Sin is a Journey 2

In the last post on this, I suspect I said something that left some people baffled.

I said that the other side (world, demonic) is very accurate on our proclivity to sin.

Let me make it clearer.

Those of us who have travelled a lot will tell you some strange things we have seen.

You will go to a new place where nothing is familiar, even the language is strange with a mixed team, probably workmates or something similar.

It is interesting that the whoremonger will have gotten a whore in the shortest time even in a place a normal person sees no trace of whoredom.

The drug user will have gotten their dose in a few short minutes.

The alcoholic using those concentrated and illegal concoctions will be swaying side by side before you have finished eating your plate of food.

How are they able to see those things when they are hidden from the rest?

I dare say that they each release a spiritual scent. A scent that is discernible by the spiritually alert (from the other side of course, though God can give discernment to a few in His kingdom for particular purposes).

It is a scent that is very ‘visible’ that one does not need to explain themselves to be understood.

How many ministers have not experienced shock when someone you have never met calls you by your spiritual function? How many ministers have not met a mad man (or woman) calling out to their spiritual position? How many have not gone to a new church in a new place where nobody knows them yet they are kindly called upon to share the word to a congregation even when they had made themselves as inconspicuous as possible?

You see, Paul was not the first or last person for whom demons were announcing their ministry as happened in Acts 16. Even Jesus had to restrain those announcers.

What I am saying is that demonic (or the world, to be polite) spirit-led persons are acutely aware of the spiritual temperature around whoever they encounter.

What does this have to do with our topic?

Everything.

And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season. (Luke 4:13)

You see, the devil came to Jesus at His weakest.

He was very hungry from not having eaten for forty days.

And we know he was not tempting Him to try to perform a miracle because he knew Jesus could easily convert stones to bread.

The temptation therefore went something like this.

You are hungry and you are powerful. Why not combine the two realities to sort yourself out?

But I want us to realize that the devil came to Jesus ONLY when Jesus was at His lowest physical and spiritual point.

And he left Him so that he could look for another opportune moment.

You realize that the devil never came to Jesus haphazardly. Any time you see Him being confronted He will be at a position when it was very easy to fall, either from pride or exhaustion.

I am saying that the devil can smell the state of your spiritual vitality from afar.

And he does it as he is always hammering at your armor to see how quickly you are repairing the dents and breaches thus created.

Look also at Job.

It is at the time he is thinking that death is better than life that his wife (the person closest to him) asks him to curse God and die.

Let me go to the animal world.

Lions do not put down the big game quickly. I want us to realize that they will resort to the big animals when they are left with no options since the weak and sick are completely protected by their herds

They will attack and bite and injure as much as they can, leaving some of them wounded, even dead from the effort.

In a day or two they will return and do the same. This of course because the injured will be unable to keep up with the herd.

They will continue until their target becomes too weak to fight back then they kill and eat it.

Isn’t that how the devil deals with us?

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: (1Peter 5:8)

We are therefore dealing with an enemy who is relentless with his pursuit.

He is never a hit or miss type of adversary.

He will walk with us all the time, hitting and scratching us here and there until we have given him the littlest space to penetrate our armor, either from exhaustion or anger at those petty little scratches due to their consistency.

That is when he will bring in his most potent weapon to fell us in one swell hit. But it will not be as huge as we might think.

That final hit did not just come but was the culmination of a consistent weakening of our resistance.

We could call it the straw that broke the horse’s back as is said.

And a straw on its own, even thousands of them have no capacity to do anything to a horse’s back.

But that back became so loaded that it required that single straw to break.

That is the journey of sin I am talking about here.

I believe that God will give me another chance to build on this, especially on what we will need to do to be always ready to overcome long before those last straws come.

But it is important to repeat the statement that is the backbone of this post

Sin is not an activity or event. Sin is a journey, a journey whose end is the actual act of sin.

The sin seed was growing in our hearts for a long time until it finally brought fruit that is the actual sin.

That tells us that to effectively deal with sin we must tackle it from the seed point instead of the fruit stage since plucking a fruit can have no impact on the tree bearing it.

 

Radicalism doesn’t just Happen

Nobody starts trusting God like a switch turned off or on.

Faith is a process, or more accurately, the product of a process.

In the same way, obedience is the result of a process.

They are growing processes that require more than time and occurrence or experience.

How many times in the Gospels do you read something like this?

Now we know that You are the Son of God

How many times did they require to know? How many times does one need to know something? How can you know someone or something again and again?

You see, the revelation of God does not just happen. Faith doesn’t just increase.

