The Joneses

I promised to continue with my discourse on goats.

Sadly, my solar system has been having issues even as the sun had decided to completely hide itself behind the clouds.

Add that to the fact that my children all flocked back from distant schools and the animals required more attention even as I continued learning from God as I took care of them.

But now I have some time to share a few points.

Goats are never content with their lot. And I have done a lot of observation to come up with that.

A goat will not settle in a pasture, however good.

A goat will bite a leaf here and then run to bite another there. Then run back to bite where they left and repeat the same ad infinitum.

Take them to a lush bush and they will be scattering everywhere, biting here before rushing to take another bite somewhere else.

Let me give an analogy to help us understand.

Imagine a buffet?

A goat will not take a plate to serve food on it.

It will pick the smallest tea spoon and go round the whole place sampling from all saucepans (sufurias) again and again.

They will even dash back to the start point or anywhere else midway when they see another goat seemingly enjoying their bite

Let me get us to human nature to help us identify our goatish nature in one thing.

Why do people exchange sex partners?

I believe (and doctors will concur with me) that the physical aspect of sex is the same whoever one has sex with since the sex organs were created the same way basically.

The sensation and pleasure of sex is therefore not the primary reason for sexual promiscuity. Nor is the ‘satisfaction’ one gets from sex.

I saw strange things that were hard to comprehend when I was working.

How does someone coming from his wife rush to look for a prostitute immediately they leave home?

Why does a man sneak back home to have sex with the house girl when his wife is at work, and vice versa, when they probably had sex with their partner the previous night?

That is simply the goat nature manifesting.

A goat does not enjoy eating at the point it is picking food. They swallow and swallow.

They enjoy that food three days later as they are chewing the cud. By then it will have fermented (I read that from biological experts)

They must sample to eat. They in fact eat by sampling. That is why they never get full. Show a goat something new and they will jump from their siesta however full they may appear to be. You will always see them feeding on the borders however lush the centre is.

You tether a goat and the end of the rope will be trampled bare yet it was tethered with the best pasture closest to the centre.

To a goat risk is motivation as they operate by the borderline theology.

Another thing I have noticed is that goats fear being alone. They feed looking around for the others.

The first goat we bought made so much noise we hardly slept. Then we brought others and the noise ceased.

Even when herding them, you will find that they do not scatter very far since they must be within sight of each other. A few bites and they look around to see where the others are. No wonder goats do not normally get lost.

But apart from need for company is another reason for the same.

A goat believes that the other goat has or is in a better pasture. No wonder they will be all over the place looking to snatch from each other.

This of course means that peer pressure is a huge item in a goat’s life. That is why my title is thus.

A goat cries for personal space yet will never settle without other goats.

Look at human nature.

Why do people buy all-terrain vehicles when living and working in well paved city roads?

Why does someone with only one child (or even none) and rarely having visitors buy or build a ten or more-bedroom mansion?

Why would someone who rarely walks have a wardrobe full of shoes that they may never wear?

Why would someone without any children continue building his wealth portfolio by grabbing from the vulnerable?

To most they are symbols of success – goatish nature.

We seek to compete and compare with each other. Or we are fighting to appear better than the other person.

Peer pressure thrives with goats.

We cry personal space yet are unable to handle it if it is not congregated with others.

We love the feel of achievement only when we can share with others and show them how much better we are than them or prove them wrong in their assessment of our achievement.

Why do we love huge churches yet we know that fellowship and ministry is minimal?

Why do we support pastors and churches with budgets in their millions yet we will run to that pastor of a small church when we need actual ministry?

We want to be associated with success and believe numbers and budgets are the yardstick for the same – goatish behaviour.

We love numbers and swim with numbers. We love good locations even when we cannot afford them.

That is why many people living in the slums bordering leafy suburbs like to say they live on those estates. And I saw that even in church when they were filling forms for this or the other.

A goat fears being alone.

That is why the prayer closet is a no for many believers since they then must face God on His terms.

That is why people shout in prayer as if God is deaf.

That is why people must be in a prayer centre or meeting to effectively pray.

