When Prayer becomes Sweet

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil. (Ecclesiastes 5:1)

Allow me to say at the outright that I am writing this, not as the warning the verse seems to say, but as an encouragement to pray aright.

This is because we have been inundated with the teaching that prayer is simply a request transaction, for the most part.

Most believers therefore think of prayer only in terms of requesting this or the other.

That is why even fasting becomes vain for most part; because people will only fast because of one crisis or the other, one great need or the other.

But requests are the lowest rung on the ladder called prayer.

Everybody will proudly confess that prayer is communication with God.

But very few really care to examine what that communication entails. Very few care to examine what communication even is.

You see, communication is different from announcing. Communication is different from broadcasting.

Those two are one way disposal of information.

Communication is a two-way exchange of information at the very basic level.

And that basic level does not come anywhere close to what prayer is. Because prayer is communion at its root.

Communion is the whole purpose of prayer.

We see that even when we look at the heathen faiths.

Priests were people who were able to speak and hear from the divine, whichever divine they worshiped.

They went with a sacrifice and plea and came back with an answer and a word.

That we neglect that simple aspect at a time when God has released His Spirit to make communion even sweeter speaks very badly of our practice of faith.

As I have said, requests are the lowest run of prayer. We may call it the introductory aspect of prayer, probably the place where mortal man can approach the divine.

And it is not sin to have requests and pleas.

But it is very sad if that is where one stops because there is so much more for us in prayer,

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: (Matthew 7:7)

Asking is the starting point, not the destination.

But stopping there makes us leeches, sad to say.

The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give. (Proverbs 30:15a)

These are not my words. But they represent what many people associate with prayer.

We must therefore get beyond that to something better.

At the next verse is seeking, taking some responsibility in prayer.

I know I have a post on prayer, especially on Matthew 7:7 and so will not dwell on that.

The highest point in prayer is the knocking.

Why do we knock?

We knock because we are interested in the person behind that door.

Incidentally, we do not knock with an agenda.

We knock for the purpose of fellowship, communion.

I have also written about the mercy seat, also leaning toward that point.

At that point, we are not interested with what the person behind the door has and can do for us.

We are interested in Him.

We wat to spend time with Him on His terms.

We want to fellowship with Him, again on His terms.

As we were asking, we got to know about His capability to provide.

As we were seeking, we got to know about His wisdom and trustworthiness in guidance

In growing through those aspects, we have gotten to know Him and love Him and completely trust Him.

We have also realised that He seeks to allow us to know Him even more and has even made an invitation on the same.

That is why we are knocking that door.

We want to have fellowship, communion with Him.

That communion does not stop Him being a provider or guide.

It is the pinnacle of those qualities He has.

It makes Him even more because it makes Him a friend since a friend who provides will do a better job of provision than anybody else just as eating at a loving home is better than eating at the best restaurant alone.

Better is a dry morsel, and quietness therewith, than an house full of sacrifices with strife. (Proverbs 17:1)

Now imagine a party with the ultimate fellowship!

That is where growth in prayer takes us.

This means that if you are content just to be taking your requests to God, you are losing so much because you are at the lowest rungs.

That is why you can’t see much because it is only at higher rungs that you can see the stretch of even that provision you are seeking.

A few examples are in order.

Remember Moses and his double forty days without eating or drinking anything?

Did he lose weight? Did he come famished? Did he come crying for food or water?

He came glowing with the glory of that communion.

Remember he many times did not require to pray to know what God wanted?

That communion had so united him with God and His agenda that he more or less knew how God would react to situations like when he told Aaron to run out because the plague had already started.

From observation we know that people who are always together in communion start behaving and even looking alike.

Isn’t that what God is looking for in us as we commune with Him in prayer?

Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? (John 14:9)

That is what communion in prayer produces, likeness.

No wonder Moses started glowing after his communion with ultimate glory.

It is therefore evident that if prayer is not transformational in terms of producing a likeness to God in attributes, it has not become the prayer God is expecting from us.

I always argue against the common mantra that prayer changes things because my experience in prayer has always changed me before it changes things.

The prayer that changes things before changing me is more or less like witchcraft, though even in witchcraft the practitioner is also transformed into the wickedness the practice commands.

That is why Jesus asked us to look for the fruit when assessing whoever is calling himself His servant.

How much like God are they? How holy are they? How do they relate with sin and sinners?