The reason Israel was condemned to forty years of wandering was because they had misinterpreted the purpose of their experience with God. They had decided they did not want to know God beyond His provision. They were content to be feeding on His bounty without letting the same impact their obedience.

To them, God was only fun because He was responding to their smallest cry. But they did not want to interpret that experience to impact their obedience, or even faith.

Thus, when they were called upon to take a step of faith decided that God was not adequate enough to obey since they were not really sure whether He could handle the giants His order required them to tackle.

In short, their faith in God had not grown an inch despite everything He had done to and for them since they were in Egypt.

‘Where is your faith’, is one thing you hear Jesus asking His disciples for the same reason. And that is the same reason Judas fell even after going through the experience of walking and ministering with the Son of God. To imagine he experienced everything the other apostles experienced yet actually went to the religious leaders to sell Christ!

I am saying that radicalism, or what people call extreme faith, takes time to grow. It is not a one-time miracle as many would want us to believe.

The fodder for the growth of the same is our interaction with two key things; what God says and what He does. And it principally depends with what we choose to do with them.

Lacking one of the two is detrimental to such growth. There can be no such growth without those two ‘ingredients’.

Many people pray and see God in great ways but are unable to grow their faith in that direction because their intake to what God says is minimal or depends on secondary sources of the same.

This is because their faith is dependent on the source of that word. That is why we have so many believers sold out to the words of a prophet or pastor (or any other title) and their structure but have no interest at all in the Bible or the body of Christ as a whole. Many are even disconnected to their immediate families for the same reason.

Their faith is actually not toward God but their superstar, who really is their god. The proclamations from those altars carry more weight than the plain teaching of the Bible. Or the Bible is as valid as the superman speaking it. The reality is that faith is a product of our interaction with God.

We can trust Him as much as we have experienced Him. And our experience of Him depends on the revelation we have of Him through what He has said (His word).

Once His word agrees with His conduct (from our experience), we can then trust Him even on other things we have not experienced.

His word carries enough weight as to overturn everything I knew if it is not in accord with what He says.

Incidentally, that is how parenting also works.

A child will respond to a parent according to their past dealings with him/her. The weight of a parent’s word is dependent on their past conduct.

Back to radicalism.

Do you realise that even those we call religious fanatics do not just happen? They have their schools and teachers that connect them to their radicalism. Those teachers must continuously demonstrate that they not only totally believe what they teach but are ready to take the bullet should it be required of them for their faith.

Let us go to one such radical in the Bible.

Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 21:13)

The fact that Christ had informed him about Jerusalem and Rome gave him such focus that prophecy to the effect of his imprisonment and torture were not adequate to weaken his obedience. Such prophecy (that did not mean that he doubted it) could not stick to his sold-out agenda and obedience.

We trace the journey to his radicalism to who he was before encountering Christ. He just transferred his radical obedience to the law to Christ.

But you also realise that it had the same two elements whatever level you look at.

No wonder many pharisees were able to turn to Christ after His resurrection. Their lives were governed by God’s word and their obedience to it. Realizing that Christ was the fulfilment of the word they obeyed just gave them a new momentum.

What am I saying?

The only way we can please God in increasing measure is by allowing His word to increasingly run our lives.

This is because the more immersed we are in His revelation, the more aligned we will be to His will in our lives and the easier it will be for us to walk in complete obedience, what people call radical obedience or radicalism.

It is therefore possible to become radical in your faith. And it is as easy as ABC

Allow your spirit to be led by the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit.

Base all your life on the Bible which is the completeness of God’s revelation

Commit to doing everything God says in His word as He says it.

This will solve all your concerns about what the world may want you to be as you will be flush in God’s River of life and therefore flowing in those sweet currents.

I hope I have communicated.

Sin is a Journey

Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children: Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; (2Peter 2: 14, 15)

I want to clearly state that sin is not the simple act of sinning.

You do not become an adulterer when you sleep with a person other than your spouse.

The journey to the act starts long before the act is done. The act is the evidence that one is adulterous. It is the indicator that the heart was stolen long before the act.

Let me use our first parents as an example

Do you realise that their sin started long before they were tempted? They were tempted because they had already succumbed to the enticement of sin.

Why do I say so? You may be wondering.

How big was the garden?

Do you realise from the description in the Bible that it was in multiplied millions of acres? It occupied the land that encompasses a large chunk of Africa and the whole of the Middle East, and beyond.

You therefore wonder why they were found in the proximity of the forbidden tree and especially why they had not even sampled the tree of life which was in next to the forbidden tree.

They were simply captivated by what was forbidden to the point that they were unable to move any distance from it.

Their fall was therefore the culmination of all that craving for the forbidden.

