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?