On the part of sin and sinners we see God loving sinners yet completely opposed to sin, whoever is practicing it.

He draws sinners to Himself, yet fights righteous hypocrites until they had to kill Him.

That is what communion in prayer will produce in us, a likeness with His nature.

But there is something important we must get to know.

That progression is not automatic.

Someone can be in the asking position all their lives while another is able to get into that communion a few weeks after their conversion.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

How hungry one is for that communion will determine how easily they are able to access it

Samuel could hear God’s voice in his childhood whereas Eli couldn’t though he was in his nineties.

David could hear it when facing the giant that the army was running away from.

Another important aspect we must handle is the reality that that communion must be maintained for it to thrive.

Sin will always break it. Meaning that for us to maintain the communion we must have a relationship with sin that God has.

Remember that even David who had maintained that communion for long had to seek the restoration of the same?

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah. (Psalm 32: 3 – 5)

God seeks that communion.

How responsive are we to that desire of His?

Fear, Idolatry’s Gateway

For so it was, that the children of Israel had sinned against the LORD their God, which had brought them up out of the land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and had feared other gods, (2Kings 17:7)

This word fear stood out in my Bible reading.

And it was so stark that I stopped and went into the study mode to understand the force at which God had opened it up for me.

What does fear evoke?

How does terrorism operate?

We will most times submit to what we fear.

We know the common maxim, if you can’t beat them, join them.

Fear leads one to submit to the object of that fear.

Many bullies are cowards who use the bullying to cover for their feelings of inferiority. That is their response to fear.

That is why it is very difficult to speak sense to them; unless you are willing to deal with their insecurities.

Allow me therefore to get back to our topic.

Israel was unwilling to completely wipe out the Canaanites, probably because they thought it was too demanding or dangerous. But in time they thought that they had been unable to deal with them as God had ordered.

And why were they to be destroyed?

It was their worship and what it produced.

It is very possible that they thought that they had been unable to wipe them out because they had the protection of those gods.

As a result, they thought those gods were powerful, probably too powerful for their God.

Surely gods able to stop the God who dried the Red Sea and the Jordan must be very powerful. This is what they may have thought.

That then led them to slowly by slowly, not only refuse to deal with their enemies as they had been commanded, but to even express hostility to them. Because they feared those gods.

As days went by, the few people who had the experience of the God of Israel died, leaving generations who had only heard of His dealings with His people.

But those gods were ever present, showing off at any and every opportunity.

Testimonies slowly became folk tales and the scriptures, even when they were read, became stories.

Or you do not remember Gideon’s questions to the angel who had been sent to him?

Eventually, those gods became more real than their ‘fictitious and absent’ deity.

Do you remember the response of his community to his destruction of those idolatrous shrines to build God an altar?

Are you getting me thus far?

My main point is that nobody just jumps into idolatry. They are groomed into it.

Look at witchcraft.

From my upbringing and culture, I trashed witchcraft because I knew it did not exist.

It is when I started to read the Bible that I realised its reality before I had ever had any encounter with it.

That education introduced me to witchcraft positively because I knew that the God I serve is incomparable to it in any way. I therefore do not fear witchcraft though I know and have even seen (probably heard) of its potency.

Now take this person who is a cultural Christian (if that is an acceptable term) who sees someone eating grass because he stole something and the owner took him to a witch.

He will not look at witchcraft with my eyes at all.

It will arouse intense dread in him because he has had no real relationship with God and so has never encountered or even seen God in action.

Do you think he will go to a prayer meeting when something of his gets lost? Do you think he will go to church when someone threatens him with witchcraft?

His default settings will easily lean towards the power he can see as opposed to the one he has only heard about.

That is what happened to Israel.

You see, the devil is the master of advertisement and publicity.

He loves to show off at all times because he knows that is the only way he is able to access followers.

But God never shows off though He is omnipotent.

That is why Jesus was always fighting with the people around Him.

They wanted Him to display His power. He used His power to minister to His people, even telling them never to report the same.

But allow me to set this right.

At the back of that fear is disobedience and/ or rebellion.

Nobody fears who is walking aright with God.

And I will use the Bible to demonstrate it.

Saul has sinned and been rejected. And you can see fear in him from that point.

But Jonathan, his son, is rightly connected to God.

