Dangers of Focus

 You know how negative I am about motivational teachings.

It is therefore no surprise that some of my posts counter most of their stuff.

But let me explain why motivation is many times contrary to faith.

Motivation is focused on self; self gratification, self fulfillment, self this, self that.

The Gospel however is Christ focused as He is the author and finisher of our faith.

The Gospel is not comfortable as it does not pamper us like motivation does.

But motivation is so attractive, many times making us extremely pumped up before reality dawns.

But let me get to my topic, focus and determination.

Have you ever wondered what kept pharaoh so determined that he eventually led his choice army drowning into the sea?

Why could he not give up even after the trumping he got from the ten plagues?

He was determined to prove a point, that he was his own man and does not take anybody’s orders. And he had enough allies who believed in him as such. They therefore helped keep his focus on that fact.

Pharaoh said, "Who is Yahweh, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don't know Yahweh, and moreover I will not let Israel go." (Exodus 5:2)

Imagine that a cloud has separated his army from Israel the whole night. Then the sea has dried to allow Israel to pass through.

How come he was unable to see that something beyond the ordinary was happening? Why couldn’t he connect these miracles to the ones that forced him to release Israel? Why couldn’t he remember his people earlier pleading with him to concede since Egypt was destroyed?

His focus was implacable. Nothing could change that focus for anything.

You see, what in the pursuit of a good thing is positive can be extremely destructive in the pursuit of the wrong thing. Incidentally it is the same even if purpose is the name we give it.

Let me give an analogy. A telescope is a very useful tool for the astronomer. But it would be extremely dangerous if you sought to use it to walk the streets. And that is the danger of focus when not directed by and to God and His revelation. We can very clearly see things that are unrelated to the present and eternity. Sadly, we might completely lose any relationship we had with reality.

And pharaoh is not the only one we see in the scriptures.

Judas walked and ministered with Christ but was focused on money. That is why he went out when Jesus commended a woman who wasted a fortune on dusty feet. He couldn’t take such waste.

Saul focused on being king that he was unable to see the One who gave him the commission. The one who spared fatlings to sacrifice had no qualms slaughtering a city of priests. Knowing David was the anointed king was not enough to stop him from seeking to kill him though he knew that he couldn’t  kill him since he couldn’t change God’s declaration.

Even Saul of Tarsus had no problem forcing people to blaspheme so that he could then arrest them for the blasphemy because he was focused on maintaining the purity of his faith.

Cain loved approval to the extent that he killed his brother to eliminate competition for the same.

Sadly, telescopic vision (focus), when it loses the view of spiritual reality, opens us to the evil one.

That is the reason we see pastors visiting witches to grow their ministry and not see anything wrong with it. That is the actual basis of corruption; a brutal focus on self.

A focus in the wrong context is dangerous. In fact, a focus for its own sake is evil.

Zealots are people so committed to what they believe that they will trash any contrary belief or practice. In our days we call them extremists. They will kill, maim, rape and raze everything in their way to purify their religion. And this is why I say that they give the devil a field day. Sometimes I suspect the devil is shocked that they have become more evil than he is. Yet they believe that is a pursuit of the God of justice.

I am sure you are wondering what the right context of focus is.

For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. (1Corinthians 2:2)

Or like Paul said in Philippians, let this mind be in you that was in Christ.

Christ came with an assignment that defined His focus. Focusing on Him will therefore purify our focus.

Even focusing only on His promises and what He has done for us is not right as it breeds entitlement since I am the focus.

For by him all things were created, in the heavens and on the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things are held together. He is the head of the body, the assembly, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For all the fullness was pleased to dwell in him; (Colossians 1: 16 – 19)

Incidentally, the part that suffers most is ministry when it gets focused elsewhere as it will then depend on the ingenuity or creativity of the minister. No wonder many have forgotten about sin, righteousness and judgment, some of the main things the Holy Spirit empowers us for.

When you hear people describing what they call worship you get to discover where their focus is.

