Wounded Wounders

I have elsewhere written about hibernating ministers. These are ministers who were so wounded that they literally said goodbye to ministry.

Today I want us to look at another category of wounded ministers. And they are the ones who decided to fight back or at the least prove that they were called.

Let me take us to a case on the media and courts of a bishop who is fighting a mistress over child upkeep by asking a question.

Why is he fighting instead of simply repenting? Why is he behaving in the whole thing as the victim? Why does he not address ‘his’ churches and family on the same? Why are the elders and pastors in his ministry not confronting him about his adultery?

I suspect that ‘his’ ministry was the product of a hurt in another ministry. In other words he started that ministry to break from another ministry that he thought was either exploiting or mishandling his calling, if I may call it thus.

He must have sworn never to be subject to anybody else when he establishes any ministry. He therefore ring-fenced himself from any challenge to his leadership. Like another one of his kind said, his church became his kiosk that he runs the way he wants.

I am certain that there is no comparison between what he earns and what his assistant earns since the church is his enterprise.

And that is where problems explode.

Since accountability reminds him of his past injuries in ministry, he is unable to accept or even entertain it. This makes him the absolute authority in whatever he leads. And as always that power corrupts.

That is why a bishop can sleep around and not feel guilty or even under conviction, I guess because in his position he thinks he will be inviting other injuries. He would rather inflict harm than have any directed his way. And nothing opens those doors than saying I am sorry.

What am I saying?

Such characters experience hurt as many of us have. But instead of giving God time to heal them from those injuries, they run off to start ministries to prove to those who hurt or sacked them that they could still minister.

The bishop should repent. Like David said when confronted about his sin,

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. (Psalm 51:4)

He should then step aside and allow God time to heal him, especially from those injuries of long ago.

Only then can he be restored to minister God’s grace.

He is not the victim and can never be the victim. It is possible that there are many other sheep that have been eaten by him and his kind who feel entitled to revenge the injuries they got in ministry. All because they have refused to allow God to heal them.

Are you injured? Please give God time to heal you.

You have nothing to prove to God. And nobody else matters anyway.

Will you allow God to heal you? Then stop struggling to prove anything to anybody.

It is God you are serving. And it is to Him you will give an account.

God bless you

The Prison that is Education

Today I want to ask us to look at education.

Let me start with a few questions.

Why are most entrepreneurs not very educated, some barely having any education at all?

Why is it that most innovators and inventors are outside those silver towers we call pinnacles of higher learning?

Why do professors take their expensive autos to those backstreet mechanics who do not even know the right names for the parts of the vehicle since they barely went to school?

I have of course made very general observations to get us thinking.

Do you realize that the more learned someone gets the more desperate they are to get a job?

What is the purpose of education?

I believe the primary purpose is to expand someone’s mind. And it does that by exposing that mind to possibilities beyond what it had experienced before. No wonder it can be said that through a book one can travel the whole world from their bedroom.

I am talking about any education, whether formal or otherwise.

In our past, a child started their education immediately they knew who they were. And the bulk of that education was to make them maximize on everything nature provides in a healthy way.

As an example they learnt of a lion as a dangerous enemy.

But not only that. They learnt that a lion can be a very useful ally when you get to understand it.

That is why we started talking about extinction when we trashed that education.

When my father and his brother were in the forest during the Mau Mau rebellion, one thing the white man and his home guards were perplexed with is how they disappeared into herds of elephants.

The rebels (you wonder who ought to have been called that) understood animals and their peculiarities and therefore took advantage of that to merge into them when the enemy came around.

Their understanding of nature was such that they made use of the same.

The same way Maasai warriors can comfortably take the prey from a whole pride of lions and leave unscathed.

Understanding nature was key to our past education.

A child would learn which plants were food and medicine and which were poison, which animals were better food or could lead to better food, which plants indicate the presence of water and which animals lead to water in a desert, etc.

Then came modern education.

The first thing it did is trash all past education, calling itself superior.

But it did even worse. Instead of expanding the brain of the one who chose to follow it, it completely narrowed it beyond reason.

One must pursue the arts or sciences; then they must choose between one among many branches they chose to pursue.

Incidentally, the more learned they become the narrower their mind becomes. Talk about straightjacketing the mind.

That is the reason someone becomes less and less useful, wholistically speaking.

