where is the place for this verse

Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. (Matthew 10:8)

I will repeat something I have argued more completely in an earlier post. I believe that the tithe is an Old Testament doctrine and practice that is promoted by the peddlers of a false Gospel. This is because they really are not interested in leading people to hear God for themselves as they will be told to stop giving us any offering since we are not leading them God ward. Look at the New Testament giving to get what I mean.

Of course the tithe makes a lot of sense when we do not expect anybody else apart from the ‘prophet’ to hear from God. It saves on so much clarification especially when someone hears about ministering to people and ministries other than the storehouse if they asked for God’s guidance. It saves on the need to get accurate direction on the money that remains after the tithe especially as we know Christ owns 100% not only of our money but our time and selves as well. And it is a tough call to give Christ all that He requires.

Yet another red light with all our focus on teaching giving is that we are not examples. That it is more blessed to give than to receive applies to others. The reverse seems to apply to the proponents of that doctrine. The only time you may have to see them giving is when it is for show to attract more giving. That is the reason ministries not subject to their leadership fail to get support because apart from forbidding the congregation from supporting them will never take a coin from their pocket to fund them even when they are convinced and confess that they are doing God’s work.

Giving is therefore packaging we need to fleece people in God’s name.

Jesus ran people off the temple who were in a Bible sanctioned activity because Mammon had been allowed to take charge. What would He do if He comes to our churches where we are doing business that has no connection at all with Him and His ministry? We sometimes suspend our services or dedicate inordinate amounts of time to selling this or other item to benefit a superstar. Would He not be justified to bomb us out of His house?

Unless of course it is not His as I many times I am led to suspect. ‘He’ is just part of the packaging we use to peddle our merchandise (false Gospel) or earn our living.

Otherwise explain to me why He killed Ananias for giving probably 90% of the sale of his land yet does not mind someone stealing church money through fraudulent procurement and inflated pricing of goods and services they offer to the church? How does He allow a sex maniac lead ‘worship’ year after year not only without being judged but even taking pride in those sexual conquests? Why does He not seem to mind when a pastor breaks marriages by sleeping with women in his congregation? Why is He silent when pastors use witchcraft to increase their congregations? How does a prostitute come to look for customers in a church without being touched by conviction from the preaching? And how does a homosexual or pedophile become a bishop? What about that presence we so boast ourselves on? Is it the same one we read about in the Bible or has it adjusted to the twenty first century realities?

Why do we change what God established since the creation? Why do we behave as if God has changed?

My argument is that we are selling our things with a package resembling the Gospel and the life of Christ. Why do I reason thus?

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. (Matthew 7: 13 – 18)

And I will add another passage for good measure

For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. (2Corinthians 11: 13 – 15)

If Christ is not central and preeminent in the life of your church, it will be wise if you concluded that it is really your church and not Christ’s. If your church is known more for the pastor, building or programs is suspect the same. If at the back of your mind you go to church because of the pastor or ‘worship’ team instead of Christ I suspect that you have purchased a fake.

God bless you