Imagine boring worship! Who is the object there? And of course there are many other descriptions.

We are either focused on God and His revelation (the Bible) or our focus is destructive. And that is so even when we are doing spiritual things.

What is your focus? Where is your focus?

Understanding Prophecy

For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: (James 1:23)

I want us to look at prophecy in a slightly different way to help us understand, and probably demystify it from what many think it is.

Prophecy is not a science or art. Prophecy is not a mysterious undertaking that only the extremely skilled can access.

Let me give an analogy.

Look at the world as a huge building being constructed and each person as a workman in the project.

An architect drew the whole project to the smallest detail.

Prophecy is like the draughtsman. He is the one who interprets the architectural drawing to the workers so that they can accurately do their part.

He helps us understand the small details the foreman may overlook because he lacks the skills and training a draughtsman has. He can only interpret the big picture from the architectural plans.

Each of us has the architectural drawing (the Bible) that helps us know the part we are building.

Then we have foremen (ministers, leaders) to help unite what we are building (our small portion) with the entire building.

The draughtsman (prophet) helps us see the small portions that we could very easily overlook either in our small portion or even the corporate part.

The draughtsman and foreman are partners. None is bigger or better than the other as only their responsibilities differ.

In fact even the normal builder is not smaller than them because they all have one boss, the owner of the building and drawer of the architectural plans

For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or stubble; each man's work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man's work is. (1Corinthians 3: 11 – 13)

Prophecy therefore serves to unite the church in becoming the best that God has for each one of us.

It is important to realize that the draughtsman does not introduce anything new in the building. He is only able to interpret the very small details others easily overlook.

Incidentally it is the same with prophecy. Prophets do not introduce anything new; otherwise they are called soothsayers or fortune tellers. They will seem to introduce new things because they are able to clearly see things everybody else is blind to. They are able to see cultures we have developed and the hardening of our hearts over the years even as we think we are spiritually healthy. They are able to see those petty sins that hamper our growth and impact.

That is the reason the Bible is a very important for the prophet. In fact any prophet who does not recognize the importance of the Bible in his ministry is as off as the fortune teller since the context of any prophecy is the word of God.

Remember that even Jesus validated His ministry using the Bible? That the One who gave the word used the scriptures to demonstrate who He was and what He came to do?

That is why I am equating the prophet to a draughtsman; the one who can clearly hear what God is saying and reporting it.

A prophet is called false when he shifts his focus from the architectural drawing to the comfort of workers because that beats his purpose. In fact in Jeremiah he is called a worker of iniquity. A good and exciting word can never make the worker see those things only the draughtsman can.

That is why the motivational preacher (and many prophets nowadays are such) is such a danger to the church because he shifts the focus from obedience to comfort and fulfillment of believers. Those who pretend to use the scriptures choose only the juicy verses and blank out whole portions of the scriptures that do not fit their popularity and fame seeking narrative.

Other prophets (and preachers) are spiritual terrorists or bandits; ‘encouraging’ (which is actually threatening) believers to give this or the other otherwise …

Will we love the scriptures as to base our whole beings and ministry on them?

This is a poor analogy but I hope it has made some to realize what God expects of us and especially how we look at prophets

Revisiting Corona

It was evident to most that the purpose of the narrative on the virus was to usher global control through a cashless society. That is the only way Revelation 13: 17 can be actualized.

The latest ‘research finding’ confirms it. Imagine they are saying that the virus is active in money for almost a month!

It is only that they were in so much of a hurry that they introduced more drastic measures, measures that eroded the fear that was to be the vehicle to advance the change.

They pushed for lockdowns when many of us were calling them impractical and punishing. Interestingly, the WHO that was shouting loudest about the need for the lockdowns, even the most brutal, has now officially called them what the sensible were calling them, punishing. Then they fought for schools to be closed and are now fighting for them to be reopened.

I won’t be surprised to hear them saying that face masks are suffocating and poisoning as we all know.

