Generational Baggage

And he said unto him, Fear not: for the hand of Saul my father shall not find thee; and thou shalt be king over Israel, and I shall be next unto thee; and that also Saul my father knoweth. (1Samuel 23:17)

Have you, like me, wondered why Jonathan’s prophecy here excluded him?

Why did he die before his vision and revelation was actualised?

What we do with the revelations we receive is the purpose of this post.

Jonathan was positive that David would be king. He had even pledged his royalty to that reality.

Incidentally, apart from Jonathan, Saul himself confessed that he was positive that David would become king even as he was pleading for mercy once that happened, incidentally when he himself was seeking to kill the same David.

It goes to say that revelation is not enough motivation or drive for action. A confession, however inspired, is also not adequate to drive one to action.

Nobody will go to hell because of their ignorance. It will be because of their rebellion.

Allow me to look at Jonathan for a moment

Jonathan was Saul’s crown prince, meaning that he was the one waiting to take over the kingdom from his father, either through death, abdication or even wilful surrender.

But he knew that it was a gone kingdom anyway, because of his father’s rebellion.

But David’s was a future kingdom, however solid it looked. It was a vision, however clear it may have appeared.

Jonathan was therefore torn between an actual kingdom and a promised kingdom. He was torn between sight and faith.

He was torn between a bosom friend he could do everything for and a father who was counting on him to govern.

The fallacies and errors inherent in his father’s leadership may have surely required the steady hand of a supportive crown prince.

He knew that his father was rejected. However, this blundering father needed him as a faithful son. Meaning that however rejected he may have been, he still needed the support of his crown prince because he counted on him to perpetuate his rejected kingdom.

For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom. (1Samuel 20:31)

Jonathan was thus torn between God’s revelation and a father’s expectation.

He simply could not make a clean break between one or the other.

On the one hand, he defended and protected and encouraged David with everything he had while on the other hand still followed his father in his mission of killing the same David.

However, by sticking with his father, he was delaying what he knew was surely going to happen, since he knew that it came from God

I hope you are getting something here.

That was the cause of his death.

And that is why he was not able to accomplish his greatest dream of serving under God’s appointed king.

He was overtaken by events that he had prior knowledge of because he was not willing to take the plunge and walk with the revelation he had.

Do we do that?

All the time.

We are always faced with choices between God’s revelation and filial responsibilities.

This is because the same God who ordered us to honour our father and mother said that to follow Him we must hate them.

That balance between honour and hate is what caused Jonathan his life.

I do not mean that he ought to have hated on his father because even David, whose life Saul sought, never also hated him.

When loyalty to father conflicts with God’s revelation however, there is not much of a choice.

Of course it will be treated as betrayal. As if his relationship with David was not treated thus.

The lack of that clean break was the cause of Jonathan’s dilemma.

This is because he was already being treated as a saboteur by his father due to his relationship with David, at one time missing death by a whisker from his father for it.

Though defecting to David could have clearly indicated that he was taking sides, staying with his father yet maintaining a working contact with him was not any different.

Suppose he had defected to David?

Chances are that his father could have stopped looking to kill David because he couldn’t have risked killing his son in the process.

Reminds me of my father.

He was in the colonialist’s army, secretly serving the Mau Mau.

Until his only brother, and a younger brother at that, went to the forest.

The war then became personal because two brothers are on opposite sides of a single gun.

He simply couldn’t risk even accidentally killing his younger brother for the whole world and therefore joined him in the forest.

His defection may have even led Saul to repent because his rejection could then not be denied.

Jonathan therefore denied his father the chance to repent by supporting him in his rebellion.

But again, suppose that his father had died and left the crown prince alive.

How easy do you think it might have been for the army to allow him as the new king to submit to this imaginary anointed king that revelation had showed Jonathan? How easy could it have been for them to play second fiddle to these upstarts just because their new king said so?

If Abner, the general, raised someone so low in the line to be king instead of allowing David, yet he, like Jonathan, knew that David was God’s choice for king, do you think he could have allowed the crown prince to abdicate to an outsider, however revelational his anointing was?