The serpent became the prick to burst the balloon that was supposedly lack of sin because the act was absent.

What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful. (Romans 7: 7 – 13)

Look at some things Christ said.

But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. (Matthew 5:28)

He gives the act a context.

You start committing adultery long before the opportunity presents itself.

The journey starts when the heart is inappropriately drawn towards an object.

It then begins to grow and expand in the heart.

As a seed, it gets to the point that it must manifest by bearing fruit, the act of sin.

Remember Jesus describing hate and spite as murder?

He spoke thus because He was cognizant of the fact that the seed determines the harvest and the fact that a seed always grows and increases as it feeds on the surroundings so that it can then bear the right fruit.

Of course, the fruit is way bigger than the seed. But the nature of both is identical. The fruit is also in its way a seed for the next generation of fruit. Then there are way more seeds than the single one that started the whole process.

But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of HIS own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. (James 1: 14, 15)

Sin starts with OUR OWN LUST. The devil just takes advantage of that lust to lead us to actual sin so that we can be able to acknowledge our sinfulness and of course give him a chance to justly accuse us to God.

For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women LADEN WITH SINS, LED AWAY WITH DIVERS LUSTS, (2Timothy 3: 6)

These false teachers do not go to mislead innocent women but silly women laden with sins and already lost to different lusts.

They therefore take advantage of their fallen hearts (though their conduct may be fine) and maximise on their lusts to give their ‘astrayness’ an avenue to manifest.

Balaam is another example that brings this out clearly.

He craved to feed from the king, probably whichever king was open for his ‘ministry’.

That is why he, instead of saying what God told him to say, simply said that God had refused to allow him to go. God was the reason he couldn’t go.

He was simply saying that he would have been on his way were it not for God.

And that is also why he had the guts to go to God again to look for new permission.

I suspect God acceded because Balaam could have continued to look for that permission until God granted it.

We again see it when he is confronted with a talking ass and angel with a drawn sword. He continues looking for permission.

A sober person could have simply turned back as there was no need of extra evidence to know that God was opposed to that ‘ministry’.

No wonder that he decided to offer wicked counsel when he couldn’t bend prophecy. To imagine he was God’s prophet!

And we see something else in Eden.

Why did they add to God’s command?

God never said anything about touching.

I suspect they added that commandment to inhibit their cravings for that forbidden tree. They wanted to make it difficult to sin.

But the problem was in the heart, a heart that was craving to sin. And no barrier is high enough to block it.

There is no way you can ringfence obedience. And that is what our first parents were trying to do. No wonder it failed so terribly.

Let me also say something I have come to the greatest realization just recently.

The spiritual sensitivity of the other side is way more accurate in assessing our heart’s tendencies toward sin. They are so accurate in that as well.

They can smell a person trying to avoid sin when the heart has fallen into the sin from miles away. And they get the actual evidence when they throw in a temptation your way from your response.

‘I am married’ is an excuse not to commit adultery as with many other ‘reasons’ you may give. Just like, ‘we were also forbidden to touch’, was in Eden.

He will then know that you are in the sin realm and will just need a little prodding before you give the evidence of the state of your heart sin-wise.

Compare that with Joseph

How can I do this and sin against God?

He was not looking for excuses. His heart did not have issues.

If truth be told, it was much easier for him to fall into sin than David

But David gave excuses until God confronted his sin. Then he was able to use Joseph’s argument.

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)

Even justification for sin works along the same lines.

He mistreats me, she is unfaithful, he does not love me, she is not submissive, etc.

Those are the counter arguments the devil will use to break your attempts at ringfencing obedience (I am saved, I am a church leader, I am married, I signed a True Love Waits commitment card)

And he will win all the time because he captured your heart long before the temptation. He has in fact been nurturing that lust so that his final attack will be as easy as it was in Eden. All those excuses and reasons are the ones he has been growing in intensity until the only resistance remaining becomes so flimsy and the temptation so massive that you can be felled by a finger.

What am I saying?

The act of sin is an indicator of a long association with the tendency of sin harbored in our hearts for a long time.

That explains the folly and shame we associate with sin.

Like why would a mature and respectable church woman be found in bed with her watchman or shamba boy? Why would a pastor be found in bed with his house girl or harlot? Why would a respectable man or woman be found in bed with a street boy or girl? Why would someone have sex in the church compound or the bush?

Why should someone who can afford any five-star hotel room be found having sex in a car in the parking lot? Why would someone have sex with their own offspring?

The process of sin was complete and anything and anybody available could access the ‘goods’ since they were on display for whoever was available to pick. Everything else became secondary to that few minutes of pleasure; reputation, job, marriage, business opportunity etc.