At the time Israel is more or less hiding from the Philistines we see him visiting them

And Jonathan said to the young man that bare his armour, Come, and let us go over unto the garrison of these uncircumcised: it may be that the LORD will work for us: for there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few. (1Samuel 14:6)

He does not doubt God’s power because he has a right relationship with Him.

And he is able to deal them a very hard blow, even turning the battle on its head.

The other person is Caleb.

And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. (Numbers 13:30)

He confidently votes against the unanimous decision of his colleagues and community, even when they want to stone him for that daring.

And we have the young David when he faced Goliath.

What I am saying is that at the back of that fear there must be sin. Fear is introduced by someone doing what God has forbidden or refusing to do what He has ordered or said.

What this means is that when one is walking with God, ultimate power will be backing him.

I will give a story I was told that might speak for probably the success of most missions’ endeavours.

Missionaries approached a tribe and were received well by the elders.

But the elders had no interest at all with the religion they were introducing because they had their own.

However, as we know of Africans, their hospitality is on another level.

It means that though they were opposed to the new religion, they could not reject their offer or refuse their request to spread it.

They therefore came out with an ingenious solution when the missionaries requested for a piece of land to set up their mission station, giving them the most dangerous place, a place where devils were said to roam at will, a place no sane person except the greatest wizards would dare visit or even pass through. Their decision guided by the reality that the demons will hound them out in no time from their domain.

interestingly, the missionaries thrived in that place.

The result was that even the elders were converted to Christianity, reasoning that a God who could protect those fools was way stronger than the one they served. And the mission still thrives, to date.

That is what happened to Daniel and his three young friends in captivity.

I am writing this to let us know that this message is not negative. It only becomes negative when we depart from the straight and narrow.

Fear is therefore an indicator that all is not well in our relationship with God.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. (2Timothy 1:7)

Yet that fear is all pervading.

I have been to places where people dare not eat even their relatives’ cooking because they fear being bewitched or poisoned, which is more or less the same thing.

Yet they still profess faith in God, the same God who promises that we will eat poison and it will not harm us.

Yet in those same communities you will find radicals (called fools) who will trash all that fear and thrive in their faith.

As I was writing this I heard of an incident where I stay.

Some people were going to work when they encountered a huge snake.

When they picked stones to kill it raised its head and looked at them before speaking, declaring its owner.

They fled like lunatics.

I have heard of hippos walking through crowds harmlessly, people saying that probably its owner overslept and forgot to order it back to the river or dam.

But this is the place God has sent me to.

The reality of witchcraft has no capacity to dull or weaken the assignment God brought me here to perform. Because it might be the reason God brought me here.

I am therefore not afraid or even threatened by it.

There are spiritual battles I am fighting that I know require my opponents to visit those places to seek power to deal with me. There are even times God wakes me to pray and I can sense some spiritual activity in the atmosphere.

But I know nothing can touch me when God has covered me.

But the dynamic of sin will alter that reality immediately since I cannot count on God’s protection when I am not walking with Him. It will change if I for one reason or the other look for a plan B on God’s orders.

That is what happened to Saul.

And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land: wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die? And Saul sware to her by the LORD, saying, As the LORD liveth, there shall no punishment happen to thee for this thing. (1Samuel 28: 9, 10)

Before his sin, he ruthlessly sought to clear witchcraft out of Israel. After his sin, he earnestly promised protection to a witch in desperation to hear from God.

What I am saying in this post is that we will veer into idolatry and in many other sins and perversions when we lower our obedience quotient, not by deciding to be so.

It is a journey whose first step is disobedience that leads to sin that, if not repented of, will lead to rebellion.

Then, idolatry, witchcraft, homosexuality, and any other abomination will be almost automatic because of our fear of facing the God we know we have offended.

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion. (Proverbs 28:1)

Are we together?

Or do you think there is another reason for the fear that plagues believers? 

Elementals

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)

We love and fear the truth in this verse in equal measure. But I think there is more of fear than love. And that because the reality inherent in the same is scary, to say the least.

But have we ever sought to understand our Lord’s statement? Have we sought to internalise the message it contains? Have we sought to interrogate its implications on our daily lives?

What is God’s kingdom? What is God’s righteousness?

Therein lies the purpose and focus of this verse.

Understanding them is what will open us to the release it promises.

What is a kingdom?

It is an entity that has a king at its head.

OHMS (On His Majesty’s Service) describes the relationships the subjects have with their king.

