Gratitude versus Entitlement

I want us to look at grace in these two ways.

This is in response to the many confused and mixed teachings on the same from many sides.

Imagine that you are from a very poor background yet are very bright.

A business or family is touched by your plight and decides to take care of your academics to the very end. You therefore are able to get to the very top and get a very good job, a job people only dream of.

What will happen to you? How will you behave toward others?

Two outcomes always stand out.

One asks this question, where could I be if they did not assist me?

The other will ask, what could they have done with their CSR if they did not find me?

One will feel so grateful that it will completely transform his whole outlook of life. He will become gracious. The other will feel like he did the benefactor a favor as (he thinks) there was no other bright child they could have found.

Take that to the spiritual realm and you will understand what I mean.

There are these believers who are proficient in showing that since Christ died for our sins, it is a sin to address sin in the believer. This means that they will not address sin in their congregations or even their lives since they have already been justified.

Incidentally you find them being so judgmental on people believing otherwise.

That is the entitlement I am talking about. They feel as if they did God a favor to receive His salvation and that He is duty bound to give them a free pass to do anything they wanted.

Like I wrote about Solomon recently, they believe that God owes them one.

Yet that is not the reason we hate and run away from sin. You see God did not have to love me. Christ did not have to die for my sins. He does not have to save me.

Yet He did.

And for that I am grateful; eternally grateful.

A recipient of grace cannot help but be graceful. Unless they think they qualified for it. And that is the entitlement I am talking about.

As usual I use Biblical stories.

Saul made David an outlaw because he had somehow convinced himself that he deserved being king. In other words the kingdom was his by right and not privilege or favor. Jonathan his son was aware of the heavenly mandate and so was gracious when he dealt with David.

We see the same with David when he is overthrown. He can afford to extend grace to the rebel and all the pillars and movers of the same.

All because he was confident that his kingdom was a gift from above.

He does not even seek to defend God’s promise to him concerning that kingdom.

Gratitude begets grace. Entitlement begets war to defend what one believes he owns. That is why anybody with a different opinion is treated as an enemy. They can defend their doctrine with blows.

I remember being ejected from the leadership of a Christian Union because I opposed a preacher preaching a contrary message. And I had approached him in private as Jesus said. The chairman and his team could not entertain us examining the scriptures as they feared confronting the error of their doctrinal positions.

That is the danger of entitlement. You must defend what you believe is rightfully yours, even if it was a gift given to whoever will. You could even offend the giver as you defend the gift.

How do you relate with those of an opposed doctrinal position to yours?

What about those who do not understand the Holy Spirit like you do?

What about those understanding what worship is differently from you?

Do you exhibit gratitude or entitlement? And are your opponents sinners saved by grace as you are or do you treat them as renegades?

Pillars of Revival 2

A word based revival lasts.

And that is our history. And by this I mean Protestantism and the early church.

Luther directed people to the word. In fact that was the primary issue he had with the papacy as religion (that is what papacy also is) thrives in having people who depend on a priesthood to function, even think.

That is why he translated the Bible into German to enable believers to read it for themselves.

And many other revivals that we are proud to be associated with were all based on the word, many times being led by Bible students and teachers (I do not want to call them theologians for obvious reasons).

As such, the place of God’s word was very prominent in the whole revival process.

You realise that universities were originally Bible Schools set up for the many young people who would respond to God’s call needing to be equipped for the nations and the ballooning church from revivals. The world just hijacked them for its purposes.

A Bible Based revival always looks beyond the present even as it looks beyond localities.

Let us look at David.

He is told that he will not build the temple, the greatest desire of his heart. Does he give up?

No. He starts preparing for the same; raising materials, plans and labor for the same. Why?

Revival is focused on God. It therefore has no human champions. At least none of them thinks like that. They are just content to be part of a great thing God is doing.

To David, the temple was not about him. It represented his worship. Whether he built it or not was irrelevant. Whoever built it had to build it to God’s standard. And he had to have all the support.

The temple was therefore not about David building but God who was the object for Whom it was built. That is why he did not stop his worship just because he was refused to build.

And we see the same with Josiah.

Revival focuses beyond the present though it appears to focus there as you can’t change the future without changing the present.

Incidentally, revival could be the other side of the coin with judgment. In fact, revival really means coming back from the dead. It is only the dead who can be revived.