That is why a whole engineer must look for a technician to change their light bulb since they learnt all about electricity but not about changing fixtures. Only the uneducated are exposed enough to handle all those jobs.

Education makes someone less educated about life and how to live it.

But for me the saddest part is that it makes someone crave being someone’s employee the more educated they get.

You sack someone with one certificate and they start thinking outside employment. You sack someone with multiple degrees and they immediately start looking for another employer.

You leave someone without a degree for some time without a job for some time and they will cook something else to do. Do the same to the most educated and they become depressed since they think God has deserted them.

That for me is not education. It is indoctrination. It is imprisonment.

Education should make someone create, not support some uneducated creator.

The big break should not be that job you get with a multinational. It should be the villages you have transformed with your expanded thinking capacity. It should be in the many lives you have transformed by easing their work load.

Education and salary are not synonymous. As we already know, some of the most successful people we know started with a passion to make a difference and money followed that passion.

I feel sad when I see PhD holders yapping political drivel in support of some uneducated idiots instead of using their education for some good. You wonder why some went to medical school if the only thing they can do is make noise.

Let me close here. I hope I have got someone thinking 

Matthew 6

Our generation is in love with flashing cameras. So much that we imagine that life that is not on the spotlight is non-existent.

Sadly, we have exported the error to spiritual things.

We even think and treat piety in the same way.

What about sharing every small thing they do on their page? What about sharing that worship moments with the nations? What about sharing that song and getting a vote on the net?

And what about those who are paid by the media owners as influencers?

It is no wonder that the filth of our altars has been pouring out ceaselessly and the people of faith have started walking in the shame of their exposed papas and mamas.

You see, if you feed on the limelight, you have no right to demand privacy on any aspect of your life.

If you want the good side of your life broadcast to the world, do not be surprised when the lurid side is also broadcast.

You see, you are the one who brings the publicist close to you. They are therefore at liberty to decide on what to make public according to the kind of purses opened to them. Just as you ‘paid’ them to paint you nicely, you gave them access to contacts and information your enemy can use against you.

That is their job, you know.

But there is another danger.

Living for the limelight is many times like wooing a suitor (do you call it dating?). You will sweep all the unpleasant aspects of your life under the bed until at times you might forget they exist.

The suitor becomes your spouse and will in a very short time look under the bed and see all that ‘dirt’.

And that is what happens with ministry on the spotlight, especially one feeding on the same.

I have interacted with people who work in those high end hotels and resorts. I have also done the same with some VIP drivers and bodyguards.

The sad reality is that some of these people we love and wish to emulate are moral sewers.

But you do not know the same because they keep their lives outside their jobs (and sadly for some, ministries) completely out of the public eye.

Though the truth eventually comes out, they had no active part in it since their private life was private, with their drivers and hotel staff being sworn to secrecy, many time by the perks thrown their way.

Now suppose they invite a journalist to walk with them for a week, a week they have decided to live an exemplary life to paint a picture of the perfect leader.

They will go to the hotels he goes to and interview those staff who have been paid to say the right things.

But as he compiles the story, his journalistic nose smells something else, a hidden bombshell of a story.

He will do the perfect story but later come back to the same people with some inducement from his bosses. He will look for the watchmen and house girls. He will look for the driver and bodyguard.

He will simply dig the story the guy was trying to cover up and like the devil keep it for the opportune time. And that story many times could be the last nail on this guy’s coffin.

Who is to blame?

The guy invited the limelight to his life. And light does not bend over obstacles. It reflects and illuminates everything it comes across. His love for publicity is what exposed the unpleasant aspects of his life.

Publicity feeds on itself.

What am I aiming at? I know someone is wondering.

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 6:1)

Our piety should simply be directed at God. Our prayer should be directed at God. Our generosity should be directed at God.

Never should we seek for approval from men when we do things that are a response to our relationship to God. Never should we invite the world to look at how we respond to God. Because Jesus said that that is the reward we will receive, meaning that we should expect nothing from God in that case.

With the corona narrative, one statement took centre stage. The church is not a building.

Some people were annoyed when I countered and said that the church is also not a media link.

And it is not because there is something inherently wrong with a zoom link.

But we can’t fellowship properly in a zoom meeting. Communicate we can, but not fellowship.

We cannot break bread and share the Lord’s Table on a media link. We cannot know who is in need on a media link, especially because he won’t be able to afford the link. We can’t anoint the sick on a media link.