Nothing else will matter when the fruition of sin occurs.

A CEO will have no qualms sleeping with a tramp, however unkempt they may be, at that point since that was the only available channel of release.

The sin act is the manifestation of sin that has been maturing in the heart.

I have used sexual sin because it is one sin that defiles all of life and nature.

But all other sins follow the same trajectory.

Unfortunately, the heart can easily deceive us that we are fighting sin even when we are nurturing it in our hearts.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17:9)

But God as always has a solution; His word.

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

We are as safe as our alignment and agreement with the completeness of God’s word since we know that the devil is an expert at using this or the other verse to lead us to sin or explain our depravity away.

Our hearts must be in the right place for us to be able to identify those leanings toward sin in us.

Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults. Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. (Psalm 19: 12, 13)

That must be our prayer.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139: 23, 24)

A very determined prayer. Also, a prayer that opens our hearts to the leading of the Holy Spirit towards the holiness His nature requires.

Otherwise, we could very easily be feeding the sin in our hearts by the right verses to bloom and flourish so that our fall will be all the more dramatic since he is a master at this game.

Only God can shine His light to enable us see the depravity of our hearts even when the sin acts are absent.

That explains this verse.

But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. (Isaiah 64:6)

This is because our hearts, however ‘clean’ they may look, harbor depravity in God’s eyes, a depravity only the blood of Christ can cleanse and only the total yielding to the Holy Spirit can overcome.

Where is your heart?

Tutapitwa (We will be Overtaken)

Jesus saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him. (Matthew 21: 31b, 32)

This Kenya of ours is interesting.

Do you realise that there are so many reversed roles of late?

Politicians are all over speaking about God and the way He has stepped into their situations even as people of God are all over dissecting those statements and proclamations to prove that they are not genuine.

You really wonder what a man of God is doing trying to prove such a point and to whom he is doing it.

Someone is shouting that I am taking sides. But I do not think so.

I was in a function the other day where several politicians were present and stood to speak.

Even for the harshest critic, it would have been impossible to remove the God element from their statements. God’s hand was palpable to anyone who had ears to hear.

Can God’s hand be all politics?

Can a politician twist God’s hand to his advantage?

Can I ascribe God’s hand into my machinations? How wise is that? How human is it?

Is man’s nature not so full of pride? Does it not seek prominence whichever position it occupies?

Prayer operates from a position of weakness and vulnerability, not power.

Ascribing success to prayer is to actually confess that I am nothing without God. I get all my power from God. I could not have achieved anything on my own. My effort is worthless without God.

In short it is a confession of worthlessness, weakness. It is a profession of faith in God who alone can make my worthlessness worthwhile and my weakness strong.

Yet we are pouring scorn on leaders because they are not ashamed of confessing their dependence on God. We are looking for any other reason for their victory.

And we are not feeling ashamed of being associated with the same God they are claiming to have come through for them.

Some are even saying it is ‘immoral’ for them to have taken a thanksgiving service to state house.

Yet I read a Muslim defending the same since in Islam there is no dichotomy between faith and other aspects of life.

If they prayed and received a positive answer, what is wrong in shouting the same from the rooftops?

Since when did gratitude to God become negative?

Whoever offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifies me, and prepares his way so that I will show God's salvation to him." (Psalm 50:23) (WEB)

That is why I will not be surprised if God passes us over and uses the politicians since they are more receptive to His doings, and especially are appreciative when He does things only He can do.

Bash me all you want but I feel very strongly about this.

This is a burden I received from God as I was reading His word.

Do we want to have God operative in our circumstances?

Then I think we might learn a thing or two from our politicians.

They could be the harlots and publicans of our day.

My wife gave me these verses as I was sharing this message with her.

Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee. (Matthew 11: 20 – 24)

Again, we see the same thing, only that this time it is a judgment being proclaimed.

Are we on the lookout for God’s hand in the affairs of men? Can we confidently ascertain the same when we see it?

You see, in Christ’s time, the religious leaders knew everything there was to know about Christ. Yet they were unable to identify the physical Him when He came.

They had lost the mystery of the waiting, the craving for His appearing. To the point that they had complete encyclopedias of how He ought to have come. They had become academic in the pursuit to the point that a flesh and blood appearing flew off their well-prepared identification radar.

But the riff raffs had no such luxuries. Their lives required divine intervention and so easily connected with anyone sent from there; from John the Baptist to Christ Himself.

And they easily received whatever was on offer, be it calls to change and rebukes as was John’s commission to miracles and signs as was with Christ.

They had no delicate theological arguments to prove or disprove.

One verse explains their outlook.

