Government

I want to state that human government is a delegated function. By this I mean that God has delegated His rulership to the leadership He allows to be set up (for those who love the word democracy)

As such, it is important that the same government pursues its mandate by trying as much as possible to know what it is that God values in running the same government.

But I also want to categorically state that the main purpose of government is to protect the vulnerable; the weak and powerless.

You see, the rich and able really do not need the government, at least as desperately as the poor.

Abraham never went to look for protection from governments as he had his own army and could do his own thing. The only time we see him submitting to a king was when there was a severe drought, and even then for a short season.

The wealthy do not need the government in terms of need. In fact it is the government that needs their taxes to operate.

When things are bad, the rich cobble up their resources to take care of themselves by using what they have to buy or hire what they need, be it security or infrastructure. A rich person can buy enough guns for everybody in his household and get licenses for them. When the roads are bad and insecure he can buy armored cars and hire an army if need be.

But the poor has no such luxury. He is at the mercy of the elements, unless the government offers them.

That is why leaders in government are judged very harshly when they abuse that trust God has placed on them and use it for personal or corporate benefit at the expense of the weak. It can be equated with fathers sucking their wives’ milk instead of allowing the baby to suckle since it has no other source of nutrition.

A government that pads the rich as it disenfranchises the poor opens itself for quick judgment from heaven. A government that listens to the rich and closes its ears to the cry of the poor has a long day in God’s court, a very unpleasant day.

Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you, and break off your sins by righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; if there may be a lengthening of your tranquility. (Daniel 4:27)

Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fullness of bread, and prosperous ease was in her and in her daughters; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. They were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw [good]. (Ezekiel 16: 49, 50)

Have I made my point?

The depravity of Sodom is not seen in sodomy as we know.

Let us remember how it was destroyed. Two angels visit. But of course they looked like men contrary to what we have been made to believe. And we know that a visitor is the most vulnerable person in a community as he has nobody on his side since nobody knows him. Lot hosts them.

Then the whole city comes demanding to sodomise them! When Lot seeks to protect them, even by offering his daughters instead, the men become enraged and decide to break his door down to get to them. Was there need of any other evidence of wickedness demanding their annihilation?

 The Bible talks a lot about the alien for that reason.

Let me talk about another even more vulnerable person; the unborn.

When leaders make laws legalizing indiscriminate sex (calling it sex education), they know that it will result in pregnancy as that was one purpose of sex since creation.

Giving a pregnant woman (or didn’t you know that sex matures girls?) the right to do whatever she deems fit with her body, what are you saying about the person forming in her body?

If the woman has the right to do anything she wants with her body, does the unborn have any rights of its own or are those rights irrelevant? Does the fact that we can’t physically see him mean that he is disqualified from the human race? Why then do we mourn stillbirths and miscarriages?

I have argued elsewhere that abortion is what in the Bible is called the worship of ancient Molech.

The unborn has rights that God has pledged to defend. And that is why abortionists for whatever reason battle guilt all their lives since they are like Cain, shedders of innocent blood. And I guess the framers of such laws are even in greater danger.

The other vulnerable group is the poor. Again God speaks very strongly in their defense. And it is because for the most part they are at your mercy wherever you look, from infrastructure to employment to food to security. They suffer the most when there is any kind of breakdown or breach. And they have nowhere to run should anything untoward happen. Their health is in the government’s hands, literally.

In short, the government determines whether they should live and how they should live.

Do you think God applauds you when you destroy their simple abodes and livelihoods to make your businesses more accessible or expand your territory? Do you think He closes His eyes when you are destroying the morals of their young as you expand your harem or use them as mules for your illegitimate enterprises? Or you think He does not mind your ingenuity when you are using their calamity to grab their little pieces of land or businesses?

Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! (Isaiah 5:8)

Does He care that you divert resources meant to benefit the poor to your friends? Does He mind that you have amassed scholarships and bursaries for the rich even as the poor have to drop out of school or college? Does He see you shifting the road that was meant to make his farm produce more accessible to the market to your neighborhood? Or do you think He doesn’t mind when you have three water supplies in your estate when they have to buy unsafe water because you shifted their project to your hood?

Let me address something that has been happening in the Kenyan senate.

They should not deceive anybody that they are fighting for the common citizen as they have consistently and ably demonstrated that we are farthest from their equation.

Many of them are angling to be governors and think they have a head start since about a half of the governors will not be running. They therefore want to have as much money as possible to ‘eat’ when they become governors. And each wants his plate to be bigger and fuller.

And God sees and knows that.

God will act. God will judge.

And I have not even mentioned the handicapped.

I have also not talked about the virus that has some eating with spades even as others have lost everything.

How close is our government to God’s judgment?

Will the church of Christ pray that God opens the eyes of the leadership to this coming judgment so that they can repent?

Remember that Nebuchadnezzar had Daniel interceding for him yet he ate grass like an ass because his repentance was temporal.

Choosing the Truth to Believe

Have you ever wondered how two people can look at a fact in completely opposite ways? Why is that?

The other day some doctors held a meeting where they reported their experiences treating the virus.