In short, everybody and everything exists for the purposes and pleasure of the king in his realm.

Allow me, however, to share a common story to get us into the right ‘spirit’

There was this happily married couple, married for many years.

On their silver jubilee, as befits the occasion, the husband decides to serve his wife, besides other celebratory accessories.

But the wife, on seeing what was being served burst out into tears.

I can’t imagine all the spite you have allowed me to suffer all these years. Why do you remind me this on this great day? The wife screamed.

To say the husband was surprised would be an understatement.

What have I done? And what is this indignity I have subjected you to for twenty-five years?

The cause was very simple.

All the time, the husband used to butter the crust of the bread for his wife.

Where the husband came from, the crust was the best part of the bread and everybody fought for it.

On the wife’s side, however, the same crust was the worst, being treated like reject.

Whereas the husband thought he was giving his wife the best, even surrendering that best for the enjoyment of his wife, the wife thought that he was demeaning her by serving her the reject.

Incidentally, many marriages fail for such simple things

Allow me to flip this like Paul used to do and say that this is about the church and Christ, or about the relationship of a believer to God.

You see, we all love God. Or do we?

But do we care to know what kind of service we can give Him? Do we even care to know how He expects us to live? Do we know what acceptable service is like?

You see, just as in marriage your best effort might be construed to be the worst insult, it could just be that what you are offering God could be abominable to Him.

Saul was condemned and rejected for two things.

He sought to intreat God with a sacrifice when the priest delayed.

And second, he saved the best animals to give to God as a sacrifice.

Of course, his final act was fuelled by a desperation to hear God’s take on things, eventually seeking a familiar spirit to do so.

Is there anything wrong with offering a sacrifice before going to war?

Is there anything wrong with giving God the best?

Is there anything wrong with being desperate for God’s voice?

Of course not.

The only problem with those good things was that they went against God’s revelation.

They therefore became acts of rebellion.

We will many times hear arguments around someone’s heart being in the right place.

But the reality is that it does not matter where the heart is.

You simply cannot please someone on your terms. You cannot offer them pleasure on your terms.

And that is what Saul sought to do, something we do all the time.

And in marriage that is disastrous because a continual persistence on the same becomes irritation.

Allow me to give another story to illustrate this.

A rich man had a huge tree on his compound. And the same tree shed very many leaves on a daily basis.

He employed a worker whose duty was to ensure that there were no leaves under the tree.

After working that job for some time, this guy became ingenious and dealt with that menace conclusively. He cut the tree down.

When his boss came back, he was beaming, expecting a great reward for his forward thinking move.

Do you think he was rewarded?

Of course not. And it was simply because he had presumed his boss, serving him very creatively, but on his terms.

Again, we do that all the time in our marriages and faith, thinking that we will be applauded for our inventiveness.

We think that God really needs us, the same way many in marriage think that their partner would be unable to live without them.

Did God create man to complete Himself? Of course not.

Did God create Eve to complete Adam? Of course not

He actually took something out of Adam to create Eve

The word God used for the woman was helpmeet, a suitable helper.

Not an assistant, not a supervisor, not a vision bearer; just a suitable helper.

By the time Eve was brought, Adam had already named the animals and received his orders concerning how he would exercise dominion over creation.

And this still concerns the kingdom.

Do you realise that almost all of Christ’s parables and lessons were about kings and kingdoms?

It means that the issue of God’s kingdom ranked very highly in His scheme of things.

Even the Gospel is called the Gospel of the kingdom.

Allow me to look at some of those parables.

Remember the parable of the talents?

I do not know whether you realise that the wicked servant was more prudent and watchful over his lord’s resources.

You see, putting money to work opens you to the probability of losing it since even farming is no sure investment as I remember I lost all my money due to the El Nino floods of ’97. Businesses fail all the time.

This character feared to suffer loss if he put the king’s money to use, especially since he did not know when the king would be back.

The only problem was that he forgot the order he had been given, occupy till I come.

He was not told to ensure that the gift multiplied or even increased. He was only ordered to put it into use.

The profit and loss dynamic of that occupy was not his responsibility.

That is why the ones who occupied were rewarded irrespective of how much they produced.

He was punished for refusing to obey the king’s order.

I am sure he would not have been punished had he put the money to use and experienced loss.

Let us examine another parable to glean a few other things about God’s kingdom.