And most importantly, the miracle that is the touch is absent in a media link.

The greatest danger I feel is produced by moving worship from the building to the media is trashing Matthew 6 instructions altogether.

You see, I must then have a camera to lead in prayer. And giving on the media means that my giving must be known, among many other infractions.

That breeds other problems. I must be pimped to appear for the camera. I must be make-upped to appear to the camera. I must be voice trained to sing on camera.

In short, spontaneity and simplicity dies when the camera appears. And it is worsened by the fact that we believe the media really expands our reach and so I must impress those new ‘customers’.

Another problem with publicity is that it is addictive.

We love those cameras. We love those likes from Philippines and Australia and Croatia and Afghanistan. We love it when our peers are directing their congregations to our link. We love it when all the bedside worshippers are on our channel. And we can do anything to make them remain.

All those response and replies really feed our ego.

Let me stop here for now

When The Devil Quotes Scripture 2

I want to continue on my last discourse briefly by expanding on something I mentioned.

One key purpose of marriage is a godly offspring. In fact the gauge for any marriage is always generational.

That is why any generation that minimizes on that aspect always disappears because they have nobody to take after them. And it is the same with any generation that treats children as a burden to be avoided at all cost, even killing them (abortion).

Sadly, in our days, most of them pretend to be followers of Christ.

Let me continue with the topic.

What is a godly offspring? It is simply new generation that connects with the God we serve, a generation that comes from our loins.

Spiritual children are nowhere close to a godly offspring.

Let me give my mother’s example.

She was raised by a step mother as her mother left my grandfather (long story).

When my father brought in another woman and things became almost unbearable for her and her children, she made a decision that she would not allow her children to be raised by another woman. She therefore chose to endure everything and anything to protect her children from the kind of torture she went through growing up.

But she also did something else. She raised us to respect this abusive and absent man that was our father by respecting and obeying him however abusive and biased against her he was.

She later connected to Christ.

Do you know the outcome?

All her children (eight of them) are serving God. Some like me were told to leave everything for ministry while others occupy senior positions in the churches they attend.

That her decision had God’s approval is that when my late father decided to follow Christ, he confessed that he had realized that mistreating my mother was fighting God.

Godly offspring will make us see the weight of raising those God has given us as many times we give them anything else but God. We fill their lives with toys that ensure that they will never get any close to God. Think about it.

Godly offspring requires time to rub off our faith onto them. There is no Bluetooth or Wi-Fi link for doing so. Forget about godly offspring with remote parenting.

Godly offspring requires team work and hard work.

And that is why we see some uncomfortable commands in scripture.

Like in Ezra and Nehemiah where those who had married from the nations chased the wives and their children. Many wonder why God was that cruel to children who made no decision to be in that makeup.

A disconnected mother is antithetical to a godly offspring.

Again the scriptures give enough examples.

Remember Athaliah? What was so bad with the royal line that she had to clear it when her son who had been king died?

Jezebel was her mother. Her agenda was therefore contrary to the God of Israel and everything He stood for.

That is why wickedness was dealt with conclusively. Look at this verse.

But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. (Genesis 15:16)

Once that cup got full, it then became sin to allow them to live as the influence of their rottenness could not be contained.

Jeroboam, Baasha, Ahab had God clearing from their lineage anyone that pisseth on the wall. Why?

The generation had become irretrievably anti God.

What am I saying?

Marriage is not simply about two people of the opposite sex dwelling together.

Though that is important, it is not the end of the story.

Pursuing God’s agenda as a team and reproducing the same is the yardstick God has for each marriage. And nothing speaks that language better than a godly offspring.

And that must be very deliberate as it never is produced by accident or chance.

A series of irresponsible dare devil risks can land you into the millionaire club like we see in betting and even new businesses.

You can never do anything close with a godly seed.

The devil gets us when he can convince us that simply remaining together we are fine and everybody who has opted out of marriage for whatever reason is in sin because God hates divorce.

A marriage without clear spiritual objectives, especially about the offspring may release more stench to God’s nostrils than the person who opted out of a marriage because they realized the marriage was accelerating them and their children to hell the more they stayed.

That is why the Bible talks of the husband as the spiritual head of the wife.

Any marital structure different from that is faulty. I have dealt with that in many past posts and so will not repeat.