In a short while, social media platforms and CNN deleted that video for not being factual and scientific.

It is interesting that all those people speaking were doctors who even dared anyone to check not only on the validity of their claims but also on their status as practicing and licensed doctors.

I find it interesting that media that is not medical in any way apart from reporting medical news has authority on actual doctors and their findings. And it is especially so because the doctors are disputing the running theme of the fear peddling ‘experts’ who want us to treat the virus as doomsday.

Is it not interesting that the world is now divided between those who believe those doctors and the ‘system’ that pours scorn on them.

Yet the doctors only said, ‘we have treated’. It is their experiences that they have used as authority to tell the populace that the situation is not as bad as the system wants us to believe. They are simply being punished by offering hope!

What I find more interesting is that the doctors challenged their listeners to ask their personal physicians about the treatment they were talking about and even look at the research concerning the same.

One expert on things corona and its vaccine is Bill Gates. Yet the closest he may have been to medical school is visiting a friend at the halls of residence. And I would think the same of Twitter and CNN and other media outlets that are flagging these doctors.

It is interesting that there are people convinced that the media is right and the doctors are wrong.

At the very least, they ought to have brought in their own doctors to dispute on what these doctors are saying. But the proper way of doing it is actually raise a panel of doctors from each position to argue their positions out and allow us to decide which side is more convincing.

Disenfranchising the side with an argument without offering an answering one is illogical, the height of intellectual impunity.

You are saying that the people who cannot shield our children from pornography and violence have the mandate to guard us from medical fraud! How do they block people who are saying that nobody needs to die since there is a problem yet they have no such solution?

This brings me to this point; people believe what they want. They therefore package the truth to favor what they have chosen to believe. Facts are irrelevant unless they favor the side one wants to believe.

We will instruct our minds on what set of facts to accept for the most part, meaning that we will shift the facts to arrange in the way that agrees with our preconceived conclusions.

But facts are facts. And truth is not rearrangeable, however much we may try to rearrange it.

Yet you realize that it is in the spiritual that this is so rampant. That is why church gatherings have been closed and severely limited to block the proclamation of the release of the power of the truth of the Gospel to a world drowning in sin and despair. Interestingly it is the same ‘experts’ doing it.

You wonder why they would want to smother every hint or grasping straw of hope there is as they amplify their proclamation of doom.

And do you wonder why people are going to hell?

It is precisely for that very reason. We choose the ‘truth’ that favors us instead of the truth that liberates us. We choose the truth that agrees with us instead of the truth that leads us higher. In short we choose the truth as the world packages it as opposed to the TRUTH that is a person, Jesus Christ.

And sadly that is the truth we proclaim even as we smother the truth that has the power to liberate.

Why do preachers not preach against sin? They fear that people fleeing from sin will be freed from the clutches of their feel good sermons and probably stop supporting them. Isn’t this the same reason propelling the experts running the virus narrative are scared of? Their ‘discoveries’ and ‘solutions’ could be time barred by the cheap solution these doctors are advocating.

That is the reason the pulpit is awash with motivation preaching even as believers are drowning in sin. That is why a majority of believers speak about a favorite verse and promise instead of what the Bible actually says. That is why prophets always prophesy good things instead of challenging believers to holiness.

But we have a choice. Nobody is taking the Bible from us like those media are deleting videos for us. We can read the Bible for ourselves. And God has promised to speak to us if we seek Him through His word.

We therefore have a choice. Will we believe the truth as packaged for our consumption or will we seek the truth from the source? Will we trust God enough to allow Him to speak to us without intermediaries who might be just brokers of the spiritual?

Will we read the Bible for ourselves? Will we believe and obey it?

This is because eternity depends on it. Our eternity, that is.

Choosing the Truth to Believe

Have you ever wondered how two people can look at a fact in completely opposite ways? Why is that?

The other day some doctors held a meeting where they reported their experiences treating the virus.

In a short while, social media platforms and CNN deleted that video for not being factual and scientific.

It is interesting that all those people speaking were doctors who even dared anyone to check not only on the validity of their claims but also on their status as practicing and licensed doctors.

I find it interesting that media that is not medical in any way apart from reporting medical news has authority on actual doctors and their findings. And it is especially so because the doctors are disputing the running theme of the fear peddling ‘experts’ who want us to treat the virus as doomsday.

Is it not interesting that the world is now divided between those who believe those doctors and the ‘system’ that pours scorn on them.

Yet the doctors only said, ‘we have treated’. It is their experiences that they have used as authority to tell the populace that the situation is not as bad as the system wants us to believe. They are simply being punished by offering hope!

What I find more interesting is that the doctors challenged their listeners to ask their personal physicians about the treatment they were talking about and even look at the research concerning the same.

One expert on things corona and its vaccine is Bill Gates. Yet the closest he may have been to medical school is visiting a friend at the halls of residence. And I would think the same of Twitter and CNN and other media outlets that are flagging these doctors.

It is interesting that there are people convinced that the media is right and the doctors are wrong.

