Whose Sewage?

As I was walking to church, I was reminded of a dream I had a long time ago.

In it, I was flying over a meadow.

Below me was the most beautiful and green piece of land I had ever seen. So lush and inviting it was that the pull toward lying in the grass and walking over all that beauty was irresistible.

Until I came down and received the shock of my life.

Below that foliage was sewage, raw, untreated and putrid.

Below all that beauty was the most offensive smell one could encounter, even forgetting the other dangers that overflowing sewage posed.

Talk about skin deep!

Then I thought about beauty.

Ever realized that most people who are strikingly beautiful rarely have anything of worth beneath all that beauty?

They are showpieces, but very few want anything else with them beyond that.

No wonder very few beauties land worthy or long-term husbands.

But have you ever realized that we are not much different? Or haven’t you read this verse?

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: … (Romans 7:18a)

We are not much different from that meadow.

But do you also know that the same sewage can be turned into a very fertile and productive land?

Once you treat and release it to processes, it can be used in the king’s farm as fertilizer.

The same sewage. One is an eyesore (or is it nose sore?) and the other is an asset.

One is released to the market as is while the other is taken through the master of sewage.

One is confident and content with who he is while the other knows that he is hopelessly and irredeemably useless but for the hands of the master.

The fruit above the ground might appear luscious but it is poison since it is feeding on poison.

Yet we can be sure that after the process it is as healthy as health itself.

We love organic produce because we are scared of all the chemicals synthetic inputs expose us to.

Yet do we realise that organic farming requires excrement? Only that it is waste that has gone through some processes requiring time.

Organic fertilizer is fertilizer that is produced from natural faecal matter, what is many times simply called dung.

What am I driving at?

Apart from Christ, we are not any different from that meadow.

Second, though we may be in Christ, we will not be much different if we do not allow Him to complete His work in us.

It is His work in us that makes us useful. And the more released we are to His work, the sweeter and better and useful to the world around us.

I want us to look at the trending topic on the media, probably all over about a pastor who killed his singer wife with this in context.

Over the years I have been posting and teaching on the need to take the Bible seriously as we make people our leaders.

And my reason is simple, sewage process progression.

You release sewage before the process is completed and you are faced with poisonous fertility hence production.

The giftedness of sewage is nothing if it has not been treated.

Sadly, many in our generation think that all someone needs to minister or lead is a gift, and the more prominent the better. Or don’t we even see children being ordained as pastors and in other serious positions?

And we will later protest their depravity when push comes to shove. Because their sewage nature was not allowed to be processed before being released to produce results.

I am very sure that that pastor was given the position before growing enough to handle the responsibilities inherent in that position. He was released at the beginning of the process and so was totally inadequate to handle the pressures of marriage combined with the pressures of pastoring.

He can be equated to a saloon car being loaded with five tons to ferry.

Or have we forgotten that recently we were fighting over a bishop that was being defended by other bishops for getting a child out of wedlock?

Giving a child adult responsibility may mature them if they are supervised properly.

Giving a child adult authority destroys them.

Sadly, that is what we have been doing by using giftedness as the yardstick to use when looking for spiritual leaders.

You see, we all are sewage. But some have gone through the process more and so are more useful to God’s kingdom.

And I do not mean God does not use new believers or sewage that has just joined the process.

The master of the process knows where and how to use them too.

Having responded to God’s call close to forty years ago I can confidently affirm that God uses anyone and everyone who has released himself into His hands. And I am evidence of that.

But I also know that there are responsibilities God gives me now that I couldn’t have handled in my youth due to His continued work in my life and the ministry He has called me to.

The sewage that I was when He called me has gone through some process.

There are unflinching positions I held that I have flinched on as there are some things I would have let go that I am now unflinching toward, again because of the process

The simple process I know is discipleship, what we call The Great Commission. And I will place it here for us to understand.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28: 19, 20)

And it happens because it gives responsibilities to different groups. Again let me put some other verses.

I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. (1John 2: 12 – 14)

Giving a spiritual child or youth a father’s role (which is what a pastor many times is) will compromise their maturity because a child does not have adequate assurance and the youth is always at war.

The spiritual child pastor will always be looking for affirmation and assurance. He will therefore be serving as a means to get that affirmation and assurance.