But I suspect this was just a test run on how to control the whole world by creating a narrative from anywhere.

Do not therefore be surprised if you hear a new thing being pushed, especially riding on the back of fear.

Corona was just the sickness that came (or was brought) to create the kind of scenario they needed to test their theories on human control. And it will disappear once they have finished their research.

Otherwise explain to me why countries that trashed that narrative do not have as many casualties as those who bought it?

The schemers have gone back to their boardrooms to restrategize. And they will be back.

And ministers are still shouting follow the guidelines, guidelines that even the ones giving them do not follow and will change at a whim.

Shouldn’t we be about knowing what Christ is ordering us to do? Otherwise we will be taking the ones we lead to take the mark when in the next new thing they will be introducing it becomes a requirement, especially as it will not be called the mark of the beast or even mention the antichrist.

You see, they know that those who read the Bible know about the mark of the beast and so must be very foolish to package it as such. It surely must be packaged as something of great convenience, classy and fashionable and of course secure. And they must have the church leaders to market it as have the pyramid schemes over the eons.

Of course through this narrative they have known how to rope in the church leadership to their agenda without much effort.

My prayer is that the church (the bride of Christ) is not caught up in this error that the visible church leadership has sunk into. That we have leaders who continue to listen and obey what our Commander says. I pray that I am one such leader.

When Fame Overflows Your Banks

Is not this David, of whom they sang one to another in dances, saying, Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands? (1Samuel 29:5)

Have you realized that David in this instance had been in hiding on foreign lands for some years?

Yet his efforts at hiding were always hampered by his earlier fame. He had established a definition.

Incidentally there were no newspapers and TV and so you may wonder how the Philistines knew how he looked like. Yet they knew. And this is the second time he is found out.

I recently posted about Peter and how his speech gave him away when was trying his best to melt into the woodwork. Then I have also posted of beautiful feet and the fact that they are not what eyes call beautiful, meaning that they are found in the wrong places, humanly speaking. Of course much earlier I posted to show that sin is always exposed however much we may try to hide it.

Today I want us to realize that our position in the spiritual realm can also not be hidden, and that whether we were trying to do so or not.

A pastor gave me this testimony, his.

He at one time got completely exhausted and disappointed in ministry as can happen to the best of us, and decided he was done with serving God.

He therefore decided to sin in a way that would force God to disqualify him, sleep with a harlot.

He decided to travel to a distant town where chances of being known would be slim and then look for a brothel.

Then what happens? The first harlot he meets falls on his feet.

‘Pastor, please help me’, she cried out to him. And he has to become a pastor once again.

He got back home and after another punishing season of ministry still decides to go to a different distant town to do the same thing. And the scenario was repeated.

That is when he realized that there was no way to get away from the responsibilities God had placed on him. And that is what we see with Jonah’s story.

What we are and what we do in the spiritual realm is broadcast throughout the spiritual realm, and especially in the opposing realm.

Again I remember the many times I have gone to churches nobody knows me and wanted to enjoy for once being on the back bench learning from others. I therefore sit at the most unobtrusive position so that nobody notices me.

Then out of nowhere (or so I think) someone comes from the front to where I am ‘hiding’ and invites me to share the word yet I there are other visitors in the congregation.

One time we had gone to visit a lady who found faith and salvation (plus of course great release) as we ministered. She therefore became very committed to ‘our’ church.

Incidentally, she came from a great distance and came carrying a very heavy son, too heavy for many young people in church to even lift. Yet she came to church punctually, even before some leaders had arrived.

I therefore purposed to visit her with the young man I was discipling using the motor bike I was using then. And the distance was long even on the bike.

Sadly, we found that she was not at home. We waited for some time but decided to leave because it was becoming late even with a bike. We therefore decided to leave.

But on the way we found our path blocked by the villagers. They then told us that we looked like preachers and therefore they had decided that they would not allow us to leave their village before we preached to them. Of course it was a pleasure for me to do so. Yet none of us had ever seen the other.