He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see. (John 9:25)

That is what I am seeing with our politicians. They simply have no room for debates and arguments, however enlightened those arguments might appear to be.

God stepped in our situation and changed it. That is all that matters.

Incidentally those are the people God uses.

From the Samaritan woman to Mary Magdalene, we see God taking the lowest to use them in great ways.

That is why I believe that Christ’s rebuke to the Jews of His time is as potent to us as it was then.

And we had better go to our knees in repentance if we will need to be used of God to bring a lost world to Him.

Assuaging Guilt?

What do you do when an opportunity falls on you that reminds you of your past negligence or disobedience?

What do you do if something you refused to do appears in an apparently post-dated mode?

Let me get to the point

How many have ever been involved in Muslim evangelism? How many have made a Muslim friend with the singular purpose of sharing the Gospel with them?

How many are scared of Muslims? How many equate all of them to terrorists?

How many have longed to reach out to Muslims but pulled back because they do not know how to do so?

How many have tried to reach out to them but pulled back when their target became unruly or even violent?

How many made enemies of all Muslims around them because they tried to share the Gospel with one?

Now where does all this leave you?

Many times, one is left feeling guilty of having failed to do something Christ commanded us to be doing, making future attempts scarier.

Now suppose with me that someone comes to you and proclaims to you that they have become a Christian needing your assistance because they have been disowned by their family, had all their property grabbed from them and are running for their life.

All that guilt will find a release, a very easy one. And it will be like it happens with a tube with so much pressure when it is punctured.

Very few, if any, will even want to establish how that conversion happened or even whether it actually happened.

Most will have no qualms paying exorbitantly for anything the ‘convert’ needs. Many would not have any issue with denying themselves essentials to make the ‘convert’ comfortable. They will even rope in their friends and churches so that the new ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ is comfortable.

The sad part is that very few will dare to question the convert even when there are very clear instances of abuse or dishonesty.

It is when they become completely exhausted or insulted that they find it prudent to seek for assistance, not exactly as assistance but extra people to share the burden with.

I have been there. And I have been approached severally to help in similar situations.

Interestingly, there are very few instances that I have pursued that I found a genuine conversion.

How can I say this? I know someone is asking.

I simply decided to do what Christ commands us to do for the new believer and the ‘convert’ fled.

What do I mean? I know someone is asking.

I will raise a team and resources to go the whole hog.

What does a new believer require? What does a new born in the faith need.

Nurture is the thing a child needs more than anything else. The greatest desire of a new believer is growth in the faith.

Paying a lodging is a secondary requirement that many times compromises the primary need since there is very little follow up and discipleship you can do in a lodging house.

Since discipleship is long term, a house must be got for the new believer in a safe place close to the disciplers and sustenance for the whole duration of the discipleship (at least six months).

Among the team that I raise will include a former Muslim (if possible) and ministers involved in Muslim outreach and discipleship as their primary call.

The sad truth is that all those people who were referred to me by churches and that I used that strategy run off once they established that they could not access easy money. In fact, one literally disappeared when he discovered I was on the way to see him at his ‘place’ since he had supposedly lost his wife.

The truth is that nobody can disciple at arm’s length. Nobody can disciple through remote. Nobody can disciple through text messages and sending money.

It is even worse if the convert has converted from a different religion since the conversion will confront everything they had believed and practiced; their whole world view.

It is therefore folly to think that taking care of their temporal needs on their terms has any spiritual impact on their spiritual growth.

Does it mean that we cannot effectively minister to converts form other religions whose conversions endanger their lives? I know someone is asking.

Of course, we can and should. We MUST.

But we must be intentional in the way we do it. We must be wholistic in the way we do it.

Otherwise, we could be pouring God’s resources into bottomless pits of perceived need because we fear long term engagement. We could be playing the con games the ‘converts’ are playing using our lack of evangelism as their bait. And we will be inviting more and more conmen to raid our resources.

I have had serious disagreements with churches when I insisted that they must think beyond the temporal to rope me into their interventions.

Without fail, they discarded my recommendations only to later encounter what I had warned them against.

The truth is that I have every right to determining how my support is utilised. And that is what past guilt fears to enforce.

Let me give my recommendations to anyone who encounters such an issue.

Lay down the ground rules of the kind of assistance you will be offering and its conditions. For example, I will not continue supporting you if you are not growing in discipleship. I will stop supporting you if you do not regularly attend the church I attend or recommend.

Get them a house that your team can afford and plan to pay for it until the new believer has some way to do it. I suggest for at least six months. Insist that it is very close to where you stay so that you can be monitoring and protecting them as you are discipling them. The land lord knows that it is your house anyway so it is part of your responsibility.