The pastor who is a spiritual youth will be looking for war and anything they do will be treated from a conquest dimension. He will therefore be looking for enemies from all directions. A small disagreement and you will be treated as an enemy worth vanquishing.

A father, however, is someone who is content with their relationship with God and the children God brings to him to raise. He will therefore be content with his flock and fine with all the other flocks his shepherd has since his end game is pleasing the One who called him.

A child is raw sewage that flows all over without caring for boundaries. A youth is thicker but still fluid enough to flow as per gravity. Both could very easily fertilize an enemy’s farm as their boundaries are not set. A father is solid fertilizer and will therefore be available only where the master needs him and will be content to be in that one position as long as the master directs.

What kind of sewage are you? Whose sewage? At what stage are you in the master’s process?

The process produces spiritual maturity that is the tree bearing spiritual fruit.

Love is not an anointing. Patience does not come from the laying on of hands. Peace is not the product of prolonged times of prayer.

Spiritual fruit is the product of a person who has successfully gone through the Master’s process and has thus transformed from raw sewage to useable fertilizer.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. (Galatians 5: 22 – 24)

Where are you in the process? Are you content?

You see, gifts come from outside while fruit is the product of what is inside.

Gifts do not depend on who I am but fruit is as a result of my makeup.

The Master of the process therefore works on transforming my makeup so that like a mango I do not produce a lemon or any other fruit.

He changes my makeup from sewage to fertilizer; from dangerous and poisonous and putrid to useful and necessary and desirable.

The Master of the process is also the Master of transformation.

Will you allow Him to start His process in you?

Talk to me about discipleship and spiritual maturity

God bless you

God Hates Divorce. Or does He?

I wonder why we become emotional over what God has plainly said.

People all over are battering that verse (and of course God who gave it) as a result of a pastor who killed his singer wife, though much of what we are hearing is hearsay as nobody apart from the ‘killer’ witnessed it.

But let’s go with the story anyway.

Do people care to know why God hates divorce? Do they even care to read the few verses before that famous quote or even the complete verse?

I will tire you with the context of our quote

Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts. And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand. Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. (Malachi 2: 11 – 16)

What does God mean when He says that He hates divorce?

You see, the context of divorce is marriage done His way. Divorce is therefore a corruption of His will in someone’s life.

God hates divorce because He values marriage, the institution He created.

And to Him, marriage is not just the coupling of two people of opposite gender. It is not just two people living in the same house. And it is not two people partnering to produce offspring.

Marriage is a spiritual covenant before God of two people (starting in their youth) deciding to please God by living according to His revelation.

Pairing of spiritually discordant people will therefore be a strain on any marriage. Pairing of economically or socially viable people (as happens to Christian ministers and artistes and business titans) will make the marriage struggle, especially because such goals will always shift with time. Meaning that the purpose of the marriage will shift with the shifting of goalposts.

What I want to say is that God doesn’t just hate divorce. He values a good marriage. That is the context of His hating divorce.

When we hate divorce for a different reason that God’s, we very easily open ourselves to be used of the devil to destroy the marriage institution.

Another reason God hates divorce is because divorce is never a solution and never has been. It many times creates more problems than the ones it seeks to solve.

It is like cutting off a leg instead of treating a wound. Like we have read it floods the Lord’s altar with tears; tears of the divorced, tears of their children, tears of the families involved, etc.

I wish we devoted more effort on revitalizing the marriage institution than we are doing pushing for divorce because of this or the other abuse.

We know that the abuser is many times as wounded as the one they wound.

Divorce will many times transfer the wound and its protest to someone else since rarely will someone remain single after a divorce. In fact, it is much easier for the widowed to remain unmarried all their life than the divorced however short their marriage was like Anna of the Bible.

As with other commandments, we are wont to choose between positive and negative interpretations. Negative when we think God is after denying us something we need, or something of great pleasure. Positive when we believe God is taking from us something that would otherwise be destructive to us.

In the negative we will fight back as Eve did in Eden. In the positive we will seek greater light to help us remain within the bounds.

If we spent more time making marriage work than we do advising them to run away from abusive relationships, I believe we will raise a healthier generation.

I hope you will be a person who believes God’s word as you handle abuse and battery in marriage.