There is nothing wrong with prayer meetings or prayer centres. But if that is the only place you can effectively pray, chances are that you are a goat.

If people must know you are praying, or even see you praying, it is also likely that you are a goat.

Or what did Christ say in Matthew 6?

Another thing I need to mention is that there is a whole spectrum of goatishness in goats.

Some goats are in behaviour close to sheep.

They are not overly scared of the shepherd. They do not scatter all over when released to pasture, they eat without jumping all over the pasture. They do not overly concern themselves with other goats once they get to the pasture. Etc.

Incidentally, they become the focal point for the other goats; more like automatic leaders. You see, the other goats equate their ‘rest’ with great pasture and so will hang around.

Confirms why a friend advised me to buy a sheep to make the goats eat better.

What am I driving at?

There are non-believers who behave like believers and can easily be mistaken for being sheep.

But their hearts are still goatish since their nature has not been transformed by the Gospel.

That is why the Gospel presentation is so important.

There are enough instances of even pastors getting saved when the Gospel is clearly explained. Yet they had all the time thought they were sheep because they behaved like sheep, even doing everything sheep did.

The clearer the Gospel is presented, the easier is it to separate sheep looking goats from actual sheep.

But I need to make another application

Why is it that single people prefer having sex with married people? Why do girls prefer older married men for a husband? What is so intriguing or special with having sex with a minister of the Gospel?

Goats respect sheep. They know that the settled nature of sheep is the security they need to eat well.

Left to itself, it is possible for a goat to sleep hungry since it will never settle anywhere.

That is why a youth will waste their youth and later join the church to get a sheep spouse. They will not trust their goat partners when they want to settle down in marriage.

In summary let me say this.

Peer pressure is the preserve of goats. Sheep are content with wherever the shepherd takes them and will settle down with the pasture they are led to without looking over their shoulders to see whether other sheep have a better pasture.

Rest is the preserve of sheep. Contentment defines a sheep under a shepherd.

A goat looks at and seeks to have what their neighbour has.

A sheep prays for daily bread. A goat prays for a better life, especially in comparison with someone else.

Motivation is the fare for goats since they must be pointed to a ‘higher’ purpose. Plain Biblical instruction is the fare for sheep since all they need to know is how to connect with the Shepherd’s voice.

Goats must be shown why it is important for them to give. Sheep give because they have a relationship with the Shepherd.

In the next post, I intend to lead us to the application of these truths to our pastoral mandate.

And why so? I know someone is wondering.

The church is composed of goats and transformed goats.

Do you realise that the same crowd that screamed, ‘crucify Him’ was the same one that was earlier seeking to make Him king by force?

Do you realise that Judas was with Jesus since the start of His public ministry?

Remember Jesus teaching about wheat and tares?

It is therefore important for the minister to be effective whether it is sheep or goats he is entrusted with, especially because goats always want to be close to sheep. And of course because his ministry should serve as a gateway for goats to be transformed into sheep. 

Jesus is not on the Ballot. But the devil is

Jesus is the King of kings and is therefore not looking for positions.

He does not need any expansion to His kingdom since His kingdom encompasses all others since He is the One who created them.

But the devil has been fighting for positions since time immemorial.

That is what caused him to be driven from God’s presence in the first place.

Let me give an example of what I mean.

In the early sixties the USA decided that any faith qualifies in the choice of a leader.

Ten years later a they legalised Molech worship (abortion)

How many innocent children have perished due to that? Multiplied millions.

But not only that. The country has released billions to the whole world to advocate and fund the same.

Regimes have been overthrown that have resisted that agenda

Whoever called America the great Satan was not way off the radar.

Then very recently they made a similar statement that any faith is better than no faith when they elected a Kenyan.

In a few short years, they legalised homosexuality.

But it went beyond that. They started aggressively pushing the same agenda.

Remember him being rebuffed by several African presidents when he tried to push that abomination down our throats.

It is now a crime to call an abomination what God calls it. Gay pride has become more important than speaking truth to sinners since one can be hauled to court for doing so.