It is possible that the army could have simply killed him before allowing the kingdom to go outside their tribe since that could have automatically lowered their positions as the new king would have to raise his own command.

The wisest and godly choice for Jonathan was to join the king he was convinced had been raised by God since it could have avoided so much pain and probably save so much time.

And we face those choices all the time.

How many believers stick with a fallen and unrepentant ‘father’ because of what they had done for them when they were living right? And in their folly, they are convinced they are doing God’s will.

How many believers are stuck in a church that abandoned the faith ages ago because of their fire generations ago?

How many stick to spiritual hearths that are devoid, not only of any coals, but even of ash that indicates a past presence of fire because that is their family culture?

How many believers stick to doctrines and practices they clearly know are unscriptural because they do not want to rock the boat that is their history?

How many know their Bibles enough to know that the way they pray and do religion is unscriptural yet cannot change it because past revivals did it?

How many stick to pretentious traditions that are clearly unscriptural because that the way things have been done?

You will wonder why someone should believe and presume to follow Christ yet refuse to leave their traditions, even ecclesiastical ones.

Jonathan died because he was not willing to make a clean break with what was blocking God’s king from reigning. We will die, and we are dying, because we are not willing to leave everything the word of God says we should leave. Or, we are not going the whole hog into where God calls on us to go.

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 28:20)

99% is not all.

Will we walk with all the revelation God releases to us? 

Morgue Doctrines

And Moses said unto Aaron, and unto Eleazar and unto Ithamar, his sons, Uncover not your heads, neither rend your clothes; lest ye die, and lest wrath come upon all the people: but let your brethren, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning which the LORD hath kindled. And ye shall not go out from the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, lest ye die: for the anointing oil of the LORD is upon you. And they did according to the word of Moses. (Leviticus 10: 6, 7)

I posted on Facebook about our country being a humongous morgue due to my observations after the death of a politician.

Incidentally, there was no difference between believers and non believers in their response.

Imagine Christian stations blocking the Gospel to broadcast a burial!

And it is the burial of someone who for the longest time has been openly against believers and their practices, especially prayer.

That is the reason I am convinced we are a dead church.

The only reason a Gospel show can be stopped is because there is a higher Gospel cause being pursued.

That is why I want us to get the message from the Old Testament.

Aaron had lost his two eldest sons, probably because they became overexcited after being commissioned as priests.

We know that it is God who struck them.

Their father and younger brothers saw it when it happened.

Was there trauma? Was there shock?

I am sure there were.

But look at what God says.

You belong to Me. The dead belong to the community.

Let the community mourn and bury them.

You may remember that they were not even allowed to touch their dead bodies.

In our language, they were denied the chance to pay their last respects. And it is God who did the denying.

Where am I taking us? You may be wondering.

Jesus said that it is the responsibility of the dead to bury their own dead.

God’s assignment nullifies everything else, even responsibility to family and friends.

Remember the reason Christ gave for letting the dead to bury their own dead?

Ther was a ministry to be done; that of preaching about the kingdom of God.

And this guy was being denied the responsibility of burying his father, to say the least.

You see, the Gospel takes precedence over any other responsibility as Aaron learnt painfully.

Remember the same happened to Ezekiel when God told him that He was going to take his wife (darling wife is close to what God called her) because there was a message to be shared

We love boasting that we are priests because of what Christ did.

Do we care to know the priestly responsibilities and caveats?

Priests did not deal with death, whether human or animal.

Celebrating death as we like to say nowadays is as unpriestly as a Jew eating pork.

The only time a priest was allowed to participate in death is when it involved his very immediate family. And even then his married sisters were not part of that family involvement. Even a divorced sister was outside that circle unless she did not have any children.

And there were times as we have seen with Aaron that even that was denied.

That is how stringent God was to the priests, among other rules.

Even Jesus, our High Priest, was not involved with death and funerals. The only two times we see Him involved is breaking them up by raising those dead. And I wouldn’t mind if we attended funerals for that purpose.

Christ never talked about any ministry to the dead. And nowhere in the scriptures do we see such ministry.

Our ministry is to the living, preferably after the dead have done their burying.

Stumbling Blocks

And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. (Mark 9:42)

I want us to look at this topic in a slightly different, though still scriptural, way.

