The Growth of Faith

Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: (Genesis 12:1)

I want us to get into the assumption game to be able to understand what I want us to learn. And it is not assumption as we normally take it. We actually want to postulate Abraham’s life prior to his taking the step of obedience by leaving his people and lands.

What is clear in our verse is that God had spoken to Abram earlier. God’s order came much earlier than Abram’s obedience.

How long did it take? What was the cost to that step? Was there collateral damage due to the delay?

I believe God called His friend when he was alone, probably before he even got married to Sarah; or maybe soon after he got married. (God asked me to leave employment a month into my marriage)

Then he would just have needed a bag or two and probably a donkey or two to ferry him and his wife.

God loves simplicity and will thus make our obedience as easy as possible. We many times complicate His call with our logic (or the logic of our circles)

Abram therefore battles with the call as he seeks to make sense of his obedience. But as he dilly dallies with the decision the world goes on. He starts acquiring wealth and becomes heavier in many other respects. And like most of us he also starts looking for people who can make sense of that calling to probably stand with him.

After his explanation, his father decides to accompany him as we see in chapter 11, thereby complicating God’s order. You see Abram was asked to leave ALL, people and things.

Terah becomes the first casualty of Abram’s growth of faith as he was outside God’s equation.

Then the call is renewed once again. But he had carried an orphaned nephew who was also not part of the call. Probably Lot came of his own accord. But he also was among the ones who were to be left. God had to also get him out of the equation.

But you also realize that Abram’s faith was growing. At this time we see him offering the best choice to Lot as he is now certain that God’s leading is sure. We also see God confessing that he will instruct his children in God’s ways as the reason He leaked the news of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra to him.

But there was another complication that had to be dealt with, Ishmael, who was a desperate decision of Sarah as it seemed that maybe she was excluded from the promise since the promised child was not forthcoming.

It is after he goes that the call gets confirmed (tested if that makes you feel better). At this time it is Abraham, the promise and God.

He is asked to choose between the Promise and God. But this time he is fully matured to make His call rid of any encumbrances. And God confesses the same.

How long did it take?

My argument is that he heard the call in his twenties, let’s assume 25.

He finally responds to the call the way it came 50 years later.

The son comes 75 years after the call.

The son is at the least teenager when the call is confirmed. I say this because he and not the father carried the firewood to the altar. For our calculation let us take him to be 15 years old.

Simple math will tell us that it took 90 years between when the call was received and when it was confirmed.

In between we see the death of Terah, the cursing of kingdoms because Abraham’s faith was not yet mature to face certain situations, Lot’s disappearance from the discourse and even Ishmael’s and Hagar’s dispatch.

What am I driving at?

Faith is not something you purchase at a mall; or a church for that matter. Faith is a seed of slow growth, the soil and rain of which is a growing relationship with God. It does not grow by psych; or motivation. It grows through our interaction with God’s word, not man’s interpretation of that word.

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17)

Those interpreters may end up becoming like Terah, who will want to soften or dilute the orders faith will demand. Or like Lot, who though he is with us all the way is looking for something different from our pursuit. Maybe Ishmael, who stands for the logical solution to that call we have received.

They may be like those kings who will thoroughly threaten our call to the point that we compromise our values and standards or the drought that will insist that we go to those dangerous places.

But that is faith.

Show me a man of faith who never went through such phases and I will show you a fake. In the Bible it is only that we are given glimpses of men of faith that we assume that they are superstars.

We assume that Elijah just appeared when we see him proclaiming to the king that it won’t rain until he says so. To some, we even discount the wrestling he has later as so unlike him because we see him as different from us and so lacking in the struggles we have. Yet James also discounts that.

Moses was 80 years in the making. Joseph was 13 in the testing. David was 30 in the making.

Where do you fall? Are you a glucose product of faith?

What do you feed your faith with? Is it the unadulterated word of God or the motivational preaching of imposters? Is it built on obedience or your planting a seed to particular centres?

What word have you received from God? Have you really received or has it been implied so by somebody? Is your spiritual supervisor your source of your spiritual direction or you receive it directly from God through His word?

I am pushing this so hard because if God is not the direct source of your orders (even promptings to grow your faith), He really has nothing to do with what you are calling faith. You finalise with God first before you talk of faith, a faith that has nothing to do with psych, a faith that is hard work whichever direction you look, yet fulfilling to the utmost.