Remember many businesses closed and pastors were defrocked because they were deemed as against that agenda. Imagine being fined for refusing to do business and promote agendas that are opposed to what you believe! And you wonder why they insist on being served by people opposed to their abomination. Why not give business to their own people?

You see, freedom of religion and conscience is only valid if it doesn’t paint the devil’s agenda the way God paints it

Satan is on the ballot through the people he has sponsored

And you will be voting for him if you vote for those people. And God will hold you accountable for that vote.

How do I know the devil’s agenda?

Let me look at just one aspect.

The liberal agenda is satanic. So is the feminist.

The first institution the devil targets is the family. And he will do it primarily through hitting at marriage. Forget about church for the moment because the church is comprised of families.

Abortion does not close churches. Abortion promotes sexual liberality and experimentation since the consequences are legally taken care of.

But since sex is also spiritual, the spiritual aspects of the same have no antidote. There are no condoms, contraceptive pills and ARVs for the spiritual aspects of sex.

Those spiritual wounds are carried into the marriage institution but are not visible in the physical. And they are more real and devastating than the visible ones.

How do I know the devil’s candidate?

How do they look at family? What is their family like? How do they look at roles in marriage and family?

As an example, the advisor to a presidential candidate was pouring scorn on another candidate because he had advised his daughter to submit to her husband during her wedding.

If that is not demonic, I want you to show me what is.

A candidate who is proud of divorce and single parenting is a red light because they will later advocate for other abnormal family set ups.

Divorce happens. Single parenthood happens. Just like fractures and malaria happens.

Do we celebrate malaria? Do we celebrate broken bones? Do we celebrate miscarriages?

We should be looking for solutions because we know they are abnormalities, illnesses even.

A single mother needs healing. A divorcee needs healing. Celebrating them is more destructive than ignoring them. It is akin to celebrating someone who has broken a bone by giving him a medal because he is the first in the community or has broken the most bones.

The whole obsession with women leaders being chosen just because they are women is bait from the other side. They are being raised only for the purposes of getting votes. And the rigors of all that campaigning will break a number of families because her role as the ‘fireplace’ of the family will be missing. Expect a few more broken marriages and children after the elections.

All the noise about corruption is a smoke screen to cover up real issues. We have known all of them from all the sides for a long time and none can claim they are clean. So, ignore that noise.

I will repeat.

Jesus is not on the ballot. But the devil is.

Choose prayerfully and wisely.

And even if you realise your own father or brother is being fronted by the other side, reject them since your vote is your voice. And God will hold you accountable for that vote. Otherwise, how do you pray for them to see the light of the Gospel if you are endorsing their continual walking in darkness?

I need to also say that the world is leaning towards the anti-Christ. But we need to be on God’s side even more.

Daniel’s friends did not fight against Nebuchadnezzar. But they did not bow to his idol.

Daniel did not start a protest against his colleagues. But he did not join them when they were prostrating to the king.

Being subject to our leaders does not absolve us from our personal responsibility.

Like I said when I was campaigning against the current constitution, it will pass anyway, but my concerns and vote will indicate my spiritual responsibility.

Sadly, the people who trashed the church during that period are behaving as if they now love the church because they know it is a huge constituency. The media that blocked the church from voicing her concerns is now behaving as if they are the ones speaking for the same church.

Do not believe them.

Check their stand on family, sexuality, marriage. That is where the crunch is

I hope I have communicated

Backsliding is not Falling Back into Sin

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. (Revelation 3: 15, 16)

We know about Uzziah. Yet many who think they know about him only know about what happened when he died.

Yet how many know that for the most part he was a godly king?

What then happened?

We are told that he became proud. And that was his downfall because due to it he thought as the sovereign he could as well do some priestly duties.

He did not fall into immorality or other vile vices as we think of backsliding.

What am I saying?

The reality of backsliding is the cooling down of one’s passion for Christ. It is a relaxing of a believer from the rigours of his past soldenness to the causes he held very dear. It is a lethargy towards disciplines he pursued relentlessly in the past. It is a logical explanation for one’s lack of fire for the things of God. It is a looking down of people pursuing God with your past passion.