The common understanding of a stumbling block is something that causes someone to fall (into sin)

Treat that is a narrow way of looking at it.

Shifting attention is as powerful, if not more powerful, than an actual stumbling block.

Weakening of resolve also falls in that category.

Let us look at long distance races to get a grip of what I mean.

Teams have pacers whose main purpose is to weary competing teams so that the designated winner will not have much competition at the home stretch.

This happens because only the team knows who the winner is, keeping competitors running after whoever appears like a winner even as the winner is taking it easy behind the leading pack, just to burst through the weary competitors at the last minute.

The pacers did not stumble the competitors in the typical way.

They simply confuse their competitors into competing with shadows by hiding the real competitor.

They therefore expended their energy in the wrong competition.

Incidentally, that happens with our faith and ministry.

Have you seen those always needy, always searching individuals.

They are always asking for support and prayers at every situation, never getting beyond that initial stage. They are always asking for direction and counsel when they see you. They are always seeking this and the other fellowship.

They are like the leech in Proverbs. Allow me to call them dead weights

Those are stumbling blocks. And unless you have a way of dispensing with them you will never advance in ministry beyond their narrow needs since they will always keep you busy responding to their childish and unending calls.

Then there is the pick pocket and the cell phone snatcher.

When I was in the city, I used to observe them in operation.

Their greatest ally is diversion

They will have partners whose main role is to create any sort of diversion, from feigned fights to rowdy arguments to entertainment.

That drama will draw people like a magnet.

Then the pickpockets will just flow into the crowds picking pockets at ease because the crowds’ attention is elsewhere.

I was able to see that most clearly in traffic jams.

Drama will start on the side of the road and the thieves will have an easy time taking phones from eager hands and walk comfortably away since someone won’t be able to get out of the vehicle.

The same would happen when there is a shortage of transport, either when it rains or there is a crisis on the roads.

In the rush of securing a seat when a vehicle arrives, the pickpockets would have one of them block the door of the vehicle so that there is very limited space for someone to get through.

That intense concentration and push for space will then give his accomplices adequate time to take whatever they want from anybody without them noticing.

Does that happen in our faith and ministry?

There are people and ministries whose major preoccupation is looking for people who have responded to the call of God, offering them opportunities in their ministry, even giving huge incentives to draw them from their calling.

They will be minding their own business until they find somebody whose call to ministry is clear. Then they will spare no effort to convince them to join them.

They will create a missions’ pastor position to get a person out of the mission field. They will create a students’ pastor position for a person who ministers in campuses. They will even create an entrepreneurship pastor position for someone creating spiritual waves in the business community.

They are simply snatching soldiers from the trenches and posting them to comfortable desks

There are discipleship ministries (I call it an abuse of the term) whose focus is people who are being discipled by others.

That is the greatest obstacle to true discipleship.

I remember a unique discipleship journey I had with a young man who had been unmanageable even in Sunday school since not only couldn’t he sit still, but even at that young age was unteachable according to his teachers and other children.

But God connected him to me through books and so I was able to in a short while start a very healthy discipleship journey with him.

Before long, the fruits of that discipleship started becoming visible.

In a flash he was snatched from me and offered opportunities my ‘dull’ discipleship did not have. He started being offered responsibilities way above the level of his growth.

It is sad that he died rushing through those ministry openings I knew he was not ready for.

And it is even worse that none of those people offering him those responsibilities ever sought my input concerning his growth path.

I mention this, not because it is the most prominent but because it ended so tragically.

And any discipler will have many such cases in their ministry ‘files’.

Remember the old prophet in Samaria?

Distractions seek to force us to expend our spiritual energy on things that are outside our core calling. They seek to detract our focus from our calling.

And as happened to the young prophet it could end up tragically.

You do not have to attend that prayer meeting. You do not have to attend that fellowship. You do not have to give to that ministry or cause. You do not have to go for that mission.

You are only accountable to God for the orders He has issued to you and not to others, whether they are your spiritual seniors, mentors, bishops.

I was kicked out of ministry because the big man did not agree with God’s orders for me though they fitted in the job description they had given when they called me.