The duration faith takes to mature is many times determined by the prevailing circumstances. Abraham and Moses were surrounded by idolatry. But even there faith prevails by breaking through those rocks of rebellion and resistance to God’s will.

Among the worst rocks, probably harder than idolatry, is the environment of backsliding, a community being led by someone who was once on fire for God but ‘arrived’ when they got status or comfort. They then sought (and still seek) to rationalize their fall from faith by showing how much they are still in faith. That environment is extremely toxic to faith.

If your pastor consistently recycles testimonies again and again; if his sermons also enjoy the same, it is very probable that they abandoned the train of faith long ago. If they are only preaching about what you get instead of what spiritual breakthroughs you should be experiencing; if all they preach about concerns only here and now as opposed to eternity, again they are simply walking in the flesh. If God only gives a word for the whole year and has nothing for our day to day experience of faith, it is possible that their faith is cut and dried and stopped growing long ago.

Run from such clowns, however enjoyable and exalted their empty proclamations appear. They will kill your faith in God. Even worse is that they will transfer that faith to things of this earth by filling your expectation with what God must do as opposed to where He will have you go.

If giving is the answer all, from a difficult boss to a rebellious child; if you must buy this oil or that soil or that book, run away from that witchcraft. If Israel is the final destination of your faith instead of greater obedience, you are expensively deceived.

These are a few of the things God has to take us from to be able to connect sorely on Him for the growth of our faith. And they fall under the seed that fell among thorns in Christ’s parable of the sower.

Like Abraham we must come away from the faith and lands of our fathers to be able to get to the land God has prepared for us. We must connect directly to Him to ensure that the faith of those we come from is the same faith God is calling us to. And I presume that is the reason Christ said that we call no one on earth father, especially a pastor, because a father has the capacity to determine the direction one’s life follows. It is also difficult to divorce a father I have imposed on myself.

Where is your faith? What impediments are you dealing with to grow that faith? Do you clearly know them?

Where does God’s word lie in your priorities? Is God and His revelation (Bible) the only source of your inspiration and direction? Will you, like Abraham decide to go ONLY where He chooses to show you or must you have a map or logical explanation for that calling?

Has your call ever been confirmed through testing? When was the last time you had options like were placed on Abraham on Mount Moriah?

Master’s Likeliness

It is very easy to know the kind of school one attended, especially when particular behavior patterns are observed.

And it is not much different when we look at the schools of thought one subscribes to.

One clear thing I have observed is that a disciple copies his discipler in more ways than the Bible verses he memorises and kind of company he keeps.

They will take the mannerisms and preferences of their master. They will take his thought patterns. They will eventually become clones of their master, to use a term most of us understand, though for the most part it is used negatively.

Why do people who have been married for a long time look like they are from the same parents? They have spent so much time together that from their minuscule gestures they start resembling.

What am I driving at?

We will automatically resemble the master we spend our time with. We will resemble the master we are constantly in communication with.

Christ said that we will be known by our fruit. And that fruit will be consistent with the kind of master we represent.

I therefore want us to look at a few traits of the One we call Master and some of the traits we display that may be a clear demonstration that we probably are serving another master.

Jesus performed His miracles outside the limelight. A case in point is in John 5 where the one He healed had no idea who had healed him. Many times He ordered those He healed not to tell anyone else about the healing. He hid when publicity became too much, even rebuking those who were following Him concerning their motives for searching or pursuing Him.

Why do we see displays of miracles on TV? Why do we call people through advertisements to come to be healed? Why do we invite people so that we can pray for them?

On the other side we know that the devil simply loves visibility. He feeds on the star status. He loves those displays and the attention he derives from them.

Christ never shone any light on His performance and ministry. He was content to be called a copier of what His Father was doing. He always pointed to His Father whether He was arguing with His detractors or teaching or performing miracles.

Why do we see church billboards that must have the names, and even pictures of the ‘man of God’, some even with their spouse? Why must crusades indicate the performers in their invitations and advertisements? Why must we know the performers before we attend a ‘worship’ concert or event?

Christ said that He did not come to be served (though He is the King of kings and Lord of Lords) but to serve and give His life a ransom for us.

Why then are pastors and other ministers the focal point of the resources available in the church? Why are they among the most highly paid class of persons in society? Why do most churches seem to revolve around their pastors? Why is it a greater sin to offend a pastor than to offend Christ?

Christ said that He had no place to lay His head (though we know that He created all things).