This is because handling it any other way displeases God. In fact, it is a sin in the eyes of God.

This is because God hates divorce. And He loves it when marriages are stable, happy and fulfilled.

The joy of a thriving marriage is the reason God hates divorce.

Will you agree with Him?

The Son and The Worker 2

We looked at work in the context of the son and the worker.

Both are working but their reasons for doing so are different.

Today I want us to look at the motivations of both.

Relationship with the father is the distinction.

One is positional while the other is relational.

A son’s position does not depend on his performance as a worker.

Relationship is the defining aspect for them.

And the relationship guides their motivation.

You see, a son does not seek to please his father to establish or develop a relationship. A worker must.

The assurance of the son’s position is what guides his work ethic. He works because he is a son and not to become one.

A worker must work because it is his work that links him to the father. The dare not rest because it could very easily compromise his position.

That is the difference.

A son is secure because his position is permanent. A worker must perform to remain connected.

Incidentally, that distinction becomes very prominent as we continue ministering to God.

A son does not need to display his affection or performance to anyone because he does not need anyone’s approval to become or remain a son. A worker must display his affection and loyalty because any slight slip in the father’s perception of the same can very easily compromise his position.

A worker needs constant motivation, either by perks or talks because he needs constant remainder that he does not permanently belong.

Many times, he may need to be deceived that he could eventually become a son as a reward for his work so that he may work even harder and better. Remember house slaves?

However, a son does not need any such because his motivation is the fact that he belongs and that he is working on his enterprise.

The Root of Rebellion

And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them that searched the land, rent their clothes: And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land, which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. IF the LORD delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey. (Numbers 14: 6 – 8)

God releases an order after a revelation.

It is our obedience that releases His manifestation.

We must therefore step out before He breaks through and not before.

The uncertainty of the outcome is what produces two opposed teams.

IF is the key word here.

You see, if and if not will depend on the faith of the ones thinking it. Even more is the fact is that it will depend on their relationship to the divine who does the manifesting.

The IF of Caleb was as valid as the IF NOT of the ten other spies as it was dependent on their relationship to the God who would be performing the miracles required to get them the land.

The interesting thing is that both teams had shared experiences with God since they left Egypt.

They had all seen the miracles of deliverance, the parting of the sea and many, many others.

And that is where the IF originates.

Some were experiencing God while the others were seeing God at work.

Some were in the game while others were watching it.

The IF was dependent on the position the person was at.

Caleb, from his experience, was sure that God would perform what He had promised. His IF was therefore stemming from faith.

The ten had seen God doing wonderful things. He was to them a great performer. But how were they sure that He would not turn against them as He had turned against enemies and colleagues who had displeased Him? Suppose He decided to turn against them? Their IF therefore stemmed from doubt.

Both teams knew that God was able. But only one team was sure that He was on their side.

One team was willing to step out and see Him perform for them. The other team was scared that He might refuse to support them when they stepped out.

Imagine you are on a cliff edge where you can’t see beyond where you are stepping and God tells you to jump? What will you do?

Joshua and Caleb would ask, how far? While the ten would shout, won’t we be broken in pieces by the rocks?

That is what faith is about.

Faith is not about what or even who we believe in. It is what we do about that believing.

The one having faith and the one lacking in it are standing at the exact same place, circumstantially.

That is why faith is looked at as folly from those lacking it. I call it madness since it makes no sense at all to the senses.

The only problem for the doubter is that faith invites God’s manifestation just as the lack of the same invites judgment.

Obedience and disobedience originate from the same spot.

If you are one of those people who wonder why some testimonies are so full of manifestation and breakthrough, I would urge you to first examine how you handle those crazy orders God releases to you.

It is your response that determines the kind of manifestation you will experience.

And it is possible to build your faith

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17)

God’s word fills us with His works so that we can easily release ourselves to His manifestation in our situations.

Or else we will continue being spectators in other people’s breakthroughs.

It is possible in faith to sleep hungry rather than call that loving parent or friend because you feel God’s conviction on the same.

It is possible to step out for a journey without adequate resources because you feel led to do so even when there are better and safer things to do.

It is possible to turn down a lucrative job or business offer even when you have issues feeding your own self because that is what you feel God leading you toward.

You see, faith is giving God the space to show off. And what better way for that than cutting off all other props?