I was thrown out to the streets, not because I had done something wrong, but because I refused to be distracted by orders that did not agree with God’s orders.

That, incidentally, happens all the time when the ministry boss insists that God’s orders must be subject to his office or position.

You wonder why they do not raise their own people who will not have any issues with their orders!

A distraction is clearly a stumbling block, more so because it may introduce rebellion in the mix.

Resources are another distraction with a powerful pull backwards.

It happens many times because of the way we have been taught about ministry and its support.

As an example, have you realised that probably everybody considering reaching a new place or planting a new church will start raising resources for instruments and a sound system before anything else?

Why not start with raising an evangelistic team?

Someone will therefore spend all their time and resources on the non-essentials so that by the time they get to the essentials they are completely wasted.

But it might become worse because they may have already been corrupted by givers with ulterior motives as I wrote on the posts about common purses (Toxic Friendships).

Imagine God calling you to reach the slums or some other impoverished neighbourhoods. Then a partner gifts you a top of the range SUV to pursue that ministry with.

How effective will you be in your ministry when the fuel your locomotion uses in a day is way above a family’s weekly budget?

That gift may offer you prestige, but it is a stumbling block to your ministry.

An inappropriate gift is a stumbling block when it is kept

Let us also deal with dress that is many times treated as the ultimate stumbling block.

Do you realise that a sharp suit could be a stumbling block?

Think about a farmer or technician who is most comfortable in an overall or other work clothes.

Wearing a suit for the simple reason of preaching or giving a testimony could make him so self conscious as to be completely ineffective in that assignment that suit was meant to make him excel in. It can be compared to asking a fish to function outside water.

How do I know inappropriate dress?

A normal woman or girl wearing inappropriate dress will be overly conscious. You will see her stretching and pulling and many other acrobatic moves so that their dressing appears normal because in her spirit she knows that she is not in her element

A harlot wearing something even more damning and revealing will be comfortable since she is advertising her wares. She is in her element

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:2)

Forcing our interpretations and traditions on God’s people is actually being a stumbling block to them.

Connect to people where they are and help them connect with God in their context.

As Paul said, the Gospel did not start with you. Stop acting like it did.

On the same vein, callings did not start with yours

And like I always say, God never consults you when He calls anybody, even your children.

Your role is to raise them to respond to Him when He calls, however and wherever he calls.

Making yourself a reference is therefore being a stumbling block to people’s callings.

Do you realise that agreement can also be a stumbling block?

How? You may ask.

Who between Paul and Barnabas was wrong when they parted over Mark?

Each was pursuing his calling. And the callings clashed.

Barnabas nurtured and so had more grace for failure and discouragement. Remember he was the person who introduced the same Paul to the Jerusalem church after they had rejected him?

Paul was a workhorse who had no place for dead weight.

And both succeeded in their ministries.

Paul’s success is all over Acts.

Barnabas’ success is evident because we read Mark’s book and have enough commendation from the same Paul, and even Peter.

Had they come to an agreement, either way, it could have been a stumbling block to one or the other. Simply because it would have been a forced truce.

The only place where there should be agreement is our commitment to God and our response to sin.

Like a pastor friend always says, the veil was torn so that we can relate to God at a personal level without intermediaries. We should never water down that reality.

That title can be a stumbling block, to you or other people

That clerical garb can also be a stumbling block.

Your boasting of your clerical and ministerial credentials can be a stumbling block.

Allow me to give an illustration.

Suppose you are invited to speak to a forum.

You are very good at what you do but have a modest education with nothing following your name.

The organisers decide to introduce all the speakers in that conference.

Prof A, PhD in aeronautics, Dr B, PhD in neurology, Eng C, PhD in synthetic (you do not get the other word), etc.

You are number 10 on the list, and the only person with nothing following your name.

I am sure that long before they get to you, you will be completely deflated and feeling like a buffoon. You are completely intimidated

You interpret their invitation as a design to humiliate you.

And that is long before you have the chance to demonstrate what qualified you to be invited to that forum.

I am sure you will not have a satisfactory delivery when your time comes.