Budget for their food for them and all the other needs and purchase them yourself (I am talking about your team). You can then give them an allowance of sorts for their miscellaneous expenditure.

Then establish a program where your team has adequate and regular times to walk with them through their new faith. Have them join and be involved in the church you are part of.

Get your families involved in their lives and make them welcome to your homes.

Of course, you must have first prayerful raised your team and walked together through what you intend to do.

Then as a team you have had adequate time with the convert to go through his testimony to be able to establish his needs and ascertain his conversion credentials. You can even invite a former Muslim or minister involved with Muslims to help you in this.

Let me give what I think is the best recommendation though it may be costlier in many ways.

Host the convert(s) in your home and grow with them. Then your team will not have much of a problem supporting and discipling them.

In summary, I want to insist that if you are not ready for long term involvement, especially discipleship, please look for someone with that long term capacity and support them.

Giving them handouts to soothe your conscience is not only ineffectual in their journey of faith, it could actually be sin and rebellion since it opens doors to be swindled or at best offering support to someone without caring whether they are growing in their faith or not.

Compare it with stocking a toddler’s house with food and leaving them all alone to figure out how to grow up and take care of itself.

You neglect spiritual growth and any other support you give is inconsequential.

Jesus taught before feeding. He healed in the process of His teaching.

And of course, He did not send us to feed and clothe in the Great Commission. He sent us to teach, to disciple.

Feeding is an aside, an accessory to the teaching role.

Yet very few of those so called converts really care for spiritual nurture.

That is not to say that there are none.

I know dear brothers and sisters who converted and grew to the point that they are now ministers of the Gospel.

They were able to get there because the people who took them in adopted the whole person and not just their ‘stomach’.

I hope this message will be of some help to someone out there.

Goats and Backsliding

I have been writing about goats for some time.

I want to use that to explain backsliding in that context.

God created us with a sheep nature as the operating system.

He also included free will in the system so that we can decide on how we want to run our lives

Choosing disobedience introduced a very invasive virus into our system, a virus that completely corrupted our operating system, overwriting it with the goat operating system.

But the sheep nature did not disappear. It was suppressed to the point of inoperability.

That is why we have a verse like this

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can't find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end. (Ecclesiastes 3:11 WEB)

The sheep nature is therefore overwritten with the goat nature, yet it still exists.

That is the nature that responds to the Gospel call since the goat nature can never respond to a shepherd in submission and dependence (faith) (Romans 7: 14, 18)

After the response (conversion), the sheep nature is reactivated, yet it does not override the power of choice God created in us.

Choice is the fact that guides us on the operating system I will run in my life since both start operating in me. I must decide the one I want to depress as I give the other prominence.

I do that through the choices I make

Giving the Shepherd more leverage in my live automatically grows the sheep nature in me just as choosing independence grows the goat one.

Discipleship is a key element in the increasing of the sheep nature.

This is because someone submits to the exposure of the Shepherd so that we can then be able to accurately hear and respond to His voice so that we can then choose to follow Him as we get to know Him even more.

Feeding from the Shepherd will make us become in a growing measure His sheep as we learn dependence as opposed to the independence that was our operating system when we were goats.

It means that the more we are growing in discipleship, the more we will be growing into the likeness of the Shepherd, or the more of His sheep we become.

And it will be evident even to those around us.

But just like the goat virus overriding the sheep operating system did not kill the sheep operating system, the growth of the sheep nature will not obliterate the goat nature however prominent it becomes. It suppresses to the point it appears as if it is absent.

And that is because God still wants us to choose.

Since the goat nature is a virus, it will multiply faster when it gets the slightest chance.

It therefore means that I must be growing the sheep nature to guard against the explosion of the goat virus.

The slip in concentration in the growth of the sheep nature is what I want to call backsliding.

Sinning is not backsliding. It is the fruit of backsliding.

Someone can be completely backslidden yet appear to be as godly or even more godly than the next person.

Again, it is our choices that bring to the fore our backslidden state.

Our prayers and scripture input can point us to the state of our sheepishness.

You see a goat is self-centred whereas the sheep is shepherd centred.

Hezekiah is a clear example when we look at his prayer when confronted with death.

No wonder we read of pride coming out of that answer and Manasseh being the product of that season.

It is possible that God wanted to take him before his backslidden nature manifested but he prayed otherwise.

We backslide when we stop growing into Christ’s likeness. We backslide when we lose that compelling urge to continue growing especially by thinking that we have grown enough.

Paul for me exemplifies what I am saying.