At the very least, they ought to have brought in their own doctors to dispute on what these doctors are saying. But the proper way of doing it is actually raise a panel of doctors from each position to argue their positions out and allow us to decide which side is more convincing.

Disenfranchising the side with an argument without offering an answering one is illogical, the height of intellectual impunity.

You are saying that the people who cannot shield our children from pornography and violence have the mandate to guard us from medical fraud! How do they block people who are saying that nobody needs to die since there is a problem yet they have no such solution?

This brings me to this point; people believe what they want. They therefore package the truth to favor what they have chosen to believe. Facts are irrelevant unless they favor the side one wants to believe.

We will instruct our minds on what set of facts to accept for the most part, meaning that we will shift the facts to arrange in the way that agrees with our preconceived conclusions.

But facts are facts. And truth is not rearrangeable, however much we may try to rearrange it.

Yet you realize that it is in the spiritual that this is so rampant. That is why church gatherings have been closed and severely limited to block the proclamation of the release of the power of the truth of the Gospel to a world drowning in sin and despair. Interestingly it is the same ‘experts’ doing it.

You wonder why they would want to smother every hint or grasping straw of hope there is as they amplify their proclamation of doom.

And do you wonder why people are going to hell?

It is precisely for that very reason. We choose the ‘truth’ that favors us instead of the truth that liberates us. We choose the truth that agrees with us instead of the truth that leads us higher. In short we choose the truth as the world packages it as opposed to the TRUTH that is a person, Jesus Christ.

And sadly that is the truth we proclaim even as we smother the truth that has the power to liberate.

Why do preachers not preach against sin? They fear that people fleeing from sin will be freed from the clutches of their feel good sermons and probably stop supporting them. Isn’t this the same reason propelling the experts running the virus narrative are scared of? Their ‘discoveries’ and ‘solutions’ could be time barred by the cheap solution these doctors are advocating.

That is the reason the pulpit is awash with motivation preaching even as believers are drowning in sin. That is why a majority of believers speak about a favorite verse and promise instead of what the Bible actually says. That is why prophets always prophesy good things instead of challenging believers to holiness.

But we have a choice. Nobody is taking the Bible from us like those media are deleting videos for us. We can read the Bible for ourselves. And God has promised to speak to us if we seek Him through His word.

We therefore have a choice. Will we believe the truth as packaged for our consumption or will we seek the truth from the source? Will we trust God enough to allow Him to speak to us without intermediaries who might be just brokers of the spiritual?

Will we read the Bible for ourselves? Will we believe and obey it?

This is because eternity depends on it. Our eternity, that is.

Fear is Worship of Another

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. (Matthew 6:24a)

I want to muddle the pond a little by speaking to our situation today especially concerning this virus.

The gist of what I want to say (not imply) is that fear is actually worship. The peddlers of fear are therefore high priests of another god however secular they may want us to believe they are.

Fear seeks to force me to worship in some way the source of the same by threatening dire consequences should I refuse.

Look at Daniel.

‘Whoever does not…’ was the catch whether we are looking at Daniel or his three friends. It is the consequences that are supposed to blunt the sharp edge that is the genuine worship of God. And I want us to look at more scenarios to understand what I am saying.

When I hide to worship, especially so that nobody would suspect that I am a worshiper, I really am not worshiping the God who threatens to disown those ashamed of Him in their generation. And I am not talking about the underground church since they are known for their faith. They are only exercising it outside the established and Caesar sanctioned ecclesiastical structures. That is why many of them end up in prisons. In short they are ready to face whatever music when they are found out as opposed to wriggling their way out of danger.

I am talking about the order to stop worshiping God to please whoever for whatever. And by worship I am not talking about what we normally think is worship, singing. I am talking about living according to God’s clear revelation in His word. And that includes submitting to any other authority if it is inconsistent with that revelation.

Shadrach and his friends were not ordered not to worship their God. It was their God whose worship forbad them to place another god beside Him. I believe there were other princes who had no problem bowing to that image since they opined that the God of Abraham would understand, especially since the consequences of not doing so were dire and irreversible. And God was not at liberty to prove His power anyway.

That fear of what would happen if they defied the king was worship since it affected and was in direct opposition to their worship.

You see, there is no neutral gear in worship. You do not move from right worship to neutral worship then to other worship. It is either/or. You are worshiping God as He has prescribed or you are worshiping another. Even atheism is a worship of another god; only that this other god is called absent.

And it was the same with Daniel. They did not care whether he worshipped in secret or not provided he was not seen doing it. Again I think there were other Jews who decided to just worship in secret to escape the lions, which was not a problem with the constitution changers.

Fear takes our focus from God to the object of that fear. And basically that is worship.

… lifted up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel … (Ezekiel 18)

Idol worship is about where our eyes are looking.

We do not need to confess worship to be worshipping. Undue focus on an object is worship.

Yet isn’t that what fear does?

That is why that object is able to shape one’s life to be in tandem with what the object of the fear is, whether it is terrorism or an epidemic.

You see, it changes the perception of who you know God to be to the point of denying some of His attributes.