I do not need to add that faith grows as we continue stepping out into that dark again and again

Joshua and Caleb must have had experienced God as the others were spectating.

No wonder they were ready to be stoned by the crowd for defending their ‘folly’ and ‘idiocy’.

And forty-five years later we see Caleb proving that it had been a gamble worth taking.

It also explains why instead of asking for the army to take on the Anakims who were the reason the ten had doubted God’s revelation decided to take them on personally though he was the ancientest in all Israel.

Do you fit in this narrative? Where are you?

Are you content with where you are?

Revival

And Shaphan the scribe shewed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath delivered me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. (2Kings 22:10)

I want us to get a background of this groundbreaking moment.

Remember Hezekiah and his fifteen added years?

The Bible says that he backslid (to use our term) after that momentous answer. It therefore means that the book disappeared from the public realm.

Then we have Manasseh and his fifty-five-year reign where things became even worse.

He was replaced by Amon who also had no regard for God and so cared nothing for the book.

By the time Josiah came to the picture, we have seventy-two years of the book’s absence in Judah.

But he loved God and His ways even without the scriptures.

By the time he was able to raise adequate resources to repair the temple, it was a whole ninety years of the book’s absence. You really wonder the condition of the same when it was found in the ravaged ruins of the temple. How much dust covered it? How much dust can accumulate in ninety years?

But amidst all that rubble it had somehow survived in a readable state.

And that is where I want us to start.

What happens when the king hears what the book says?

He is able to accurately diagnose his nation’s spiritual position and destination.

He therefore starts weeping, knowing that judgment was long overdue.

God due to that repentance defers judgment.

Yet, unlike his forebear Hezekiah, he does not relax just because it was deferred to after his death.

He starts to follow what he reads in the book.

No wonder he is able to oversee a Passover unlike any since Joshua’s time.

What am I saying?

God’s word is the foundation of true revival.

There of course are other essentials to revival, but as with a building, we cannot have any stable building without a solid foundation however beautiful it might look above the surface.

The longevity of a building is determined by the stability and depth of the foundation.

In the same way, the reach and depth of a revival is determined to its fidelity to scripture as a whole.

A revival that picks verses to support its doctrine has no capacity to sustain itself as it lacks a foundation.

Some already have an idea of one such and so I will not proceed.

Josiah’s revival was able to defer judgment because the king exposed the scriptures as the basis of the same.

And the community was able to change as it responded to what they read in the scriptures.

The spiritual reality is that no revival worth its salt can be centered on anything but God’s word. And no such revival can last beyond a generation.

I have written elsewhere about the three generations of revival.

These three generations happen because a revival did not base sorely on God’s word but on an experience or series of experiences.

Otherwise, there will only be three rules, or ten or a hundred, that will be unquestionably followed by the second generation.

The third generation will most probably rebel against that straightjacket that is rules without explanation.

Yet that could have been avoided had the revivalists exposed their followers to the scriptures at the personal level as the protestant revival did.

You see, no amount of motivation can result in revival. No fanfare is required for revival to happen or proceed.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Only a transformation of the person from deep within the spirit as he responds to the revelation from a clear understanding of scripture.

A revival that is not followed by discipleship is very short term, however deep it appears to run.

That is why for a long time I have been spending in the availability of everything Bible; from reading plans to Audio Bibles to physical Bibles.

That is why I do not tire from challenging people to read their Bibles and preparing materials for the same.

I love revival. But even better, I love lasting revival.

Do you?

Then join me in making the Bible your constant companion?

The Son and The Worker

I at one time inadvertently made an uncle almost hit me in rage.

We were talking and he mentioned the fact that our generation is very irresponsible as they dispose of their lands as quickly as they inherit them from their parents.

I gave him my young wisdom (I was quite young then), wisdom that most incensed him.

I told him that many in their generation treat their children as workers, a fact that disconnects them from their inheritance. They therefore do not connect to the land as theirs in all their labor.

It is therefore a windfall when the same land that they slaved in becomes theirs since it is like them winning a lottery.

It was later that an elder brother who stays at home told me that my truth had hit the mzee where it really hurt as I had been describing his situation.

We were having a fellowship with a pastor friend when this came out so clearly.