Look at this verse

The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments. (2Timothy 4:13)

You realise that he was awaiting his execution when we look at verses 6 and 7. And of course, he was old, that being the reason he was asking to be brought a cloak.

Yet he was seeking the scriptures to be brought to him.

This is more striking because theologians agree that he had major eye problems, meaning that reading anything was probably very difficult and painful.

This means he was not seeking to increase his scriptural intake for ministry purposes. He was not getting into all that pain to be a better theologian.

He simply wanted to know Christ more, especially because he was very close to meeting Him.

But that described his whole life since we see that desire in Philippians 3.

That is what we must maintain if we are to be safe from backsliding.

Forget those who read their Bibles only when they are preparing to speak religious things, whether in church or seminary. They lost it a long time ago.

I have left some gaps so that you will fill them in your context.

God bless you

God Created Goats

I suspect my past posts about goats have made some to detest them even as others may have thought that I hate them. Others may equate them with evil.

Allow me to set the record straight.

Goats are wonderful animals, created by God for particular purposes.

Goat milk is said to be medicinal as is its meat.

That comes about due to its diet and the process of the digestion of the same.

Goats eat the strangest of fare, some of it bordering on poison, yet they thrive.

A goat’s behaviour is therefore dictated by the kind of food it eats. Its diet is what makes it able to maximise on whatever is available to access the nutrients it needs to live and thrive. Goats are the only domestic animals I know that thrive on deserts.

Goats are wonderful animals.

I started with them the way I believe many of you are thinking after reading my last posts on goats; ‘New, not Improved Creation’ and ‘The Joneses’.

But after I have herded them consistently, I have been able to ascertain that there is nothing wrong with them. They are not crooks but simple animals that must eat.

They are different from sheep because they were created differently.

The shepherd must therefore decide to treat them as goats to not only feed them well but also save on his energy and sanity.

Knowing this is important as we examine the pastoral responsibilities we have on God’s people.

You see, a sinner is not so because they are inherently evil. They are simply being themselves.

Yet they must come to the realisation that they are not what God created them to be and desire the same for any chance of their being transformed.

A goat needs to look at a sheep, examine the connection the sheep has with its shepherd and the resultant better health for it to reach out to the shepherd to transform it.

What am I saying?

We were born goats. We are naturally goats. And it happened when we allowed the evil one to con us out of Eden.

But God has opened a door for us to be changed into His sheep. And the only way for that to happen is to enter through that single door.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)

That door is the key to the transformation since that is where the goat DNA is swapped with the sheep one.

But it is just the beginning, the beginning of the greatest adventure in all of life.

That single transaction opens one to the power of the Shepherd to transform them from glory to glory as they yield to His leading and revelation.

We must also acknowledge that the transformation that is occasioned by that decision to enter through that door does not happen suddenly.

The DNA change is therefore the first step of the transformational journey.

Though there are some things that transform immediately after the decision, it is the gradual and intentional infusion of that DNA that is able to completely transform just as it happens to a baby after being born.

The fact that for some the desire for drugs or other destructive habits dies immediately after the decision does not mean that the operation has been completed. It just means that God has demonstrated that He is able to handle everything you hand over to Him just like the fact that a child is born with complete limbs does not mean it can walk.

What conversion does is to infuse the convertee with the sheep nature DNA and not make them a functioning sheep.

It is the responsibility of the transformed goat to allow and facilitate for the growth of that new nature so that it eventually ‘replaces’ the goat nature in increasing ways.

How does it do so?

The new sheep must increase the time it spends with the Shepherd so that it can accurately be in a position to hear and understand His leading.

That is what will result in the calming we see in sheep as opposed to the restlessness we see in goats.

Incidentally, it is important to acknowledge that however far we may be in our journey of transformation, we have not completely eliminated the goat nature. It just means that the sheep nature has taken over more territory in our lives.

That is why we have a verse like this

Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. (1Corinthians 10:12)

To imagine that the man after God’s heart could snatch a wife from a loyal soldier when all the damsels in his kingdom were at his disposal exemplifies what I am saying.

His past dealings with God, his diligence in ensuring that God’s will and revelation run his life was no insurance against the goatish desire for the forbidden as it required a single unguarded moment to explode.

What am I saying?

God wants to transform us into His sheep.

But it is as we allow Him more leverage into our lives that He is able to do so.

What is pastoral about this post then?

There are two important truths to learn as pastors.

The first is that we are sheep with a goat nature, however depressed it may be through our maturity and discipleship and ministry experience.

The second is that the people we pastor range from unconverted goats to sheep who have crucified the goat nature.

This calls for enough grace on our side as pastors.

Realising that we are intrinsically goats allows us to pursue our Shepherd with greater determination since we know that nothing in us qualifies us for the honour bestowed on us.

