Goat Doctrines

As I have severally said, the Bible is written from a farming and not a business or other contexts

As such, it becomes easy to appreciate and understand the Bible when you read it from that context.

Again, as I said not so long ago, God has led me to a farm, however small some may think it is. I even have some animals I am raising and it is a difficult marathon for someone who last took care of animals before going to school.

That is the context of much of my sharing these days.

I have a few goats and have been studying them and this is what I feel God would have me share today.

A goat is the exemplification of ‘grass is greener on the other side’ syndrome.

Give a goat the lushest of pastures and it will run after someone carrying anything looking like food.

A goat will leave its food and run to snatch scraps from chicken or rabbits. It will leave its green fodder to break the fence to snatch some nothings from a neighbor’s farm.

A goat’s greed is legendary.

Though it doesn’t have a huge stomach, it will never be so full as to stop running at anything looking like food.

That is where I want us to start today.

Ever noticed that contentment is these days treated as the surrender of the failure or unambitious? That greed couched as ambition occupies a more prominent position in our preaching than holiness?

Have you noticed that our favorite prophets are the ones who prophesy to us things above our present estate as the KJV would say?

That is why we love motivation and despise didactics. That is why we run after comedians instead of admonishers. And that is why we support the entertainers and wish those with solid Biblical instruction would disappear.

We love those who can arrange those verses to make us feel good. We love using those devotionals that give us glucose to bounce back from disappointment without having to do much.

All those are indications of spiritual goats. And that preaching is the fodder goats enjoy.

Missions are a very useful tool to raise money. But actual missions are not a priority in the budget of the structure.

That is why mission spending is little, sometimes needing to be reduced yet the main guys running the structure are changing fuel guzzlers the way some people change clothes from the same finances.

Missionaries are crying for sufficient support when millions are spent making seats to make the goats comfortable as they are being entertained.

There are even itinerating evangelists in the structure who walk wherever they are sent and sometimes sleep hungry even as funds are spent to shield the main guys from interacting with the riff raffs by making secure blocks and doors and employing people to operate them.

There are people in the congregation who have lost livelihoods who cannot access the barest of basics from the church when the main guys are swimming in more money than they need and must be facilitated to go for holidays to be able to get revelations to feed the goats properly.

I am writing about things I have had too close an encounter with.

I know some are getting confused even as others are getting enraged.

You see, some already know what I am getting at.

But let me get to the crux of the matter by asking these easy questions.

Why do you go to church? Why do you give? Why are you good? Why do you worship? What is worship? What is fulfilment? What draws people to your church?

The answer to these questions is an indicator of the kind of flock you are in God’s eyes.

If you do these things to feel good; if you do them to be accomplished; if you do them to get something, then it is clear that you are a goat according to the Bible.

You see, goats are selfish, self-centered, self-focused, self-driven and all other self-characteristics.

Everything revolves around a goat since a goat lives only for itself.

Sheep know team work. Sheep know contentment. Sheep have no problem being led. Sheep do not need to see the end of the staircase to start climbing.

A sheep is dependent on the shepherd and lives for the shepherd. A goat uses the shepherd to get what it wants.

That is what I want us to understand today.

Have you ever heard people complaining about boring worship? But what is worship?

Ever heard people leaving a church because of a pastor’s dress or language of delivery? Ever heard people leaving church because their preacher is absent?

Ever heard someone protesting because a preacher touched too close to home that they felt that he had some leakage on them?

Ever hated a preacher because he challenged your comfort?

Do you not mind if the stars in your worship leadership have sin issues? Do you not mind if your most prominent givers have some character questions?

Are these questions making you very uncomfortable?

This clearly shows that you do church for yourself and are therefore a goat.

The church that you attend therefore thrives on the goat doctrine.

The truth of the matter is that Christ is the centre, and everything else in His church. Everything revolves around Him.

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. (Colossians 1: 16 – 18)

Where are you in these verses?

Focus on Him determines my fulfilment if I am His sheep.

Let me leave it here trusting that there is a goat who has seen the need to allow God to transform them into His sheep.