We are known as ministers of Christ. We therefore cannot hide even if we wanted.

I feel this is very instructive even as we approach times when living our faith will be dangerous. I am talking about times when persecution will be legal worldwide as it is in countries with Muslim and other demonic religious majorities.

Like the persecuted church over the ages, we must learn to live in such a way that our visibility does not hamper the witness of the church.

What do I mean? I know someone is wondering.

Being that visible in the spiritual realm, picking me and putting me out of circulation is no big deal. I should therefore live and minister in such a way that I am making as many as possible as portent as I am in the spiritual realm before my time comes. And that is what the persecuted church continues to do to survive even as we are fighting to remain relevant and visible.

Incidentally that is the only thing Christ commanded us to be doing, making disciples.

Do you realize that the word Christian appears much later in the book of Acts? The word before then was disciple, meaning that the focus of the church was teaching like Christ commanded. Incidentally even the word Christian was not the flimsy weight we make it today.

We should be in the business of raising other ministers since that is our calling as ministers.

Look at one favorite verse our generation loves quoting.

He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, Christ; from whom all the body, being fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in measure of each individual part, makes the body increase to the building up of itself in love. (Ephesians 4: 11 – 16)

Why we love verse 11 and conveniently ignore verse 12 beats comprehension.

God did not call us to star. Christ is the Morning Star and does not need any other star.

We are supposed to be raising believers who are just like Christ.

And we do that by focusing on making ourselves the best copies of Christ we can be so that they cannot be misled when they copy us.

Remember Paul advising the church to imitate him as he imitated Christ?

We can have the boldness to tell people that if we are fully committed to a life of complete obedience. Then we won’t be scared if we produce clones of ourselves because we are confirmed clones of Christ. And I say this because we are always producing clones of ourselves as we minister, especially at the leadership level. We do not therefore get to choose whether we will produce clones or not. We can only determine by our lives the kind of clones we will produce.

Our clones will be just like us.

That is why a superstar minister produces superstar clones, a Bible bending minister produces Bible bending clones, a promise claiming minister produces the same, a greedy minister produces a greedy clone, and so on. And that was how Peter was able to be recognized even when he was swearing otherwise.

Would it not be better for the church when our potency is not for display? That those who can recognize us do not do so because we seek to attract attention?

This is because our ‘children’ will be just like us. Then even if they will arrest us they will have our clones to deal with.

Beautiful Feet

 How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, Your God reigns! (Isaiah 52:7)

How were those feet beautiful?

Do you realize that they most likely did not have shoes?

They were dusty and dirty and hard and cracked. They were scratched and blistered. They had some toe nails missing. They were probably bleeding from one point or the other from knocking a rock or boulder too hard. They have encountered a serpent or scorpion and survived it. They have adequate evidence of thorns and thistles tearing them. They probably had an encounter with a jigger or two.

In short, those feet have seen it all.

And therein is their beauty. It is not the beauty of the catwalk. It is not a fashion display beauty. It is not a parade beauty.

It is a functional beauty. To borrow from a worn thread, it can be like a comparison between a slay queen and good wife.

These feet are beautiful yet it is not a beauty for display.

For he grew up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he has no form nor comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. (Isaiah 53:2)

What they do is where their beauty originates from.

They are up and down taking the Gospel where it is needed

Bystanders will not appreciate that beauty. In fact they call it ugly, despicable. Not many of you (if any) will willingly welcome them to your carpeted and sparkling clean house. Not many of you will give them lodging in your feathered bed because you may have to discard those beddings when they leave.

Yet you will realize that this is what taking the Gospel to the nations entails. In fact it is what real ministry is like.

The trophies we carry are not for display. They are many times what the world looks as shameful, like Paul enumerated in 2 Corinthians 11.

Beautiful feet are not those expensive autos or exclusive dwellings. They are not found in those holidays and conferences in big cities.