Even that stringing together of scriptural quote reference (something I loved to do) and ancient Bible language explanations might end up being stumbling blocks as they could very easily intimidate or even stop a brother with a message from sharing as it makes them feel inadequate.

I will allow you to fill the gaps.

The only way I can avoid the trap of stumbling God’s people is being the person and minister God has called me to be.

Then I will be able to be a competent minister wherever God sends me without being a drag on the church of Christ.

And I am sure that is why God overlooked the eleven when choosing an apostle to the gentiles since, not only did he understand them, he did not have the biases and prejudices the others had, having been raised amongst them.

Remember the struggle Peter had when he was sent to Cornelius? And the complaint the others had against that ministry?

I believe I have helped somebody look at his ministry in a slightly different way.

For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law; To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. (1Corinthians 9: 19 – 22)

Teamwork Failures 2

I want us to focus on the modern family unit and marriage.

It is tragic that many a modern woman thinks she is spiritual when she is trashing her captain.

She will thus make spiritually binding decisions and actions without as much as informing her ‘dumb’ husband.

The worse tragedy is that quite a number of modern men think this is fine, some even appreciating it.

The truth of the matter is that the captain is the extension of the coach in the field.

Disregarding or despising the captain is akin to insulting the coach.

Bypassing the captain by going for instructions from the coach is openly rebelling against the same coach you are seeking instructions from since he is the one who appointed the captain.

You may complain against the captain but you have no choice in the team but submit to him.

I am thinking of these women who make their husbands the focus of their prayers thinking that they are very spiritual in so doing. Yet they are doing the exact opposite.

Taking your bedroom issues outside without following protocol is counterproductive because it is insulting to the coach.

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. (1Peter 3: 1, 2)

It is by submitting to the captain that will draw him to seek the direction of the coach, not questioning his leadership.

A spiritually submitted wife is the most effective evangelist to her husband.

Prayers and fasts and courses on this or the other have a zero capacity of drawing him to a decision to submit to the God you pretend to follow because it is a clear demonstration of rebellion, a rebellion he will instinctively resist.

Reporting your husband to that pastor or bishop for this or the other so that they may pray for your marriage is the sledgehammer you are using to completely kill that marriage.

My sister, that drunk husband; that womanising maniac, that free spending resource waster can only be brought to spiritual sanity by your recognising his position as your undisputed leader, however unqualified he may appear to be.

That same submission is what will show him the need to submit to the One who installed him as the captain of that structure.

Stop looking for pastors and bishops to talk sense to him. Just talk sense to yourself and recognise him as your lord as Sarah did to Abraham.

Then watch him melt. Watch him develop spiritual muscle and leadership that you never imagined he possessed.

Belittling him will kill his spirit.

Submitting to him will arouse the lion in him to protect, instruct and provide for you.

It is a basic inbuilt drive. It is instinctive for the most part.

Being raised to trash the divine order may diminish the drive. But it never kills it.

Give him the chance to lead and bask in the glory of realising a lion out what you saw as a house cat. Because that is what he was created to be.

Though it may be unpalatable for many who have been feeding on strange fair opposed to the divine order, it is the only solution God has for a world gone awry.

And it is good to give a small scriptural example.

Mary, Jesus’ mother was highly treated by the angel to the point that there are people who worship her to date.

Yet do you realise that after Joseph took responsibility for her there is not a single instance where we have God speaking to her, even about her and her Son?

Her responsibility became Joseph’s. Her relationship with God, however rich it was, was transferred to Joseph.

It is possible that handling that responsibility was too much for him that he was not around by the time Jesus became a public figure. And the reason Jesus transferred that responsibility to John when He was dying.

Another example worth noting in this respect is Manoah.

Never in the Bible do we see God explaining to a wife an order He gave her husband.

An example is that Moses was being killed simply because Zipporah did not understand or appreciate circumcision since it was foreign to her culture.

Yet what happens when an angel appears to Manoah’s wife? (by the way does she even have a name?)

Her husband questions the order (seeking clarity is more polite) and its source

God gives him the chance to interact with the same angel some other time, and not even issuing any other order. He simply repeated his earlier order.

That was because he was the one with the spiritual responsibility of raising Samson.

Remember Numbers 30?