It also helps us pursue our calling and the responsibilities thereon with more commitment.

Of course, it allows us to have more grace on our persons when we fall off the mark since we will not have any problem admitting falling short of the Shepherd’s high calling.

On the shepherding front, it allows us to offer grace to those God has entrusted to us.

We are not threatened by those more mature or spiritually endowed than we are since we are connected to one Shepherd.

We also have enough grace to handle the frailties of the goats we are supposed to treat as sheep, especially those who have not seen the need to allow the sheep nature to increase in them.

We are also able to help the goats come to the realisation that they are not sheep just because they live amongst the sheep, even mumble everything sheep mumble.

But I think our greatest responsibility is to help converted goats to grow in sheep likeness; what we call discipleship.

Yet even the meaning of our calling is what defines our job which is feeding the sheep with the nurture we access from the Shepherd. In short, we are to feed them as the Shepherd feeds us.

That in simple terms means that we must be consistently feeding on the Shepherd to be of any use to the sheep He entrusts to our care. Otherwise, we could start thinking we are not also sheep in desperate need of a shepherd.

The fact that we have been entrusted with feeding other sheep in no way even remotely implies that we are other than sheep.

Yet many pastors behave as if they are not sheep. Some preach as if they are not sheep.

Probably they are not sheep. Or they stopped being sheep as they grew in their pastoring.

Meaning that they reverted to being goats.

 

Judges

Then David returned to bless his household. And Michal the daughter of Saul came out to meet David, and said, How glorious was the king of Israel to day, who uncovered himself to day in the eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself! (2Samuel 6:20)

Between the one who judges another person and the person who judges the one who judges, who is judgier (my word)?

Or do you not realise that telling someone not to judge is actually judging them?

But I want us to look at something that has been happening in our political landscape recently though I wrote a little about it not so long ago.

People have been pouring scorn on people because they are not afraid of proclaiming what they believe. People have been speaking very harshly against ministers because in their understanding they have been compromised.

I do not know whether you realise that faith is first a personal choice. It therefore results in a personal relationship with a deity.

It goes without say then that the determinant of faith is the deity the faith is directed to. And that deity is the one who proves or disproves that faith.

And it is the same with the deity’s servants.

Am I not therefore going overboard when I make myself the judge of a relationship outside of me? Who am I to determine the validity or otherwise of that relationship?

Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. (Romans 14:4)

We could very easily attract judgment from that deity when we become pedestrian with his worshippers or servants.

Let me narrow this down.

What does the Bible say about those who believe Christ? What does it say about those who serve Him?

I do not think you realise that you can make God qualify the unqualified when you put His name on the line.

What do I mean?

Then said the LORD unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it. (Jeremiah 1:12)

God defends His word whoever it is that speaks it.

That is why there are conmen running churches. That is why there are people running churches as their personal fiefdoms or businesses.

God will be where His word is proclaimed. And He will make that word bear fruit.

Making yourself a judge of the quality of vessel is in effect judging the treasure it contains, meaning that you are judging the owner of that treasure.

I am writing this as a minister and it pains me immensely when I see a believer or minister who does not walk according to God’s revelation through His word.

I therefore feel in a very small way the pain God feels when that happens.

But the reality is that God validates His word irrespective of the one speaking it.

You also realise that there is a reward for the carrier of that word just like it says you do not muzzle an ox when it is treading corn.

But God will also judge that messenger who does not walk according to the word he is releasing. And it is only God who can do that.

When you laugh at someone praying because you believe he doesn’t qualify to have his prayers answered, when you pour scorn on someone because he shed tears when he was praying, when you shout that you also pray and they were not doing something special when they were praying, you are actually directing your anger and frustrations to the wrong place because they were not praying to you.

When you dismiss all pastors and bishops because one or all of them supported what you oppose, you are actually dismissing the God whose name they minister through.

Let me be didactic for a moment.

Remember the temple?

Was it God’s house? Of course not.

It was simply a house built in His name and for His glory. We can call it a monument to point people to God.

But it was not like any other house for that simple reason.

That is why praying towards it brought results, not because of the house but because of the One it was called after as we see in 2 Chronicles 6 and 7.

Focusing on the house and forgetting its purpose is the reason God destroyed it as He had earlier done with Shiloh, another place where His name had been identified with.

Michal was judged for making herself the judge of David’s worship.

Are you any different?

The long and short of what I am saying is this; when you make yourself the judge of someone else’s practice of faith, you are opening yourself up to the fightback of the deity the person professes.

And God will surely judge you.

Allow God to judge His own without your feeble interference.