They will still be dusty and dirty and cracked and wounded.

That is the beauty God sees. That is the beauty God admires. That is the beauty God rewards.

How beautiful on the mountains are the feet. And the conveniences of our day are not found on the mountains.

Mountains are places of exertion, energy, exhaustion.

Are your feet beautiful in God’s eyes?

A Wheelbarrow Discourse

 Being on a high horse or speaking from a high horse is a simple English phrase meaning one does not understand because of their privilege or status.

There have recently been many arguments about wheelbarrows with some saying it is demeaning to give such gifts. Yet none of those goes to the recipients to ask why they are so enthusiastic when receiving them.

When I was growing up, only the rich could afford a wheelbarrow. I think I only knew one wheelbarrow when I was small. They were like radios where there was one in the whole village (or a few villages) where old men would gather to follow current affairs.

Before speaking from our high horses, we should go to the grassroots (that is what politicians always pretend to protect) to find out whether those gadgets make any difference.

Speaking to people down there you might be shocked to realize that that one wheelbarrow is what one requires to move up the social ladder.

Since the wheelbarrows (I hear) were primarily meant for hawking fruits and vegetables, what would you do if you were told that all the wheelbarrows in a certain place belong to one tycoon who then hires them out to traders for probably 100/- a day whether one sold anything or not?

Can you imagine the difference it would make to the trader if they had their own wheelbarrow? Do you think you will speak like you are doing?

And I am writing this because I speak to a few hustlers (the trending word).

Sadly, it is the same thing with trolleys and handcarts (mikokoteni). The pushers pay to use them.

I one time asked why someone insisted on carrying load I thought was too heavy yet he had a trolley and that is what he told me. He makes 100% heaving and puffing but only 50% when he uses the trolley since the owner takes the other 50%. And you want to tell people having his own trolley won’t make a difference in his life!

To a farmer a wheelbarrow is even more precious. And I am speaking as someone who farmed with and without one. Imagine the amount of time a farmer saves using a barrow looking for feed for his animals. And a peasant farmer (the majority of our farming community) cannot afford one.

Please do not use your stinginess to pour scorn on someone trying to make a difference in one person.

Unless you have something more empowering to do. And even then just do your thing. We have too many people to help that by the time you have touched enough you will realize that you have not even scratched the surface of need.

Stop politicizing need. It will backfire on you so badly as God is always on the side on the powerless.

 

Will Your Speech Betray You?

 After a little while those who stood by came and said to Peter, "Surely you are also one of them, for your speech makes you known." (Matthew 26:73)

Have you ever wondered whether people would know your faith if you pretended otherwise? Would your speech betray you?

Peter was in such a fix. He was amidst a hostile crowd at night. Not only did he need to warm himself from the cold of the night, he had to blend in because the agenda of the crowd gathered in the night’s cold was to ensure that his hero, rabbi and Lord died. He would therefore be as exposed as his master if this crowd got to know that he was in His team and that is not a comfortable thought in that dark night.

But his association with Christ could not be concealed for long. Though he even tried his old fishing lingua he was unable to shake the continuous discipleship he had undergone under Christ. Even swearing (provably the strongest effort he made to be so unlike Christ) was inadequate to shield him from exposure.

Simply speaking, every effort at lying to prove that he was part of the crowd was inadequate to hide his close association to the soon to be crucified Master.

Probably it was in the way he spoke those curses that betrayed him. Maybe it was his gestures that betrayed him. Maybe it was his insistence on the fact that he did not belong to Christ that betrayed him. Maybe it was his intense effort to try to blend in that betrayed him. Maybe it was his gentleness and authority when trying to prove his point.

But the important fact is that he was unable to distance himself from his closeness to Christ however hard he tried.

That dangerous truth I always repeat surfaces. A tree is known by the fruit it produces. Nor argument is needed yo differentiate a lemon from an orange tree when they are in the fruit stage, or the ones with seeds from the ones without.