Toxic Friendships 3

How do we avoid those toxic relationships?

How do we evade the common purse that offends God?

It is important to look at our fathers of the faith to get our lesson.

Abraham ran away from those partnerships even when the other partners requested them.

Remember when he was seeking a burial place for Sarah?

He refused to be given under any circumstances.

Receiving a gift unites someone with the source of that gift.

Remember also when he rescued Sodom?

Again, he refused his dues, however entitled he was to them.

Remember his argument?

Lest you say that you made Abraham rich.

A gift is a shortcut and a trap. It is the easiest way to unite purses.

Look also at him and Isaac in the case of wells.

They insisted on using water from the wells they had dug instead of sharing the available ones.

And even with Jacob they insisted on building on the plots of land they had purchased instead of the easily available lands as custom may have dictated.

Jacob insists of being paid by his father-in-law instead of sharing the wealth he had helped increase.

A common purse is a covenant with ambiguous terms. It is a covenant with shifting goalposts.

The worst part of it is that once entered it is almost impossible to exit because I continue enjoying the spoils of the same.

Treat this as an opening of our eyes to the devious nature of purses and the corrosive influence they exert.

And it does not only happen when Jehoshaphat meets Ahab.

It might happen when both were in their prime spiritual condition.

But it doesn’t stop when one party backslides or deserts the faith.

What do you think happened to Uzziah’s purse partners when he became a leper? What do you think happened to Asa’s purse friends when he lost God’s favor?

I believe the common purse is the reason repentance becomes very difficult for most, because there are friends who are ready to accompany you to hell due to that purse. There are friends who will stand with you no matter what because you are sharing a common purse.

That is why corrupt governments only change from a revolution, because there are purses supporting even the killers of their people. And they do not support because they agree with what they do. They only support because of the common purse they share.

Probably the most powerful way to avoid common purses as ministers is doing what David did; diverting all the gifts and emoluments to God’s project.

David had the project of building God a temple, a temple he was forbidden from building.

Yet he realised that whoever will build it would require immense resources.

He therefore transferred any extra resource he got, from the spoils of war to tribute to personal gifts, into that single project.

Transferring all giving directed at me to ministry would more or less make me incorruptible. Since corruption at its root is using communal resources to meet personal needs, or transferring communal resources into personal purses.

Incidentally, organisations and governments have that clearly spelt out in their statutes; that anything a leader receives by virtue of his position belongs to the organisation he serves.

There is a case involving a former leader being charged with personalising a watch he had received while on a tour in a foreign country. Simply because at the time he received it he had been representing the country he was then leading.

But few Gospel ministers want it to apply to ministry, though that is the point at which it is most applicable.

And I say this because there is nothing in us as ministers that draws giving to us except our association with God and His work.

Many people equate giving anything to a minister with giving it to God

My person fades into insignificance when taken out of the context of ministry.

Nobody thinks of the tribe of a minister before giving anything to them. Nobody thinks of their filial relationship to a minister before giving anything to them.

Personalising gifts is therefore as corrupt as in the case this former leader is dealing with, only that God never takes us to a physical court.

Allow me to demonstrate the beauty of dealing with gifts David’s way.

Imagine someone giving you a very expensive Bible for your use and you in turn give it to a fellow minister because you realise he needs it more than you do.

You have released three people from the ensnaring a gift normally does.

The giver has no way to connect his gift to you or the final recipient. And you have nothing tying you to the giver or recipient because you have become a channel for both. And I have seen a lot of that happening in my ministry.

I must hold the gift for me to share the purse.

Doing that also gives givers an opportunity to see first hand why you are in the ministry God has called you to and appreciate it.

They can then entrust more resources to you because they know there is nothing personal in your ministry.

They will stop looking for places and issues to give to because they know there is a safe hand to do it.

Of course, it will kill the manipulator because he will know that nothing he gives will stick on your person. He will also be thanked not for his personal gift as manipulators require but as a minister.

Gifts are powerful.

It means that the easier we learn to dissipate their power, the easier it becomes to escape from their grip.

A conduit is not easily polluted due to its way of operating.

A river is always fresh because it is always passing along what it receives.