I can be doing everything right. My spiritual CV might be overflowing with all the right qualifications for ministry. My ministry output might be recognised the world over for its impact.

But my heart may have cooled off from my love for Christ and what He stands for.

I might easily explain it as maturity but the reality is that I have lost my passion for the things of God.

I am simply using the momentum I created when my heart was afire. But I have no new energy to propel me higher.

David didn’t backslide when he slept with Bathsheba.

That sin was the fruit of his backsliding.

The clearest indicator of his backsliding was staying home in the season kings went out to war. And I believe even that was a symptom as the backsliding must have started much earlier.

Yet I think Hezekiah gives us the clearest of this

Remember he was a very good and godly king.

Then he was told that the time of his death had come.

That is when we see his backslidden state, not his backsliding.

I deserve better, is what he was telling God

He was propelling his life using his past godliness and using it to bargain with God.

Grace has slipped away.

It is no wonder that we see pride consuming him once his bargain bears fruit.

Yet the clearest evidence of his backsliding can be seen in the fruit of his backslidden state.

He raised Manasseh in that state.

No where in the Bible do we see Hezekiah falling into sin.

His life went on as it had been before. Only his heart had thawed against God.

And that is what Manasseh caught since our children will catch our spirit instead of our actions and words.

Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. (Revelation 2:4)

You read that context of this verse and will not fail to see the ‘accolades’ Jesus heaped on the church in Ephesus.

They were doing everything right. They were defending the doctrine very nicely. Their outward was perfect.

But their heart had lost its fire.

And that to God was falling.

We love saying God sees the heart. Only that we do not really behave or run with that confession.

Why do I say that?

There are things we do in secret that we will be ashamed of if people knew that we do them. There are sites we visit on the net that we would be ashamed of if everybody knew we visit them. There are thoughts and attitudes we maintain and we know they are not right because nobody can access our thoughts or hearts.

Doing ministry because we must do it is an indicator of a backslidden state. Serving God because my support comes from that is also an indicator.

In short, doing all the right things is not any indicator that God is pleased with what I am doing because He sees the heart, the source and motivation of everything I do or think.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7: 21 – 23)

I had to fix those verses somewhere.

And it is because they clearly exemplify what I have been saying.

One thing I love with Paul was his motivation

For the love of Christ constraineth us; (2Corinthians 5:14a)

His passion for Christ was unfazed by nothing until he was martyred.

How backslidden are you?

New, Not Improved Creation

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (2Corinthians 5:17)

I have some goats.

Incidentally, they have been opening my eyes to a lot of scripture understanding as I have been taking care of them.

I want us to look at one aspect, the difference between them and sheep. And it came alive as I was herding those few goats.

I never realised how different goats are from sheep.

Did you realise that goats do not eat grass?

You see, goats are browsers and not grazers like sheep and cows.

They therefore feed on shrubbery and eat grass when there is nothing better. And even then they prefer the flowery part of the grass when it is there.

This single fact explains so much about the goat’s behaviour.

Due to the fact that a goat samples everything it comes across to be able to get the nutrition it requires, it is very difficult for it to be constrained to a pasture or shepherd.

Goats nit-pick their food, not eat mouthfuls at any time.

They also must verify what they eat through their noses. I think it is not wrong to call them nosy.

When we were evicted from our father’s land because he was in the Mau Mau, a number of our sheep died after consuming a certain plant where we moved.

Yet I never saw the same with goats. And now that I am taking care of them can understand why.

Goats sniff everything before consuming it, however succulent it may appear.

Goats are suspicious by nature. And they know they are in the wrong always. Shout and a goat must look at you and stop whatever it is doing. It is not the same with sheep and cows which will stop only when they are moving.

Why all these stories? I know someone is wondering.

Christ did not come to make us better goats. He came to transform us from goats to sheep.

There is no way you can improve a goat to even remotely be like a sheep. They are DIFFERENT, completely different species.

A sheep simply is. A goat is aiming at something, especially something beyond its reach since that is where the most succulent fare is.