Peter was unable to disappear into the woodwork because of what Christ had done on his life.

What am I saying?

What has Christ done in your life? What have the scriptures done to you?

Is that evident? Can you hide it or are you like Peter?

Have you absorbed scripture in such a way that it is what oozes when you are put under pressure or punctured? Have you been so immersed in prayer that it is what your presence draws even at the ‘wrong’ place?

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

Being with Jesus was the difference, the same difference that should describe us.

Otherwise we do not belong to Him.

Unveiling Atheism

The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt. They have done abominable works. There is none who does good. (Psalm 14: 1)

I want to help us appreciate that atheism is a lifestyle as opposed to a profession. Some of the most ardent atheists are eloquent professors of faith. Atheism is a heart issue as this verse states.

What do I mean?

Atheism is a way of life. Simply speaking, atheism is a life lived as if God isn’t. And you remember Jesus talking about a tree and its fruit. Atheism is a life whose fruit demonstrates a negation of what God stands for in His word.

The US is voting and I think that is where I will start.

God is the creator of life and clearly hates murder. One ticket stands for abortion that I won’t be surprised if they made a law allowing it for a day old child (they already allowed partial birth abortion, meaning that a child can be killed as it comes out of its mother’s womb).

I have seen a quote by a pastor that goes something like this, ‘a believer who votes for a candidate who supports abortion becomes an accessory to murder that we know abortion is’.

The same ticket pushes for legalizing of prostitution as they have for years done for homosexuality to the point of punishing (and did they punish!) anyone who refused to cooperate (remember the businesses and ministries that had to close because they couldn’t pay the heavy fines demanded when they refused to actively support the abomination?). That ticket criminalized freedom of conscience if it did not agree with their abomination.

And you still see believers defending it!

I have to be actively against God to agree with someone whose profession goes against what God says in His word. I will have to be an atheist.

And do not parrot what the media is spewing because the media is an ally in depravity. Depravity sells. You can almost be sure that the person the media is actively campaigning for is the one with the most rotten moral agenda since that will ensure their continuity. They might even thrive under that moral morass.

In any case, have you sought God’s clear will concerning your choice? Has He given you clear direction?

If not, you are an atheist just using God as a prop.

Let me come home.

Since our democracy does not have demarcated parties, we revolve around personalities.

There are politicians people always fight for whose only visible quality is incitement. They never help anybody and have never done anything for the nation.

Yet people will fight, others have died in their support. You will sadly realize that even ministers are in those camps to the point of hating fellow ministers who do not support their candidate. Imagine walking on egg shells when you want to discuss the state of the nation with a fellow minister unless you speak well of their person who confesses wickedness!

Politicians are for the most part unbelievers and so operate on the earthly realm and play by the worldly (even satanic) rule book. I am not saying that we look for a Daniel or Noah in them. But it is instructive that we follow God and His revelation when we support and choose.

How can a person who represents Christ bend so low as to lay their life on the line for this person who will at the first instance disown that faith that has employed them?

Again that is atheism.

This virus has exposed other atheists. How does a person worshipping trees and cows and stones hold a prayer meeting with a person worshipping Christ? What is so ecumenical about Christ?

Even the sailors in Jonah’s boat knew that each person worships their own god differently and separately.

A Christian and Muslim (let alone Hindu and traditionalist) worship different. One is the antithesis of the other. How then do we hold a joint prayer service?

Like I have asked, why did the church leaders not call a solemn assembly? Why did they wait to be massed with all the other ‘worshippers’ to call upon (which?) God?

Again, the heart is where it starts. They could believe that all faiths are similar, if not the same. Christ is just the profession, probably the side their bread is buttered.

They are atheists feeding on Christ’s name.

Even the church closures are more of demonstrations of atheism than submitting to authorities. Some leaders are so scared of the virus that they would rather close churches than risk catching it as I doubt anyone would arrest a whole church for ‘disobeying’ protocols that do not mean much when politicians and the same leaders making them have meetings.