How comes that pastors are amassing wealth from all fronts? Why is buying a pastor this or the other toy (car, house, scholarship, holiday trip) such a priority in churches? Why are those more pressing needs than fighting poverty in the congregation? Why is it a more pressing need than missions?

Could we be feeding off another master’s trough? Could we be in fellowship with another master? Could we be subject to another king? Could we be serving another christ?

Let us examine ourselves. Like Paul admonished let us examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith.

God bless you

Communication and Choices

Be not deceived; evil communications corrupt good morals (I Corinthians 15: 33)

Though I have written about the media severally before, I want us to look at it from another direction, the direction of decisions.

The other day Americans made a choice that shook not only themselves but the whole world when they voted for their leader.

But it was not much of a shock to some of us who are aware of the reality that we are the product of the inputs we ingest from all directions.

What do I mean? You may be wondering.

Trump was someone even his supporters were ashamed of, if truth be told. He held values so contrary to their deeply held values. His life was a display of things they were ashamed of. Many of them did not want to be associated with him.

Many who voted for him openly declared that they would be voting for his opponent when they knew all along whom they would vote for. It was so bad that his opponents held riots and protests as his victory went against all confessions.

How does someone vote for someone whose values and morals they do not agree with?

The simple reason is that he represents what they watch day in, day out. He is the manifestation of what the media has been shaping their systems for. His life and morals are so in tune with the media they have spent inordinate time with that they simply resonate with his person.

You see, it is easy to say that I hate divorce with all my heart. But if all my friends are divorced it is very possible that at the depth of that heart I could be admiring it though not aware of it.

They have watched so much depravity that they get shocked when they make a choice for the same when it appears. And you realize that this is not the first time they have had to deal with such things.

What we ingest (I am talking about books, music, TV, movies, internet etc) ultimately guides our choices. That is the reason that in the same USA divorce is normal even among pastors. Even homosexually has gained acceptance even among spiritual leaders that a prominent pastor can hold a gay function in his church, and not for evangelism!

I have said again and again that the ruling spirit of the media is Lucifer. That is the reason he is the one who draws the rules even when I want to set up a Christian media house.

Let me give us a small demonstration of how he gets his way into shaping our choices. He simply plays with the information he feeds us with until we subtly accept falsehood. Let me illustrate.

The other day a local newspaper published a ‘shocking’ opinion poll finding. 98% of all high school girls are into sexting and 68% do it often.

Now that is shocking, but in the wrong way. As a minister in Kenya I know that this is a lie. And I will explain why.

This means that ALL parents of high school students are crooks and deviant. A child without an ID can’t own a SIM card as it must be registered to an adult. The finding implies that parents have decided to break the law make it possible for these children to have phones.

But it goes further. We actually know that not all parents have cell phones. How possible is it that a parent without a phone will illegally buy one for their child?

Let us put down some figures. Probably 70% of the parents can afford a phone for themselves, the most basic type. Of those who can afford, probably a quarter can afford one for their child.

Even if ALL those who have those phones are deviant, what number do we expect to be deviant? At the very most 18%. And my son just cleared high school so I am not just guessing.

Where does this all end? That falsehood will cause us to throw in the towel before the battle has begun as we get overwhelmed with whatever findings they are spewing out. Or we will start reacting in panic because we will start trying to put out nonexistent fires as we will condemn our girls for something they have no capacity of doing because of those poll findings.

And people still trust the media to guide them or think that the media exists for the simple reason of educating, informing and entertaining (I was taught that in media school).

Will we read our Bibles more than we ingest all these alternative information sources?

Worship and Impact

Christ said that when He is lifted up He will draw all men to Himself.

David played a harp (call it a guitar to contextualize) and healing happened and a demon departed.

On the same vein I want to ask a few questions to those we call worship leaders and worshippers;

Suppose I am invited to a bar to sing. What do I expect to happen if I worship the God David worshipped? Would a bar be interested in me if my worship (not performance) would chase all the demons of drunkenness and alcoholism and prostitution?

What do I expect if my worship (song) is played in a secular radio or TV station? Would there not be a release of the Holy Spirit that would release the listeners from the grasp of the secularism promoted by the station?

Suppose I perform the worship in church would not conviction and brokenness result that will deal the death blow on the worldliness and sin in the church? Would a church not interested in actual revival be interested in having me lead them in worship?

Can anyone love my music if they are not aligned to the object of my worship?

The long and short of this post is that if sinners are enjoying your music or what you call worship, it is because you are worshiping the same god they worship using stolen lyrics. Or what do you think.

Let the verses flow