Lakes and oceans become salty because they continue receiving water yet do not release any, meaning that only evaporation that releases water, increasing the concentration of other materials and sediment.

And I have seen that in the course of my ministry

Many times, God would tell me that the moneys (or portions of them) I receive are not mine and that He will send somebody to take them. And someone would come to me with the exact amount God had indicated was not mine to use.

And the same has also happened with resources where I would be gifted and God indicates that the gift was not mine, many times directing me to the ones needing them.

This releases me to listen to God concerning the things He allows to pass through my hands as opposed to hoarding them to the point of becoming a dead sea.

It is evident many ministers become uselessly salty through the gifts God allows them to handle.

Worse is that it opens them to entrapment by the sources of those gifts.

I know that this is a hard teaching.

But do we have any choice, really?

Positive Mammon 2

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, (Luke 4:18)

Allow me to focus this topic today on us ministers

And I do this because we know that judgment starts in God’s household.

And I must address us separately because for many of us we do not have the resources to pour into those enterprises, simply because we depend on others to supply our needs.

I do not earn money from ministering. But I know I am not speaking about the majority.

Some of us have no disposable income to do anything apart from the ministry God has called us to.

For example, it would be disastrous for me to take moneys God has availed for me to make books or audio Bibles to feed the hungry just as it would be for someone to take money God has released for a mission to be taken to an orphanage. On the same vein it would be as wicked to take money meant to feed the vulnerable for a mission.

There are churches that have abused designated giving and attracted judgment, and continue doing so.

But this does not absolve us from using mammon for kingdom purposes.

That is what I want us to look at.

A minister is a servant of another. A minister is a steward of someone else’s resources.

It is only that the Lord and Owner of those resources is not physically visible. Nor does He enforce our compliance towards His orders.

Many interpret that as not caring whether His orders are followed or not.

But nothing can be farther than the truth.

God holds us accountable for the last cent He has entrusted to us just as He does for every idle word we speak and every idle minute we waste.

It means God in a more demanding boss than the rest, only that He does not always hold the whip to enforce our obedience.

It is therefore instructive that we learn the basics of what is required of us by way of giving us a focus.

Who does God focus on?

This will guide us as we use mammon positively.

Matthew 25 talks about sheep and goats. This means that this can guide us on our use of mammon.

Needs.

And we see that even in the Old Testament.

Among the signs Jesus gave for John the Baptist to know that He was the Christ was that the poor have the Gospel preached to them.

Two things I want us to look at.

The first is, what is the focus of our ministry? Where is our focus for our ministry.

We would do well to imitate our Lord in that.

He focused on the downs and outs. He focused on the rejects. He focused on the hopeless. He focused on the sick and seeking. He focused on the ones nobody else dared associate with.

Have you ever wondered why Judas had to kiss Jesus for Him to be known to the authorities yet He was such a public figure?

They had probably never seen Him. And that simply because His ministry never took Him anywhere close to them.

Herod longed to see Him yet Jesus never honoured that desire.

That is the reason they needed for Him to be identified.

Where does our ministry take us?

And I am not questioning the executive and golf course ministries.

But according to Jesus, the focus of ministry is the hurting, the ones who are openly expressing their need for someone to rescue them.

The other aspect is our assessment of the giving toward us and the ministry we have been called to.

Again, look at Jesus to get your focus. Look at Him at that offertory.

The one who had given close to nothing in monetary terms is gauged to have given more that all the others who had offered huge amounts.

And we would be wise to use His standard to gauge the giving we enjoy from God’s people.

Most people who give sacrificially have very little to live on, just like that widow with her two mites.

They are in effect giving everything they have.

I remember once a young man gave me twenty bob (equivalent to a quarter during those times).

And he really pressed me to take it because he felt that rejecting it meant that I was rejecting his appreciation for my ministry.

To imagine he had walked the equivalent of two to three times that amount in fare, of course because he couldn’t have afforded it, is unimaginable for most.

That he could have saved himself half of his walk by using that amount for fare should guide our appreciation for that mite since he had literally offered his blood in that gift.

And I have had several other similar incidences in the course of the ministry God has entrusted me with.