Even in the US where not long ago pastors were being denying licenses for refusing to join two homosexuals are only threatening to arrest ministers who decided to obey God rather than men and are having congregational services and evangelistic meetings where even baptism is done en masse.

Again we are atheists if the word of the state carries more weight than that of God.

Let me go where you think I ought to have started, ministry.

Look at this preacher whose sermons draw hordes to church.

Then the elders discover that he is a moral sewer. He sleeps with anything and everything, from hookers to elders’ wives and daughters and everything in between.

They are indignant and confront him.

To their dismay, not only does he confirm what they had heard, he is unrepentant in the least, daring them to do what they want.

They have the power to sack him and know it is the right thing for them to do.

But they know that the congregation will scatter once he leaves, probably to follow him wherever he goes. Then the offerings will follow suit.

They therefore decide to ‘wisely’ cover up all the evidence, disorienting the seekers who had reported that sin to the elders looking for a spiritual solution.

Those elders are atheists. Probably most of that congregation is also atheistic.

Maybe a church has a very vibrant choir (or worship team as they are now called).

The lead singer has the voice that the Swahili say can coax a snake from its hole. And the choir gels seamlessly and their commitment is superb. Unlike other groups, there are enough men. And they are always there.

Then you discover that the leader gels the choir using her thighs. Sex is the gelling agent in the choir as all the men are more committed to having sex with her than with singing for Christ. No wonder they sing so well and never fail to attend practice!

Like with the pastor, dealing with the harlot will more or less kill the choir and chase congregants who are drawn to the church by their singing.

The leadership therefore warns the choir against openly showing their sex colors.

That is atheism.

Maybe it is not the ‘ministers’. Think of this very generous giver whose giving has almost singlehandedly grown the church’s structures to be the envy of the other churches.

Then you discover that he is involved in very fishy businesses, some outright illegal. He is also behind some very murky deals that even unbelievers find wicked.

Of course you know that confronting him will send his money elsewhere, as well as probably endanger your life as everybody knows. And of course he could ask for his money to be refunded as his kind have done elsewhere.

You therefore decide to close your eyes and ears to all that evidence.

You are all atheists.

These are not imaginary events and people. They are things that are happening, things I have come in close proximity with enough times; things that have made me and many others to be thrown out of ministry, leadership since we just couldn’t keep quiet. Things that make the faithful minister serve without support when the crook is spoilt for how to spend his.

You see, when God’s standard become subject to any other condition, He stops being God. If God’s revelation is subject to a relationship He also stops being God as happens to many young people in love with the wrong person.

What God says is final or He stops being God to you. He is holding all the strings or He is not there at all.

And we see that with Israel.

Their problem was no the existence or power of God. Their struggle was with God’s standard.

Even the Philistines knew that the God of Israel was incomparable to their god, Baal.

The problem they had was God’s standard. It was way too stringent and limiting (that is how it always appears). Remember the wide and narrow gates and roads?

Then like with Eve the devil whispers to our ears that God really does not have our interest at heart (you shall be like God, you shall not die etc.)

Once we question God’s intent, we have already fallen into the devil’s trap. This is because we then think that we can operate better without the limits God places on us for our good.

Like I ask, the Garden of Eden ranged between Ethiopia and Syria. What made them continue staying at the place where the forbidden tree was? How many countries are included in that garden?

Ethiopia, Sudan, Eritrea, Egypt, probably Somalia, Djibouti and Libya, then Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE, Kuwait, Lebanon, Syria, in fact all the countries of the Middle East.

And there was food in all those places.

I am sure they questioned what was in that one tree to forbid them from eating its fruit. The devil took advantage as he always does.

The good thing is that God’s commandments are not subject to debate.

That question is the door to atheism as we then look for plan Bs to escape the prison God’s love constrains us in.

Are you an atheist?

Because it is in the heart that it all begins.

God bless you.