There are two types of ministers, those who are doing God’s work and those who are serving God.

Interestingly, very few are able to differentiate between them. And it is not much different with the ministers themselves

A son works with the father while the servant works for the father. Both are working at pleasing the father.

Work therefore describes both of them to the observer. But that is where it ends.

One is a partner in the enterprise while the other is a performer. One is preparing to take over the enterprise while the other is waiting for his emolument.

One depends on the success of the enterprise for a better package while the other has the enterprise define him.

A worker will look for another employer if the enterprise fails. The son may sink into depression to the point of suicide when it goes bust. The worker will feel a pain in their pockets in the occasion of a failure while the other will have a pain in their heart.

Now take this to ministry and church.

How many are involved in church as servants? How many serve in the church as sons?

How many feel the pain of a son when things in church are not going well? Why?

How do you feel when you hear of sin in the congregation and why?

Why do you preach the way you do?

Why do you give the way you do?

Why do you pray the way you do?

Defining the church in your context will tell you whether you are in the church as a son or a servant.

Just as a son imitates his father, a minister with the sonship dimension will imitate God.

He will love what God loves and hate what God hates. And that whether he sleeps hungry or full.

A worker, however, will want to be identified with God, especially before people.

Remember King Saul?

Then he said, I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the LORD thy God. (1Samuel 15:30)

Being honored before his people carried more weight to him than being rejected by God as king.

Compare this with David

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)

People’s opinions counted for nil to David. And we see this all his life. No wonder God called him a man after His (God’s) heart.

Remember him being consumed by guilt after cutting a piece of Saul’s cloak yet the same king was seeking to kill him?

The fact that God had anointed Saul was enough to keep David from defending himself against such dangerous folly of a deranged king seeking to kill him for his delusions.

To David, God never makes mistakes. His anointing was not subject to question, however illogical it looked.

That is how a son thinks and operates.

A son’s obedience stems from trust; trust in the father’s position and intentions. Surely father must know what he is doing, is a son’s reasoning. That is why a father’s word is revered.

A worker’s obedience is short term. It is therefore a surface obedience. And this because he knows that however much he may work he will never achieve the position of a son. It may not make much difference to his future whether he just works or works extremely hard since his position does not change.

His remuneration may rise to the clouds but he will never own the enterprise.

At the surface, a worker may seem to enjoy better than the son but that is due to the fact that he is eating everything he gets whereas the son is not in any hurry as it will all be his anyway.

A servant’s obedience is driven by a paycheck and so he must be receiving it regularly. He can therefore not defer the same for anything.

A son on the other side could defer pleasure since he knows that all will be his eventually.

A worker could introduce short cuts, especially if he could easily cover up for the same. A son dares not do so as it is his structure that will fall.

Ever heard of believers who wonder why we are so particular about small sins? Ever wondered why we have bishops who have no problem with homosexuality provided the person doing it is faithful to their gay partner and church? Ever wondered why pastors have no issues with secular performers doing their thing in church provided they insert Jesus somewhere? Ever wondered why whoremongers continue ministering in churches with the leaders fully aware of the fact?

Those are workers who have no issues with ‘small’ issues and sins since they do not cause much damage to the church and what they are getting from it.

That explains why a dissenter (who many times is a son incensed with sin) is a worse enemy in church than the openly sinful.

Sons have the father’s heart and so are more interested with what the father loves and hates than in the work the father wants done. He therefore works according to the father’s heart.

That is the reason I always say that the clearest way to know a church that is aligned with God is how they relate with sin, especially sin in their midst.

A son is ruthless against sin, be it in his own life or in the lives of the ones around him.

Excellence counts for nothing to the son if there are things, however small or concealed, that are contrary to the father’s will since they could very easily mar the enterprise.

An accountant may conceal things to an auditor and it won’t be a big deal. Doing the same to the son or father could very easily lead to has sacking.

Let me close by saying the thing I have tried to explain in this whole post.

A son lives and acts as his father does while a worker is more interested in performance since that is what is rewarded. A worker works to be seen since that is how he is remunerated while the son does not care being seen since he is working on what will eventually become his.

Does the Bible call you a son or a worker?

That is who you are irrespective of how psyched you might be otherwise.

God, not your favorite motivator or preacher, determines who His sons are.