Psalm 127:1 talks about God being our security. Fear of terrorism transfers God’s promise to protect us to what the object of our fear indicates.  That is why people cede their rights very easily and quickly in the face of terror.

The fear of a pandemic like the one we are being told we are in trashes God’s promise not only to give us good health but also healing to whomever the peddlers of the fear indicate. We will therefore willingly disobey what God has clearly ordered so that we do not offend the new god we fear. We are so scared of the ailment that we refuse to obey God’s clear revelation.

If that is not worship then tell me what is.

Look at Israel when they left Egypt. Was there any doubt that they worshipped God? Yet why did the bulk of them die in the wilderness?

They were for the most part scared of the desert and desert living. They feared unpredictability.

Apart from the time they made the golden calf, we do not see them having another visible idol.

That fear of the unseen and uncontrollable was the idol they were judged for worshiping.

Look at one incident in the journey to get what I mean.

At Kadesh in the wilderness, the spies brought the report with devastating accuracy.

Then Caleb spoke up and said that because the Lord had promised them the land, there was no doubt He was well able to get it for them.

Do you notice what the congregation does? They want to punish them for blasphemy! You see, stoning was the sentence for blasphemy.

Simply saying, fear had become their new god. That is why they also sought to appoint another leader to lead them into their new worship under the pretext of taking them back to Egypt.

Fear takes our eyes from God.

That is why a young man becomes so desperate that they sleep around to get a job or pass an exam since fear has made them think there is no other solution. This is why an artiste will compromise their morals to get that role. That is why a Christian musician will bribe a broadcaster to have their music on air.

All that is due to fear. And I am calling it worship because it affects our worship.

That a bishop can use all the TV airtime he is given to defend the ‘experts’ protocols against his livelihood and especially God’s word concerning the same as if God’s power is limited by the virus would be inconceivable were it not true. Yet fear explains it most accurately.

We might proclaim from the rooftops Ezekiel 37 about the dry bones. But like the Sadducees we really do not believe it can happen since fear has made us doubt the scriptures and the power of God. Our dose of ‘reality’ says that that passage is wishful thinking and over-creative imagination.

Fear makes us dichotomize our faith into what is possible and what is wishful thinking, where what is possible is dictated by the source of the fear and wishful thinking being what proceeds from faith.

Does God heal? Can He heal? Those are the answers fear meddles with (in a pandemic) to the point that we will be scared to speak what we have always held to be true from our walk of faith. And by meddling with them we are made to completely divorce our proclamations from our practice of faith. In short our mouths get divorced from our hearts.

God can heal, but …, becomes our new proclamation when faced with the real question of actual obedience. And that ‘but’ is being moderated by fear. If truth be told it really is the fear that God is not who He says He is since fear has grown too big and dwarfed Him.

Remember David facing Goliath? Why had the army of grown and trained men been running away from one giant for forty days? Fear! And had not the young shepherd boy not come in time that war had already been decided and the Philistines could have won it without throwing a single spear or killing a single Israelite.

That is the power of fear. It distorts our worship and becomes our new object of worship.

What will you do when fear impedes on your worship?

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

Conspirational Questions

Is it not interesting that the longer I continue following this corona narrative the more questions I have? Why doesn’t the media ask those simple questions or the authorities explain them so that we do not need to ask? Why is it that conspiracy theories are more convincing than the official position wherever you look?

I know some are already angry with me. I once asked a question and was shouted out instead of being given answers by the medical experts in the group. But I will ask other questions today.

From official sources it is said that about 70% of corona deaths are attributable to diabetes and a bit of the remaining percentage to other such conditions.

Allow me to ask this. What is more logical between fighting the virus and a disease we have been handling for a long time? Why not look for people we suspect (many times we know them) may have diabetes so that we can destabilize the virus before it arrives? Why search with a toothcomb a virus that is for the most part asymptomatic when we can run an awareness program and get most of the persons with diabetes to arm them against the virus? Why don’t we develop a more portent treatment regimen against diabetes and similar conditions especially as we have always been told diabetes has a lot to do with lifestyle and diet?

Isn’t sending those above 58 home and banning them from even going to church a sure way of killing them since you are condemning them to inactivity that increases such conditions? Won’t their bodies die of that inactivity and become even weaker and more prone to the virus should it strike? Could we be sending these old people (and I am approaching there) to an early grave?

Why are we not using the same strategy against the virus that we successfully used against HIV that very few now care whether it has a vaccine or not?

My younger children long ago asked me a question I want to ask.

We have been told that the virus spreads through infected droplets of saliva and mucus. Why then must they mine very deep into the nose and mouth to get samples? Why do they not just ask for saliva or mucus to get the virus like they do other diseases? What is in those deeper recesses of the nose and mouth that are not in the droplets that infect?

We have also been told that the virus cannot be treated, that anyone who says they have found treatment is lying. How come then that we have people coming out negative after treatment? As an example using HIV, treatment deals with reducing the viral load and not killing the virus. As such no treatment has been able to make a HIV positive person negative according to the experts. How then can we have the virus turning negative when at the same time saying that there is no treatment?