Thinking that the thousand-dollar offering is worth more than that quarter is tantamount to walking roughshod on that young man’s blood.

Like the Macedonians in 1 Corinthians 8, he had first offered himself before offering the gift.

The gift was therefore an extension of his sacrifice.

And it is the same way when we give.

We might not feel anything when in plenty we offer a huge gift. But it is quite painful when we have to offer our last coin because it then means we are left with nothing.

I hope we will fill the gaps with more relevant revelation.

Toxic Friendships 2

Give not sleep to thine eyes, nor slumber to thine eyelids. Deliver thyself as a roe from the hand of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand of the fowler. (Proverbs 6: 4, 5)

We talked about the dangers of sharing a common purse as we were looking at toxic friendships

Sharing a purse is an entrapment whose folly can only be seen by someone outside it.

Remember the case of bishops repenting on behalf of a fellow bishop who had impregnated his parishioner?

Or, have you ever wondered why very intelligent and educated people are swallowed into cults and some very stupid con games?

Common purse.

A common purse unites the parties holding it in ways even blood cannot.

It is a covenant, though not signed or sacrificed for; but a covenant stronger than those legally and spiritually binding covenants.

This means that those other covenants are lower in ranking than the common purse.

And that for the simple reason that it is the uniting of livelihoods. That common purse puts food on the table in more ways than one.

Have you realised that many people are in church because simply for burial purposes?

They will participate in all the church programs so that they will be accorded a befitting send off when they die.

Many people (probably most, if not all) will join one self group or the other with a crisis as the driver.

You will hear them always complaining of this or the other stupid contribution yet are scared to death of getting out.

Yet, if they had saved all those illogical and criminal contributions, they would be more than adequately prepared for any unforeseen eventualities.

But the worst part is that they will give their money and presence in support of a member caught in immoral, even criminal scandals. Like those bishops repenting on behalf of their adulterous bishop.

Simply because they are sharing a purse.

 Purse is amoral.

Your spiritual or moral positions hold zero sway over other owners of that purse.

You therefore cannot pontificate anyone.

However, you are a part of all the other owners of that purse you share.

They have a right to get your complete support even if they do something completely contrary to your beliefs or values.

You must bail them out even if they are caught doing something contrary to your values.

That is how corruption thrives.

Nobody will request you to choose corruption

Many times, it will start with an invitation to make a small investment in a company that can offer services or goods.

And the dividends will start coming steadily.

By the time you realise, you are sunk to your neck in corruption yet can do nothing because you have already enjoyed the loot before knowing where it was coming from. And you can’t abandon the team just because they have been caught. In any case you are part of them since you are a partner in the purse.

Pastors do not transition into motivational speakers because they have accessed a new revelation.

They have simply united purses with an Ahab somewhere. And it is impossible to preach against a purse that you are a partner of just as you can’t preach against yourself.

And I am not talking about a gift, unless it is a gift you requested or demanded as many pastors vary creatively and stealthily do.

But a gift is powerful and requires great sensitivity to the Holy Spirit to be able to avoid being defiled by the giver as Balaam was.

This reminds me of a time I was invited to join a pyramid scheme (normally called multi level marketing) even before I knew about them.

I prayed and God forbid me.

I was invited for a seminar in another one and of course I knew I didn’t need to pray for direction since they were similar.

But my friend, who was very senior in that one made a simple request.

Just pay the subscription and wait for the money. We will do everything else. And it was not even a lot of money.

Were it not for the fact that I had already received God’s order, it would have been very easy to have joined that purse.

And that could have killed any opportunity for speaking against or educating people about pyramid schemes since I would have been part of one.

Relationships are another place where a common purse plays a very pivotal role.

It is impossible to love someone and hate their family

That was the Peor dynamic.

Israel loved Moabite damsels and couldn’t resist their worship.

That is why in the past there needed to be intense investigation before two young people are allowed to get married.

You see, if I love someone from a family practicing witchcraft, I will have witches and wizards as in laws. And as an in law, I must participate in some of their practices since there are spelt out roles for in laws in their system.

Incidentally that is what happened with Jehoshaphat.

In my next post, I will look at how to avoid such traps.