Sodom and Nineveh were at the same point when they were visited, one by angels and the other by a prophet. One was obstinate while the other was repentant.

But even the revival in Nineveh didn’t last as we still see judgment being declared by later prophets. We are almost sure that it was because Jonah didn’t stay long to manage it by teaching the scriptures.

Sadly, that happens with many revival movements. Hordes turn to God in repentance and find a church that is not ready to receive them properly. Many think that stopping to do some things is what qualifies them as Christians as opposed to having a growing relationship with God through His word.

And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. (Acts 2:42)

The revival in Acts was sustained by the study of and instruction on the scriptures. Anyone who joined the church joined the instruction.

In fact, were it not that there was abuse, abuse that was guided by a church that had stopped growing, the purpose of catechism was simply to guide believers into their new faith through the scriptures.

The church then made this a fleshy requirement for anybody requiring to join the church without requiring conversion. Then someone could just need to learn instead of convert to be baptized and join the church. I am saying this because I have read some and can tell you they are scriptural to a fault. But going through them before conversion makes one a properly religiously educated infidel, making it even harder to get converted.

Sadly, even modern churches that should know better are doing the same thing by requiring some sort of classes to satisfy the whims of the leaders, especially to ensure loyalty.

I once heard a conversation amongst a group of young people in a Baptist church explaining why they attended membership classes.

One was saying that he cared nothing for conversion, nor was he converted. The reason he attended the classes was so that he could have his wedding in that exquisite church cheaply as members were charged less than outsiders. This in a church that insists in its polity on a public confession of conversion before baptism as the path to membership.

In short, people are learning how a structure operates as opposed to what Christ ordered.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28: 19, 20)

That revival was not the preserve of large crowds or buildings. In fact it was the other way round.

Though the revival started (or became visible) through the large gatherings, it was sustained in those small informal growth groups.

In Acts it starts in the upper room before breaking out to the streets, but there are very few incidents of crowds (forget about the invited ones of today).

Peter was the leader of the church in Acts. But we do not see him holding large meetings anywhere. We simply see him in homes. We see crowds gathering to disrupt what God was doing. It was at the home front that the church was exploding.

We see the jailor and his whole household (family, servants, slaves, soldiers) getting baptized at night. Then we see Cornelius and his whole village getting baptized.

And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shewed you, and have taught you publickly, and from house to house, (Acts 20:20)

This of course means that they did not need superstars to sustain their growth. The leader also was not required to be the manager of that growth. Everybody was simply growing to know Christ at a personal level. Christ was the focus of that growth. They did not need the expert to understand the scriptures. They just needed the scriptures to grow in their faith together.

There is nothing as powerful as a small group studying the Bible together. And that is what Christ intended for His church.

No wonder He talked of where two or three are gathered in His name.

It was the same in the Old Testament. The Levites were denied lands to be focused on only one thing, knowing God and His word. Then taking that word to His people.

That is why we see most revivals then were guided by that group. Incidentally most prophets also came from that group.

Remember where Herod went when he was told that a king has been born? To the scribes, who were Levites.  And why? Simply because they were the ones most in touch with the scriptures to understand what was happening.

During Hezekiah’s early years, we see him commissioning the scribes to teach the scriptures to Israel.

A very interesting thing happened. There were so many offerings that there were heaps of unutilized offerings. Yet there was no teaching about giving.

The simple truth is that the word of God properly taught will spur people to give even more than when they are ‘encouraged’ to give.

That is the revival I am talking about.

I am writing so much about revival and harvest nowadays because I am confident that this virus has opened so many people worldwide to the reality of God due to the surety of the fickleness and emptiness of life. And people are searching and finding God as He has always been waiting for them.

This is why we must establish to prepare for this imminent harvest. (In fact I know there are hordes who are pouring to the Kingdom of God but it is not in the interest of the media and world systems to let us know as they would rather we are scared into despair)

My prayer is that we will sink deeper in the scriptures to be ready once these hordes are unveiled as we will then be able to disciple them.

Only then will we be able to manage the harvest God is bringing.

What Feeds You?

What will impress you more, a fifty metre tall tree in a forest or a three metre tall tree in a desert?

Undoubtedly it will be the much shorter tree.