Place food on the ground and a goat will eat very little and trample the rest. Place the same in a place they can barely reach and they will eat it to the last bit without wastage

A goat is always looking for better pasture, never content with what it has. A goat is restless. However much it has eaten, it will behave as if it is starved if it sees something resembling food.

To a sheep, a shepherd is the guide since sheep trust him. To the goat, the shepherd is the limiter.

You take that to the spiritual and you realise what Christ came to do.

Adamic nature is goatish. New life in Christ is sheepish.

Salvation is therefore the transformation from one nature to another, not improvement of the goatish nature to make it sheepish.

And this explains some things people complain about.

Like why do ministers kids become children of Belial? Why do missionary kids hate mission work?

You see, growing among sheep may make a goat behave like a sheep and think that it is a sheep.

Once you remove them from the environment, their true nature manifests and they will start behaving who they are.

A minister’s kid is as goatish as the kid raised in a brothel. It is the environment that constrains him from releasing that goatish nature.

It means that a minister’s child must encounter Christ just as the one in the brothel for them to become sheep, God’s sheep.

The reason we hear of ministers behaving badly is many times because they did not give Christ their nature to transform. They may have subscribed to some dogmas and of course entered into an environment that made them think they were sheep.

Then they saw an exposed thigh or breast and their goatish nature exploded. Then they saw an opportunity for easy cash and their goatish nature exploded.

Growing and living with sheep is no insurance against goatishness.

Only Christ’s transformational salvation can. And it does so by replacing the goatish nature with a sheepish one.

This makes it possible for the former goat to be content with following the shepherd and listening to Him. It makes it possible for the former rebel to relax in the provision of the Shepherd.

Let me give an application.

A goat reads the Bible to look for excuses to do what they want.

When you hear a believer asking where in the Bible polygamy or smoking is condemned, please know that you are dealing with a goat since a goat is never satisfied with boundaries.

The drive for better prospects, greener pastures, greater and bigger things is many times an indicator for a goat. Discontent is the driving force in goats whereas rest is the preserve of sheep.

Goats fear the rod. It will jump over any obstacle to escape punishment.

Incidentally it is not only punishment. Hold a stick and a goat will run away.

If you hear someone who got saved some time ago saying that they got saved to escape hell, I think it is a clear indicator that their goatish nature still reigns. They came to escape hell but didn’t take the nature that escape required.

It is the same with the person who is sexually pure because they are scared of the consequences or are honest for fear of being caught.

The reality is that their good is really a cover for their goatish nature. Or it is their argument of being sheep.

A sheep does not fear the rod since it follows the shepherd.

Look at our preaching.

Give so that this or the other happens or does not happen.

That is fare for goats.

Sheep will give out of their love and trust in their shepherd. They do not give to attract a reward or avoid punishment.

Or those people who attend and get involved in church so that they can get a church burial or access church goodies. These are goats and the ones who preach such nonsense are also goats.

Heaven and hell, real as they are, are not the primary reasons Christ calls us to Himself.

God did not create man to escape hell.

He created man to have fellowship with Him.

It is the goatish nature activated by the fall that brought heaven and hell in the picture. But it did not make them the focus of God’s redemptive agenda.

And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. (Revelation 21:3)

Keeping up with the joneses is also the evidence of a goat nature.

Give goats each their own pasture and they will all be running at each other’s pile. It will bite here and run off to bite at the other pile the whole day.

Tether a goat and the grass will be eaten at the extremities since a goat thinks that what is unreachable is better than what is easily available.

We will look at other aspects of this topic.

Are you a sheep or goat?

 

Saltless Salt

Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. (Matthew 5:13)

There is a contextual element in revelation.

We will many times fail to understand scriptures because we seek to interpret in our context, leaving many gaps in our understanding.

The verse above has bothered me for as long as I have read or heard it taught.

How does salt lose its saltiness?

I have never even heard of a situation where salt can lose its savour.

You see, we are in the age of refined salt. Even for those who encounter unprocessed, it is from the sea and so is almost pure.

A pastor the other day in preaching gave me the context of the verse. And this solved my life long dilemma of sorts.

People far from the sea in the past had no easy way to get salt.

Let me get us closer home.

Heard of salt pans?