In the same way, if there is treatment (that the powers are denying but demonstrating otherwise), why then are we not building on the treatment? Why must we be working on testing vaccines that normally takes decades to develop on the fast lane instead of developing the same drugs that are treating it especially since they are drugs that have been developed and tested for enough time?

And finally, do riots arm people against the virus? Do crowds repel it? Why is it that the weeks of protests did nothing to flood the world with death from the same?

You can now get angry as I have stopped. Then I may have to ask more as there are very many others I have or have been asked without a satisfactory answer.

Selective Obedience

There have been some responses to my last posts that necessitate this one.

Why do we choose what we want to believe? Why do we think that we can choose what to obey?

Does obedience depend on us?

My posts had nothing to do with disobeying the government. Yet many are treating it as such.

Let me bring another scriptural instruction.

The Bible says that a wife should submit to her husband as the church submits to Christ (IN EVERYTHING). Numbers 30 examines one aspect of that.

Yet many will look for qualifications and argue out many scenarios on the same.

Then I say that we should obey Christ in the context of the virus and people start shouting obey the government.

Is government really the issue? Do we support the government or are we scared that obeying Christ could be more costly?

Suppose Christ said you go to minister to a Covid patient on their death bed? Or you don’t think He would?

What between government protocols and His command would you obey?

Do you realize that His miracles normalize in such obedience?

By the way I am not giving any assurance of healing since obedience is no guarantee of the same. You might in the process of such ministry contract and even die from the infection and it won’t be disobedience. But you can’t expect any miracles outside that obedience.

I have trampled on serpents and scorpions in obedience. I have eaten and drunk dangerous things harmlessly in obedience. But I was not tempting the Lord. I was simply walking in obedience. It was His part to protect me. Simply saying I was not looking for serpents and poison. I was simply interacting with them as I obeyed Christ’s call.

Shadrack and his friends were not tempting fate. They were simply walking in obedience. Their profession was that even if God would not show up they still would not worship an idol. Incidentally they were defying a legally established government for those leaning in that direction. Daniel was also acting against a newly enacted constitution.

Only the issuer of the command determines the obedience of the subject. We really have no choice of what or how to obey.

We are shouting obey the government because we are scared of what obeying Christ entails. In fact we have at the back of our minds a faint idea of what it may entail. Or we are not ready to deal with obedience if it goes against the ruling powers.

Psalm 2 talks about governments in direct opposition to Christ. No human government really exists for the furtherance of the Gospel or even Christ’s eternal government. It is only that God has allowed them to exist for the same purpose. Revelation 17:17 is flush on Christ’s enemies performing god’s will. Why do we think worldly governments will willingly help us obey Christ?

The thrust of the posts is what those who know me for long will affirm; what is Christ’s order for this season? What is Christ commanding you to do now? What is your personal order? And what is His order for the people who are called by His name collectively? What is His order to the under-shepherds of His flock?

Perez Uzzah and the mighty men of God in Matthew 7 going to hell are not because of doing the wrong thing but following the wrong instructions and orders. They died for busying themselves with doing things instead of following the right orders. That is what I am afraid we may be doing in response to this virus.

One thing I am sure God is saying is that we should not fear this virus. The fear we are exhibiting is therefore not of God or a response to the fear of God. Could we therefore be rebelling against who we know God is?

WHAT ARE GOD’S ORDERS FOR THIS SEASON FOR US?

Should Caesar be allowed to set the rules for God’s worship?

I am wondering when I hear and see the fervor with which church leaders are coming in the defense of the political leadership setting rules for the way the church should run their worship services.

It is interesting they are at the same time wondering how logical the same guidelines are to the proper and wholesome ministry in the same.

I have argued elsewhere that this season has only one enemy being targeted; Christ through the church. The others are incidental so that the church does not feel targeted. And nothing has changed as I see it.

They have just made it appear that they have our interests in their heart by appearing to relax the closures.

It is like Pharaoh was trying to do to Israel when things became thick for him and his people.

Ø  Let the men go. Leave the women and children.

Ø  Let the adults go, leave the children.

Ø  Let them go, leave the flocks.

Isn’t this what is happening?

I suspect the leaders won’t have minded if only children were ordered left out. They are complaining because most of them are disqualified from church because they are old. They are therefore not fighting for the church but for their positions. Only a few have come out fighting like Moses did and not in defense of the oppressor.

The world relaxes church closure to make us feel grateful for the closure then they set impossible conditions for the same.

Should we gratefully comply? I beg to differ.

But I do not want to stop there. I want to challenge us to listen to our Commander and the Owner of the church, the One who bought her with His blood.

We are not doing Jesus a favor by obeying the world in worshiping Him.

Let churches remain closed until our Commander orders otherwise. Let us reject worship that has been set by the enemy of the object of our worship. In any case it is so fractured as to be of no effect.

Let Christ issue the command concerning church services since they are only and all about Him.

Unless we have been content to do our thing without His input for so long that we would not know how of when He speaks.

But I believe we can hear what He is commanding if we choose.

You shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:13)

It is possible He allowed the closures because He was tired with the way we were doing it.

Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the LORD of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand. (Malachi 1:10)

If that is the case, agreeing with Pharaoh or Caesar to reopen using their guidelines will make things even worse for the church as we are being set up probably for a complete closure.

You see, they can manipulate those numbers to prove what they have been alleging; that the church is the single most dangerous place for the virus to spread, especially since we can’t run to Jesus for protection as we were not following His orders when we reopened.

You see, following Christ’s orders means that we are open to His healing power. He will simply obliterate the virus since it is standing in the way of proper worship and limiting to His power. It is also contrary to His word.

Look at some the things Caesar ordered worship criminalizes.

Ø  Let the little children come to me

Ø  They shall lay hands on the sick

Ø  Shout to the Lord

Ø  Sing to the Lord

Ø  Greet one another with a holy kiss

Ø  Call the solemn assembly, among others

Aren’t we safer waiting for Christ to issue the command?

Favoritism and Favorites

I want to start this by challenging us to look at these two words. And I will start by making a statement.

God does not show favoritism but He has favorites.

Does it look like a contradiction in terms? Is it really a contradiction of terms?

Grace is the explanation of that apparent contradiction in terms.

Favoritism has to do with using different standards for the same situation. It has to do with unfairness. And that can not be applied to God as He is fair. He is the just judge.

Favor, however has to do with how we receive and respond to God. This is what determines how He will relate with us.

The Bible says that God loved Jacob and hated Esau. But in the Bible that word hated has to do with comparisons.

For example Jesus said that if anyone loved Him and does not hate everyone and everything he cannot be His disciple. Yet He said that we love our enemies, love our neighbors as we love ourselves etc.

That is where I want us to start.

God therefore did not hate Esau like we hate. He simply meant that He chose to favor Jacob over Esau. But I want us to look at how it came about.

The Bible calls Esau profane yet we do not see any profanity when we read the scriptures.

What we see is that he was worldly. He was focused on the here and now instead of the promise he was supposed to be carrying.

Remember the birthright? Imagine comparing spiritual inheritance to a plate of stew? He chose his stomach above Abraham’s call and promise.

Incidentally, many years later when Jacob is seeking reconciliation we see him more concerned with wealth (I have enough, my brother) than the favor Jacob was after.

Did God favor Jacob? Yes. Did He show favoritism? No.

Jacob opened himself to favor just as Esau closed himself to the same. And we see the same with Isaac and Ishmael. One sought spiritual connection when the other was pursuing a worldly inheritance. And that is where God’s favor operates from. God’s favor will flow when the heart is in the right place with respect to spiritual things.

We will obtain God’s favor depending on how sold out we are to His agenda.

Esau was a very hard worker. No wonder his father favored him. He enjoyed the game this hard worker brought.

Jacob was homely. He probably didn’t love adventure or the rigors and dangers involved in hunting. But he knew about Abraham’s promise and call and wanted to be the one to access it. That he could make a vegetarian stew so delectable as to be exchanged with a birthright is exceptional but he did it.

It is the same today.

The revelation we can access is directly proportional with the hunger we have for the same. It means that we might be in an identical place yet one accesses revelation even as the other is getting things.

That is the reason we see pastors accessing the world but sadly losing their spiritual cutting edge. That is why we find pastors who were on fire for revival and holiness becoming cosy with the oppressor. In short a preacher becomes friends with people he could not have touched with a ten foot pole when they were at their peak of spirituality. And it happens because the then abominable character has been allowed to give some goodies to the good minister.

The minister then can’t afford to preach against sin, corruption or immorality as was his past because his new ‘sponsors’ lead such lifestyles. I once heard a pastor friend building on a sermon so nicely yet just about the time he was to give the final punch he made such an about time that some of us were dazed. That is why many ‘successful’ preachers rarely, if ever, make an altar call as they must then press for conviction.

That is how an Esau is made in ministry.

And you see the same when you look at Jesus’ earthly ministry. It was the disqualified that were able to access Christ’s revelation instead of the specially placed spiritual giants. Remember Jesus talking about the prayers of a Pharisee and a tax collector.

God is about to do the same in the upcoming revival as He will overlook some of those we think are better placed to lead it.

Are you a God-seeking Jacob (conman) or an earthly hard worker?

Where do you think God’s favor will flow to?

Order Sources

When will the church of Christ realize that the world will NEVER willingly allow us to obey Christ and His word?

When will the church realize that Christ never called us to comply and submit to the systems and governments of the world?

When will we realize that Christ is the King of kings whose orders make all the others invalid?

When will we realize that Christ called us to a militant faith and not a compliant one? Or have we forgotten that He said that He came to bring the sword as opposed to peace?

When will we realize that miracles started flowing when the church in Acts stepped out of the upper room and started offending the whole system, from Caesar to the ecclesiastical order?

You see, all the systems of the world from capitalism to socialism, left to the right, and any other in between, are human and therefore opposed to Christ and His revelation. They might try to convince us how they are on our side to gain our support but they will never allow us to worship as we would if they get their way. They are only friendly to us when they need our support.