The husband first offers spiritual leadership before he offers anything else. And that is where many marriages start floundering because many a modern woman thinks God overlooked women empowerment when He offered those instructions everywhere we look in the Bible.

Sadly, that is the number one cause of the lack of a godly offspring because they are leaning on a tottering structure.

Debate with Numbers 30 before responding to me. The New Testament is even more radical in addressing the marital structure.

Does your marriage consider a godly offspring as pivotal to what God calls a good marriage?

Are you thinking about a godly offspring as you are considering that heartthrob for marriage?

I am not shaming those without children as I know that God is the One who gives them and therefore knows why He has yet to give you some.

But I also believe you can start considering and praying for a godly offspring even as you are praying for those children that you have longed for so long to come.

I hope we understanding each other

God bless you as you pray and consider these things

When The Devil Quotes Scripture

I want to don my controversy hat today for a moment.

I want us to realize that among the verses the enemy loves quoting is that God hates divorce.

The fact that he does quote it does not mean that it is not true. What it means is that he seeks to use that truth to steal, kill and destroy.

As we all know, the devil knows the scriptures than all of us. In fact, he even believes them.

His only problem is that he has chosen to walk in the path of disobedience, rebellion if we may say so.

That is why he thrives on nitpicking.

He does it because he knows that by confusing issues in the scriptures he can gain a following of rebellious partners.

Remember he even used a scripture on the Word Himself?

His purpose for using that verse is therefore negative

You see, God gave that truth instructively and restoratively. God wants marriages to thrive. He therefore points us to the pitfalls of falling from His standard.

The devil uses the verse to breed pain and resentment and condemnation.

I have said elsewhere that the fact that God hates divorce does not mean He loves abuse and unfaithfulness and desertion.

Yet that is what the devil wants to focus on.

He seeks to make vice thrive in marriage by using that verse as bait.

Then he will be able to make marriage the breeding ground for pain and resentment as a result of allowing abuse.

The verse is used to normalize every evil in a marriage by taking the abused on a guilt trip when they feel they can endure no more because they know that the wounds will continue festering and growing in intensity. Then of course he will inspire an explosion.

But even worse is the fact that the wounded has no capacity for responding to God’s love or calling as they have been blinded by all that pain.

Some of the hibernating ministers I have written about are so because of that deception. Marriages have killed enough calls of God and ministry.

Though marriage is important to God, it can be destructive to His agenda if it is elevated above where God has placed it especially because we know that there is no marriage in heaven apart from Christ’s marriage to His church.

It is not a marriage if it blocks you from serving God as He orders you.

And we have enough examples in the Bible; from Solomon to Ahab.

Let me give us verses to consider when marriage becomes an obstacle to God’s purpose for your life.

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: (Mark 9: 43 – 47)

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

You see, God and His agenda is primary in your life and not marriage.

Marriage fits in that agenda if it is aligned to that purpose. Otherwise it can be a weight to obstruct and distract us from that purpose. On such then the command to cut off is allowed. Otherwise you could enjoy a marriage that disqualifies you from eternal life.

God hates divorce. That is true.

But marriage is not all there is to that instruction.

We need to know what God loves. Because that is how we can understand why He hates divorce.

One such purpose for marriage is a godly offspring. This easily tells us that God is glorified when a marriage is healthy since that is the only time it can produce a godly offspring.

We of course know that a marriage, however good it is, is against God’s purpose when it is centred on the here and now. Simply speaking, a marriage that is focused on the world and all it contains is a marriage that will never please God. A marriage that is geared on acquiring all there is to acquire in this life is a vain marriage.

Why did Esau’s marriages grieve Isaac? There was no violence or infidelity or these other things we complain about. It appears as if it was so satisfactory to Esau and his wives that he did not even notice his father’s grief.

It grieved him because it cut Esau from the vine that was the promise.

A misyoke in marriage is a serious problem because it brings about partners who are pulling in different directions like Nabal and Abigail.

What has you marriage done to your passion for God? What has it done to God’s call on your life? What has it done to your relationships with people who help you connect with God better?

God hates divorce. But it is of no use to remain married and head to hell because the marriage cut you off from the vine that is Christ.

God hates divorce. But do not let the devil give you lessons on the same.

When God says He hates divorce, He is thinking about restoration and health. But when the devil is pushing the narrative, he is after your destruction.

In other words, God seeks to liberate you and give you a lighter yoke. The devil on the other hand seeks to enslave you.