A tall tree in a forest is not exceptional. A dead tree would be more impressive as you would wonder what it lacked to wither under such circumstances.

But a tree, any tree, in a desert is impressive. How does it even exist where nothing else grows? Where does it get sustenance when no other vegetation grows?

An exceptionally strong believer in a fellowship is normal. A believer in the marketplace practicing his faith amidst the corruption is impressive. And by practicing I am talking beyond professing.

Do we have exceptional believers in the scriptures?

Yes. We have many.

Daniel purposed not to defile himself as he was being taken to captivity. And his life was exceptional to the end.

What am I aiming at? You may be wondering.

The shut down and lock downs have taken the dimension of faith from communal to individual. The herd mentality has been demolished with the closure of places of worship.

It therefore means that nobody cares a hoot what or how I worship, or even whether I worship at all.

Nobody cares the kind of minister I am, or whether I am a minister at all.

Faith has been taken from the public domain to the private one. And since we are all locked down, or something like it, nobody is there to establish whether my profession is valid or not. I could therefore forsake my faith without anybody knowing it. I could decide I am done with ministry without anybody suspecting it.

The herd mentality in religion has been rendered unworkable by this virus as nobody can help anybody else to live their faith.

This, incidentally, is a very good thing as it gives the individual a chance to examine and understand his faith properly.

Ever noticed that Christian Unions are always so full of believers who are so full of faith? Why is it that a majority fall off almost immediately after clearing school or college? Were they not believers? Were they hypocrites?

I do not think so. You see, standing and even growing strong and tall in a forest does not require much effort. There is enough water and shade to provide for growth. It would actually be abnormal if one does not grow in such circumstances.

Thriving outside the green house called fellowship is a different matter altogether. There is no shelter. There is nothing else to lean on when you are weak. There are no roots to hold on to so that yours can grow strong. There is no dampness to refresh you.

Your roots alone will make for your growth, in fact your life itself. And the depth those roots can reach will determine how long you can live and the amount of drought you can endure.

At the end, those same roots will determine what kind of fruit you bear, or whether you will bear any fruit at all.

That is why it is important to define those roots.

They are the kind of relationship I have with the God I worship since that is what essentially defines religion.

Is it not interesting that what makes a flower beautiful is not visible? That what makes a fruit tasty is also hidden? Yet that is for the most part never acknowledged.

It is not different with our Christian lives. What is seen about us is determined by factors and practices that are not visible.

A pastor who eats his sheep did not have a revelation for that abomination. He was not also predisposed or cursed to live as such.

There are factors in his root system that produce that fruit.

The pastor who ‘kills’ any contrary voice to become the owner of the church did not also just become. Even the pastor who fears to go on leave or sabbatical and fights retirement is not greedy. He has insecurity in his root system that produces that fruit.

That is why highlighting those inconsistencies is taken personally. Many times the one highlighting them is treated as the enemy.

But I love the scriptures. They are the only thing that can not only expose but also deal to the point of demolishing and replacing those rotten root structures.

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. (Psalm 119: 9 - 11)

A commitment to feeding on the scriptures has a capacity of dealing with those roots, however deep they may have gone.

But it does not only work on our mind as we meditate on what we have been reading. God’s word has the capacity of working even deeper by changing our whole lives. Talk of a chemical change!

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. (John 17:17)

To sanctify is to make holy. And that is what God’s word does to those who consume it.

That is what we need for this season

And this is what we need to introduce anybody who comes to Christ in this season.

He is Coming!

Imagine you are a child and that your father works far from home or is in the military and therefore is home very rarely. But then when he comes he will bring so many gifts as to completely compensate for his absence.

Then your mother tells you that your father is coming two weeks from today.

What will you do?

Will you start relaxing and oversleeping and neglecting your duties because your solution is coming? Will you start bullying your siblings and neighbor’s children because your soldier father is coming?

Of course not.

I am sure you will clean all your clothes even before they get dirty. You will arrange your room as perfectly as you can.

You will be the best sibling around. And you will be the most obedient child, doing all the chores before needing to be told.

Even your neighbors will know that something is about to happen as you will behave and talk differently.

Another thing is that that two weeks will be longer than two years due to your longing.

We believe in Christ and hopefully walk (or have walked) with Him.

When He ascended, He promised that He is coming for us. In fact He used the word ‘soon’.