But we can’t be militant unless we get the orders from our commander. And that is what the whole world is united to shield us from getting. Sadly we are playing ball with our enemies all in the name of submitting to authorities. We forget that Paul was severally imprisoned and killed by those authorities he submitted to because they could not compromise Christ’s Lordship over his life and ministry. We forget that Jesus was crucified by the same authorities He refused to offend when He paid tax He took from a fish. We forget that the apostles were killed by the same authorities. And of course we choose to forget that the one who translated the Bible into English was burnt at the stake by the same authorities he was trying to liberate. Refer to my post on Psalm 2 (Enemies)

In short, the church is deceived when we think that we will logically and sensibly have our worship given to us because it won’t. In fact it never will just as it never has.

Sadly, we are limiting Christ’s power by depending on the world to set the rules of our worship as He has never fit in any structure that is not His.

We have no choice but become militant for our faith. We must be radical with what we believe.

And I do not mean talking arms, unless it is the spiritual armor. I mean believing Christ enough to decide that His word is the only word I should be obeying and that any other word not subject to it is illegal in my life, however high it might be proceeding from.

In short, any authority that is not subject to what Christ decrees is null and void in my life, to the point that I am ready to die for it. And that is not a comfortable position to be in.

Will you listen and obey orders ONLY from Christ? Will you subject any other orders, instructions, mandates, etc, to Christ?

The Father’s Heart 2

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold. (Proverbs 22:1)

We were dealing with the good son’s conversation with his father after the prodigal returned. I want us to look at that heart inheritance in a different way, especially the fact that God expects us not only to inherit His bounty, but also to share the inheritance of that heart to a seeking world.

You see, God not only delights in giving us things; He especially delights seeing us overflowing His nature.

That is why such verses are in the Bible.

For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no way you will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. (Matthew 5:20)

God goes beyond the act to the motivation which the source of the act. You can do all the acts righteousness demands but still be wicked (Matthew 7: 21 – 23).

God is interested in your doing good when it is the product of your being good. Remember God telling Samuel where He looks when choosing a leader?

The essence of what I am saying is that God wants us to inherit His heart, or, to make it easier to understand, His nature. That is what was lacking in the loyal son in the Prodigal Son parable.

Let me give an example.

All my life I have known my mother to be prayerful and gentle. As I have said elsewhere she got saved about the time I was born and took God extremely seriously. Though she never went to school, she values scripture tremendously and obeys whatever it says.

As an example, none of us her children can forget the discipline we got when our tongues slipped and said something others casually say. As a result there are words and things my mouth can never imagine speaking even now.

Aside from that, my early years were in a (formally colonial) village (almost a slum) and so friction among neighbors over this or the other was unavoidable, especially with so many children around.

What I know from that time was that when there was a conflict or argument involving my mother, any bystander would conclude even without listening to the case that my mother was the offended party. That for a mother raising eight children singlehandedly was exceptional.

Christ had so endued her with His nature that everybody knew her as a godly woman, even to date in her nineties.

That is what comes to mind when I think of a heart inheritance from our Father in heaven, something I pray becomes my inherent heritage even as I serve Him.

I remember her when I take offense at something or someone, knowing that it is possible to be quiet even when I have an abundance of words pushing to come out and sense pleading to be expounded.

My niece (Caroline Bongo) has sang a song featuring her though in vernacular.

It comes from the beatitudes. She says that my mother inspired her by her life as she read that passage. My mother, though not alone, is a rare believer nowadays though Christ expects each of us to be like that. It is a deformity on our part to live different from that. It simply means that we have refused to access that inheritance.

As an example do you know that what we call the Good Samaritan was just ‘a certain Samaritan’ in Christ’s parable? Does it then not mean that any Christian neighbor ought to be like that?

We have to be willing to inherit the Father’s heart. That is the only way we will be able to take over everything He has for us without having any regrets.

Then we will be able to rejoice when the wayward return back home. Then we will be excited when our enemies want to join our family. And then will be excited enough for the lost as to be willing and ready to spend and be spent for their salvation and reconciliation.

When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household, saying, 'These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!' "But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn't you agree with me for a denarius? Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you. Isn't it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?' So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen." (Matthew 20: 11 – 16)

And we won’t mind the rewards latecomers receive though we have labored longer.

When like the good elder son we become fixated on our rights (a kid for my crowd), it can easily mean that we are too immature to realize that everything the Father has belongs to us, especially because we have been faithful. But it also means that we have a very narrow view of who the Father is. We forget that part of our inheritance is handling His relationships (business deals in worldly terms) since part of growth is running the estate or empire depending on where you are looking from.

Let me close where I started.

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold. (Proverbs 22:1)

This is a clear indication that to God, heart inheritance beats any other inheritance hands down.

Will we pursue that inheritance?

The Father’s Heart

"He said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.'"(Luke 15: 31, 32)

I want us to go to this old parable to get something ‘new’. And by new I mean something we rarely hear from it though repeated in the scriptures.