These are places where the soil is very salty. Animals wild and domestic will flock there to lick that saltiness.

But people do not lick salt. They prepare and preserve food with it.

What did they do to get salt from that salty ground?

They would take chunks of the same and soak it in water. Then they would strain it probably by some cloth and the water coming out would be salty for their use.

They would repeat the same whenever they needed salt.

But eventually the saltiness would disappear as the salt would be exhausted.

That is the context of our verse.

It thus means that salt does not lose its saltiness through a chemical reaction like exposure to the elements.

Salt loses its saltiness by being used.

In short salt loses its savour through overuse.

That is what Christ was talking about. And that is what I want us to look at.

We do not lose our saltiness by sinning since sinning simply indicates that we really were not salt in the first place. We do not have the right makeup to be salt.

And this because salt is not something we display but something whose sweetness or impact we experience.

We lose our saltiness by stretching our saltiness without replenishing the same.

You see, we are not naturally salt. God through Christ has given us that nature.

And since that is not a chemical change, we must continually be connected to our source to continue being salt.

Though in salvation we become new creation, it is a creation that must be feeding on the source to remain new.

That is why Christ talked about us being branches of the vine that is Him.

We must be feeding on Him for us to effectively feed others

In short, we must be getting our saltiness from Him.

We lose our saltiness when we are more interested in releasing the salt we have than accessing the salt we receive from Christ since we will be strained saltless.

It is when we are drained of our saltiness that our proclivity to sin gains the ground.

In simple terms, it is when we continue ministering without the increase of our expansion of the closet that we gradually lose our saltiness.

Then we become like salt without its savour as Jesus said.

Then we become useless to the kingdom, totally useless.

Do not be shocked when you see these verses as you will always see when I teach.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7: 22, 23)

I dare say that they ministered without releasing adequate salt, probably because their level of salt intake was overtaken by the level of their salt output. They therefore gave until they had no salt left.

Then sadly, due to the accolades or rewards their new ‘saltiness’ continued attracting, they did not think it mattered whether they were connected to the source

They therefore continued to thrive without the source of their salt, eventually giving out a completely different savour.

God does not expect us to create salt. He does not expect us to produce salt from ourselves.

He simply wants us to allow Him to saturate His salt in us so that we can produce it when we are squeezed or strained[GM1] .

Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another. (Mark 9:50)

 

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 [GM1] 

It is Radical or It is not Obedience

And ye shall make no league with the inhabitants of this land; ye shall throw down their altars: but ye have not obeyed my voice: why have ye done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you; but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you. (Judges 2: 2, 3)

Have you realised that just about enough and almost enough is not enough?

Do you realise that any command from God has to be carried out to its conclusion or it is not obedience?

That is what I want us to look at today.

Why must it have to be extreme to be acceptable?

A small slip has the capacity to water down the almost complete obedience.

Israel was commanded to clear Canaan of her inhabitants as a condition to their settling in the land.

But it was not so straightforward to them.

You see, some had superior weapons (iron chariots) while others were in fortified abodes.

What was wrong with slowly weakening them before dealing with them? I am sure many opined thus.

They were therefore unable (unwilling?) to go the whole hog as far as dispossessing the occupiers of the Promised Land was concerned.

What then happens?

The abhorred will neighbour the blessed. To the rebellious (supposedly with their heart at the right place) start fetching water with the condemned from the same wells. They start sharing the same bushes for wood. They start sharing the same grazing fields with their animals.

Of course they will start talking since they are social beings.

This will then lead to them sharing more than things.

They will share in culture. They will share in language. They will share in relationships and marriage. Ultimately, they will share in worship.

This will result in the blessed being condemned as a result of those associations.

That comes out clearly when we read the book of Judges.

All because of an innocent oversight, a little slip.

Or was it?

Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: And ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein: for I have given you the land to possess it. And ye shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance: every man's inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit. But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell. Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them. (Numbers 33: 51 – 56)

The command was clear, very clear.

Arguing about the implementation of the same was the problem. Explaining the reluctance or difficulty of ‘literal’ obedience was the reason the Canaanite was left, albeit in small numbers.