Where is our longing?

But today I essentially want to shortly address one aspect of that advent.

Many times in history we have had one or the other prophet giving a date when they know or believe Jesus is coming back.

What then happens? People leave their jobs. They leave their studies (I remember when I was sitting my A levels some students boycotted exams for that reason). They sell their property (as if they will need money the other side).

In short they stop living.

Is that what Christ taught? Is it what He expects of us?

Of course not. No wonder He gave three parables about the same in one chapter, Matthew 25.

Three things stand out.

One is that we do not and will not know when He is coming. We could know how close He is but we must be prepared to long for longer.

Second is that we should be busy. In other words we should have one eye on his soon coming and the other on living here.

Third is that we might miss Him if we become too consumed with looking for him.

The gist of this short post is that Christ is the one who will put a stop to the world by His coming and that He is not asking us to help Him out.

But He is coming soon. That is not in doubt.

And my longing for that should not be blunted by anything.

Am I pleasing Him?

Fake News?

Many things in this whole Corona narrative do not add up.

If its spread is occasioned by infected droplets of sputum interacting with the fluid from our mouths, noses and eyes, why are we not given a solution for the eyes which are even more exposed?

The eye is always exposed; always open and always wet. Meaning that it should probably be more protected from contamination than the others since it is more vulnerable.

And that is not the only question begging for an answer.

Why has the media become the mouthpiece of the authorities? I thought the media exists to report what they have verified as opposed to what they hear. As things stand, the authorities could be pulling our leg all through!

Whatever happened to the fact that one witness cannot be relied on to give reliable information, especially concerning life and death?

The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true. (John 8:13)

What was true of the Jewish legal system is true of ours as we have heavily borrowed from them. If they cast doubts on the personification of truth, what should we do when the said truth comes from governments that have demonstrated again and again that they are not interested in the welfare of their citizens?

At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. (Deuteronomy 17:6)

Don’t get me wrong. I know Corona is there and that it kills. But I do not believe we are given the facts we need to make informed choices.

The information on Corona is being packaged to instil gear and use that fear to control. As an example, any market that needed to be moved or closed has been moved simply by quoting Corona. Yet they had been unable to logically do it for years, even generations, for fear of the implications.

For example, why has nobody seen the inside of Mbagathi Hospital and the victims since Corona ‘arrived’? Why do we not have any interview with anybody battling the virus? Why are we not given names of the ones who are infected? Why are those on quarantine not given results for their tests? Why is nobody allowed to see the bodies of the dead? Why was the government so angry that some people questioned the recovery of those two youth, yet nobody saw them sick? And why are ministers not given a chance to minister to those in hospitals yet we know that it is not that infectious?

Sadly, it is the same the world over. Remember the American government being sharply rebuked because they poked holes on the information WHO gave them?

Corona is a tool of control. And that is why they had to close church gatherings as believers in fellowship will call the bluff on all that fear being peddled. And of course the shepherds, since they have been deprived of their livelihood, will have no option but fall in line.

That is why a bishop is not ashamed of going on TV reminding people to listen and follow what the government says as opposed to reporting what God says. That is why an imam will go on TV and do something I have never seen, urge people to comply and not quote the Quran even once.

Yet that is what fear says and does. But God operates differently.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2Timothy 1:7)

God does not want us to operate in fear. We are only supposed to walk in the fear of God. Remember the saying that he who kneels before God can stand before any man? That ‘man’ includes Corona.

Incidentally you realize that the whole world is united against any other narrative. From Facebook to WhatsApp, they want to make sure that only what has been agreed at their level gets shared.

I really pray that we will take the Bible as seriously as we take these unverified reports.

Then will we be able to not only usher, but manage the upcoming revival.

How much time do you spend in the word of God, the only true source of living truth?

God has the final word on Corona. And we better be in the right frame of mind and heart to hear it. Will we?

Otherwise all this noise we are listening to will block our ears from hearing it. If Elijah had a rough time hearing yet he went to the mount to hear, do we think it will be easier for us when we are consumed with knowing and understanding what all this noise means?

At times like these, I believe people are crying like the jailor, ‘what must I do to be saved?’, or are looking for who to cry to. And I believe our generation will be held to account if we do not become not just available but ready to offer the only Solution the word desperately needs.