I want us to concentrate on what this father was telling his obedient son.

You have, actually own, everything I have. You work as hard as I would. But to be like me you need to have a heart like mine.

The prodigal son lost everything that qualified him in works to his father. But in desperation he reconnected to his heart. That is what brought him back. He hoped that his father’s heart had grace, somehow.

The elder brother knew his father as well. But he knew him as a performer and so performed very well, thus pleasing him tremendously. In the process he almost disconnected to his heart.

On the outside he looked fine.

It took the return of the prodigal for the kind of heart he had to be exposed.

What the father told him is simply this.

You have everything I have worked for. Would you use it as I would? Would you use it to serve as I would? Will you inherit my heart as you have my wealth?

A misplaced heart throws tantrums at petty things. A misplaced heart counts the cost of grace and relationships. A misplaced heart takes offense at reconciliation.

Another question I feel made part of the father’s statement was this.

What would you have done had your brother returned after my demise?

Sons work very hard to take after their fathers. Sadly, rarely do we find sons keen to inherit their father’s heart yet that is where their real father resides.

This dutiful son had everything resembling his father except that heart. That is what his father was trying to impact him on.

And we see a lot of that in the scripture.

Remember Abraham wondering whether a slave would be his heir? Why was that yet Lot was not far and even his family could be traced?

That slave was until then the only person who had caught on what drove Abraham. He was the one closest to Abraham’s call. Remember he was the one entrusted with looking for a wife for Isaac? Even Ishmael lost it as concerned Abraham’s heart.

Esau also lost it big time. He worked exceedingly well to come at par with his father but lost it when Isaac’s heart came into play. Remember his marriage (two in fact) was a sorrow to Isaac?

And we see the same when he meets his long lost brother who dispossessed him of the promise. Though Jacob loses much sleep over his reaction, he seemed to have forgotten the whole issue. Remember what he said when Jacob seeks to find favor with him?

I have enough, forgetting that Jacob was doing it for the promise and spiritual heritage.

Imagine thinking about food and things when your opponent is thinking about eternal rewards!

I highly suspect that if it had been Esau who had gone to the foreign land and acquired as much wealth as Jacob had he could simply have settled there permanently since that was his understanding of birthright and blessing.

But nothing could keep Jacob from his spiritual heritage. Remember Laban severally trying to plead and negotiate with him to remain so that they work as partners? Was than not the reason he literally fled, unnoticed?

Esau was content with accessing his father’s wealth. Jacob left his father’s wealth to work on getting his father’s heart.

Remember Abraham sharing his wealth out to the other sons? But he reserved his heart to Isaac.

I think this was the same reason Jacob gave the double portion to Joseph as he realized that he was the one who had his heart. Remember he was the one who took an oath from the whole tribe to ensure that his bones get buried in the land of the promise though he was the one most qualified to be buried in Egypt?

And it flows through scripture.

Saul is fixated with the kingdom as David is content in knowing and obeying God.

And today it is blaring.

How many are valued for their proximity to God’s heart? How many are valued because they are constant in the prayer closet? Mind you I am not talking about prayer experts. I am talking about those whose prayer life you know yet you may have never heard them pray. At least that is what Jesus taught.

Why does someone look for a spiritual opinion and where?

Where do you think you will go if you need spiritual counsel between a pastor who has labored in a slum for decades and one who has grown a mega church in a few years?

Who do we think is blessed between the one being sacked for his faith and the one who has bought a new car? Why?

The truth is that a vast majority of us are fixated with those gifts. And the heart is too demanding to pursue. We are therefore content with the gifts and even build a tabernacle around them at the base of the mountain.

Let Moses go to deal with God’s heart. We will continue waiting for those gifts down here.

The vast concentration of the preaching and teaching of our day is about gifts and things inheritance. Very little, if any, is about our spiritual, heart inheritance.

We are always speaking about what God has done for us. Rarely do we hear anything about what God is doing in us or how much like Him we are becoming as part of our inheritance.

The shocker for many believers is that the judgment seat of Christ will be looking at how close our hearts are to His. It will have nothing to do with what we have accessed or how much we have achieved. In other words, the only inheritance that will be worth anything in the other world is heart inheritance.

Matthew 7: 21 – 23 talks about real performers being sent to hell. Matthew 25: 31 – 46 talks about two categories of people presented with a similar situation, one being rewarded and the other condemned.

For I didn't speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: but this thing I commanded them, saying, Listen to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk you in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you. (Jeremiah 7: 22, 23)

It means that the exam is really on the heart in its response to God’s revelation.

Let me draw a parallel.

I think in the judgment God will look at me and compare me with the image of His Son. That is what judgment is about.

I could be shouting justification from the rooftops. But unless it becomes a part of me in becoming an agent of the same justification to others, I really have no business expecting it.

I could be an expert on grace. But unless grace flows from me to some other undeserving ‘sinners’, I have not accessed it. I can enjoy mercy tremendously, but unless there are others benefitting from mercy flowing out of my heart I really have not accessed the same.

How ready are we to inherit God’s heart through Christ?