Whose script are you reading from?

You Do Not Understand

But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: (Ephesians 4: 15)

I had a very interesting dream. In it, I left home very hurriedly. In fact it was like I stumbled on a very long bus and decided to ride it to wherever.

I then became a train and then the rails ended and it became stuck.

As we were pushing to get it unstuck I do not know where all my clothes went as I was left with my underpants.

Then we were in a very public place and I was the only naked person around. Yet there was nothing I could do because I did not know where to hide or get something to cover my nakedness.

I also could not cower in any corner as the place was packed and I needed to visit a few places like the toilet (bathroom) and offices. Interestingly, nobody there knew me.

Almost everybody I met lectured me even as others called me names as I still walked around in my naked state.

Nobody, and I repeat nobody, sought to know why I was naked.

When I woke up, I considered the fact that we are very quick to pass judgment, even on those we claim are judging others.

When was the last time you sought to understand a situation before giving a piece of your mind to someone you thought needed it?

Suppose someone in that whole crowd had sought to understand why this white haired man was walking naked? Yet who does that?

Speaking the truth in love means that that truth is clothed in love. In short that rebuke is shielded by love for the person it is directed to. Which of course means that it is meant to embrace the person it is directed to.

Of course the dream led me to think of Isaiah who for three years walked without even that underwear and what he had to endure beyond the embarrassment nakedness produces in a normal person, let alone a family man and servant of God.

Did his wife ‘love’ him? What about the royal family that he belonged to? Did they care to understand why he was that way?

Do you seek to understand people, especially before rebuking them? How do you rebuke people?

That is the single difference between shaming and Biblically rebuking.

Rebuking in love is restorative since it covers the ‘offender’ with compassion and its goal is bringing them back into the fold.

It therefore seeks to shield them from exposure as much as possible as their restoration is of utmost importance. And love does not seek to rub someone’s past on their face at a later time. Of course such rebuke has no interest in proving their superiority over the offender.

It can be compared to a person once rescued from drowning rescuing another person from drowning. Or have we forgotten this?

Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)

Love loves before, during and after rebuking. And due to that it seeks to understand beyond the fault as it reaches out to the person.

It doesn’t mean it is always received positively. Some interpret that love as folly and seek to take advantage of it to feign repentance to gain advantage. And it is only love that has the stamina and vision to see through that pretense. It does that because it remains when all the rest leave, either in contentment, consternation or contempt.

It goes without say that only love can reach meaningfully and effectively to the offender as it knows that the offense is eating at the offender as we see in Psalm 32.

But our generation has gone even beyond that to abomination. We seek to gain prominence through that exposure.

How many mint millions through sharing those juicy videos? How many become famous because they shared some concealed tidbits about someone.

I recently read a very sad story (in my eyes).

A person left a very respectable profession to sell her nakedness on the net. And her reason is what saddened me.

People will sell my naked pictures if they get them and I will get nothing anyway. Why not sell them myself and get all the money? And she gets some handsome piles of cash for it, enough to bid a good and respectable job goodbye.

Thus we have come from rebuking in love to shaming to gain advantage (and publicity and cash of course).

I know of pastors who use information divulged in secret to spice their sermons.

I once sought to help a fellow (and much older) minister understand a situation he was dealing with by giving him some details of the same in confidence and he blurted the same to the person who had shared it with me. It of course messed my relationship with that person. I don’t know whether I have regretted doing something like I did (still do to date) especially because I had told him that he was not allowed to use that information. I had trusted him because we had served together effectively for years.

I was foolish but I learnt my lesson.

But what I am saying is that speaking the truth or rebuking in love covers and never takes advantage.

I doubt anybody can tell someone rebuking in love that they do not understand because of the love that is encompassing the rebuke.

And it is not the soft, fluffy, compromising love we are talking about. It is a love that will see through the restoration.

That is the love that is able to get someone from any addiction because the addict feels safe in it to attempt change instead of explaining his addiction away.

A rebuke in love gives someone the shelter they need to attempt to change for God. Any other rebuke chases them away from God’s hands and grace.

But we have no options since we must rebuke.

The choice is between rebuking by pointing out the error or sin OR clothing our rebuke in love, ready to walk with the sinner if he does repent and covering them as they walk toward bearing the fruit of their repentance.

Do you understand? Or am I condescending?