But that was as against the commandment as would have been had they completely ignored the commandment.

Would there be a difference between drinking a sip of poison and swallowing a whole jug of the same?

That is how God sees it.

There are no different levels of obedience. It is complete or it is disobedience.

The world has tried to make us dread the word radical. Yet in the sphere of obedience that is the only obedience God recognises.

And I have explained why partial obedience is so intolerable to God because He sees where it all heads to.

The consequences of partial obedience are probably more destructive that outright disobedience.

Do you realise that there was grace for Manasseh and none for Saul, for example?

Manasseh was lost, completely so. But Saul was on the borderline and not ‘exactly’ disobedient.

Don’t you realise he waited, and he killed the Amalekites? Are there no marks for trying?

With God there aren’t.

What am I aiming at?

Do we debate and rationalise what the Bible says? Do we look for explanations when we are looking to be on the right side of the Good Book?

Do we treat God’s commandments as suggestions as even some modern Bibles have been translated to say?

Do we trust God so completely that we will walk on our heads if He says so?

Caleb walked for forty years with the rebellious Israelites, but his case was different because his response to the spying mission was as radical as God required.

No wonder forty-five years later he was as strong as he had been after spying while all his peers had been dead and buried long before then. He could even ask for permission, not support, to tackle the giants that were the reason for the forty years punishment.

I hope you get me.

As usual I will place these verses I always quote.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7: 21 – 23)

I hope you realise that they are not going to hell for not doing. They are going because they did not do exactly what they had been commanded.

Impactful Teaching

And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. (John 7: 15, 16)

Why was Jesus’ teaching so powerful?

And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. (Matthew 7: 28, 29)

I was thinking about what makes some preachers impactful and others, well, just preachers, and entertainers, and motivators.

Why does one preacher who looks and sounds boring draw more believers to desire and commit to grow while another with the gift of the garb not have much impact.

Why does a preacher who is so rough and ‘ignorant’ in his delivery make people flock to the cross in repentance while the really entertaining has crowds shouting, I receive and uncountable Amens yet still wallowing in sin?

What was the difference between Jesus and the religious leaders of His time?

What gave His teaching authority that the others did not have?

I dare say that that reason is the same between impactful preachers and the rest.

It has to do with agenda.

You see, Jesus had no agenda of His own. He did what He saw His Father doing. He said what He heard His Father saying.

Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. (John 7:16)

He was submitted to the One who had sent Him.

And we will be like Him if we surrendered our everything to the One who has called us.

Our lack of impact stems from our agenda.

You see, only God’s agenda releases the power inherent in His nature.

Though we may be able to conjure His power at one time or the other for our purpose, we really will be unable to have all His powerful revelation accompanying our ministry if we are not sold out to His agenda.

For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)

We must give him the prominence He deserves, no, possesses, if we must have Him taking prominence in our ministrations.

What I am saying is that our agenda must be swallowed into His COMPLETELY for Him to give our agenda the power Christ possessed.

Then our wisdom will be the overflow of His. Our anointing will be flowing from His.

No wonder then that people will think of us as very educated though they will be wondering where we got that much education since they did not see us receiving letters.

I have encountered people who taught themselves to read just because they had to read the Bible.

You hear their preaching and are amazed at their grasp of the word, and many other issues since God’s knowledge’s purpose is to make a sense of all things since He is the creator of everything. His revelation is therefore contextual to all of life and nature.

In short, I am saying that the person sold out to God’s agenda will reach the heart a person most adrift with psychological, social and current affairs knowledge won’t.

God created the heart. All these other things defiled and corrupted that heart and so have no capacity to offer any solution to the same.

That is the impact I am talking about.

His agenda is not complicated since His revelation is not complicated.

He has hidden His revelation in His word; the same word that contains the revelation of who He is.

Once we elevate His word, we will then humbly allow it to guide us into a right relationship with Him.

Then we will know to clearly submit to His will (agenda).

This will of course give Him leeway to release His impact through us.

If you think this is easy because it is simple, try doing it. You will be amazed at the kind of power your life will be releasing the more you surrender your will into His.