Remember the parable of the steward who was being sacked for impropriety?

Does it not surprise you that his cunning was commended by his lord?

This guides us to another aspect of the kingdom.

His boss commended him, not because he reduced the debts owed to the king but because he exhibited the ethos of his kingdom.

A king does not trade for the purposes of profit since everything and everyone in his kingdom belongs to him.

Apart from expanding his kingdom, nothing else excites a king than satisfied subjects.

And as believers we fail in this big time because we forget that simple truth.

Ministers fail because they look at their occupation or even calling as jobs to earn a living or run a spiritual enterprise. That is why pastors are nowadays called CEOs of churches.

That is why churches and ministries are closed for the simple reason that they have become ‘insolvent’.

A pastor who is unable to grow his congregation is called a failure since he does not have adequate return on investment.

We forget that Jeremiah ministered for over forty years and had nothing to show for it.

I will develop this farther in future posts.

I realise I am constrained in some way since my children are home from school and so I am not able to sufficiently build on this in time.

Incidentally, that is the parental dynamic that we should be prudent about since we are accountable to God for how we run it.

 

 

Hopeless Hopes

We are still on the message of God becoming quiet.

Incidentally, He did not go silent only on king Saul.

The Bible is replete with example and another of the same happening.

Hezekiah and Asa are other examples.

Today, however, I want us to look at instances where God appears to break that rule.

Who was Ahab?

The Bible records him as the most wicked king Israel ever had.

Yet we see God pursuing him again and again.

But that was not favouritism.

And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly. And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house. (1Kings 21: 27 – 29)

God knew that Ahab’s heart had a soft spot for His message, a spot that his continued wickedness had almost extinguished.

That is why He pursued him.

Another person is also known as the most wicked king Judah had, the king whose wickedness had ensured that Judah goes to captivity. He was the king whose sin made God to tell Jeremiah not to pray for his people because Manasseh had sealed their case.

And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God. (2Chronicles 33: 12, 13)

Again, we see the same thing.

This hopeless character had some flicker of hope, a flicker that God in His awesomeness could not overlook.

Whereas God completely stopped from interacting with Saul and these other kings after their sin, these despicable sinners seemed always to have God’s eye on them.

Why is that so? I know many are wondering.

It boils on a simple truth. The difference between sin and rebellion.

For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins (Hebrews 10:26)

It boils down to the state of our hearts.

Sin might be intentional and blatant. Rebellion is defiance.

Though they may appear similar, to God they are as difference as that between light and darkness.

You may remember that it was the reason that all adults who left Egypt died in the wilderness so that they do not enter the promised land.

And it was the same reason some characters were swallowed by the earth, among many other occurrences in the scriptures.

Knowing God’s will and choosing NOT to do it is what rebellion is all about.

Not knowing God’s will makes God appear lenient on us. However, choosing NOT to know God’s will may be worse than actual rebellion because it is seeking to forestall revelation.

It is akin to throwing away a map so that you can truly say that you got lost because you did not know the way.

I hope I am not making things more complicated.

It is important, however, to bring out the distinction between Hezekiah, Asa, Saul, and Manasseh and Ahab.

One side had clear orders that they disobeyed while the other was born in an environment of rebellion. One chose to do wrong while the other simply grew the sin they were part of.

In short, we can say that one knew the right and chose to disobey while the other only had sin to work with.

That is why they responded in ways that pleased God though the judgment due to their actions was not removed since as we know God must judge sin.

At the surface it appears as if God is unfair since He pursues the most wicked even as He completely refuses to speak to someone who appears to have a relationship with Him.

Spiting revelation, however, is most abominable to God because it seeks to slight Him. It seeks to demean Him to just a friend or, like we say in out language, our agemate.

That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Genesis 18:25)

That is why God must reveal His will even to the most wicked. That is why He must extend His love to the most despicable.

Because many times they will very easily respond very positively to His invitation.

Remember Jesus and His relationships in His earthly ministry? Who was the most responsive to His message?

It was the Ahabs and Manassehs of those days. It was the harlots and tax collectors. It was the Samaritans and the Romans.

Even as the religious right was always fighting Him.

The ones without the light ran towards the light that Christ possessed even as the ones who seemed to have the light scorned Him.

Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth. (John 9:41)

Someone who has been exposed to the light bears greater responsibility for their response for it than the one without that exposure.

Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment. (James 3:1 WEB)

Allow me to bring another shocking verse for our consideration.

Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. (Matthew 21:31b)

What am I trying to get across?

We are accountable for the light we have accessed.

A misuse of that light will make God go silent on us even as He continues reaching out to the ones we have trashed in our self righteousness; the drug addicts, the tramps, the murderers and the characters Christ mentioned in that verse.

Or have we forgotten that we still have harlots and publicans amongst us?

Incidentally, my definition of a publican is that corrupt and self-seeking public servant; that representative who diverts public funds to his preferred projects, that public spokesperson who only speaks for issues beneficial to him and his circles, that leader who amasses public wealth to feather his retirement nest, that judicial officer who winks at a case involving his friend or supporter.

At the top of that pyramid of publicans you will of course find the ‘Gospel minister’ who will only go to minister where there is commensurate ‘returns’ and who will only pray and bless where his appreciation is guaranteed.

I am writing this as a gospel minister who has been at it for four decades and so know what I am saying.

However, the gospel minister does not strictly fit in the category of publicans but in the silent God team. I write this because most people place them there.

Allow me to stop here since I feel this message has the capacity to extend for a very long time.

But I trust that the message has sunk.

But in closing let me say that we will know where we are as we read and study the scriptures reverently.

When God becomes Quiet

Do you realise that God went completely silent on Saul when he rebelled against Him?

Do you realise that even when he killed a whole city of priests no rebuke was sent his way?

That even when he became so desperate to hear that voice God even then refused to speak to the point that he visited a familiar spiritual medium?

His life is one that demonstrates a great hunger to hear from God and failing to do so. And there are very many instances of that from his story.

I have said enough times that God is not like a radio or TV that is always speaking so that anybody who is listening, even passively, gets the message.

God speaks only to the ear that not only is listening to Him, but is ready to do what He says.

For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. (Isaiah 66:2)

He will never allow someone with such an attitude to fail to hear. He will never allow someone ready to obey to misinterpret His voice.

Has God ordered you to do or not do something?

How has been your response?

That determines whether He will continue to speak or go completely silent on you.

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7: 24 – 27)

What does the Bible say about the way you are living your life?

Are you trembling with obedience or are you, like Saul, looking for clearer orders?

I have just felt the urgency to share this message now.

What you do with it is up to you

Crippling Crutches

What would you rather have between legs and crutches? What would be your preference between prosthetics and the original limbs?

You see, crutches are there to assist injured legs. Prosthetics are there when the actual limbs are absent or have been rendered useless.

They are not essential to their functionality. They are aids in their restoration.

However, we are wont to many times elevate those same crutches to essentiality through the overuse of the same.

Then they will become more essential to walking than the legs whose injury necessitated their usage.

The result is that we render our legs useless because we insist on using those crutches all the time.

Let me use another illustration.

What are tools?

They are the things we use to work better, faster and neater.

But we must not use them.

In our childhood we built many things, even go carts that we would ride downhill at breakneck speeds without any tools like hammers, saws and chisels.

A stone can do the work of a hammer. A shaped nail can do the work of a chisel. And a panga can do the work of a saw.

A Swahili saying goes something like this

The breakage of a cooking stick does not mean the end of cooking.

I am talking about accessories, useful accessories.

But we can very easily make them idols by thinking that there is no life without them.

Allow me to take us to one such tool.

In Kenya, the cooperative movement is a huge thing and has been growing tremendously.

Initially, it started as a means to bring together a few peasants (my word) together and have them pool together the little moneys they could raise to be able to buy some land since most had been dispossessed by the colonialist and the henchmen who took over from him.

And that served many of them very well.

Then it was developed as a means for employees who were not earning much money to be able to save to be able to purchase things they could not otherwise have accessed through their salaries, especially since banks were more interested with the rich men’s money.

It was also a means to introduce some forced discipline to save money since for most it is impossible to not spend money once it gets into their hands, especially with all those needs around.

Again, it has served that purpose quite well.

Due to those successes (and I have intentionally left out the negatives, which are also many), many people have concluded that the cooperative spirit is the only way to progress.

As such, any few people will unite their purses for whatever purpose since it has worked so well over the years.

Until is has become a religion. Until it has become a god.

You will hear some arguments bordering on blasphemy by advocates of those small cooperatives.

Who will bury you if you are not in a chama? How will you buy furniture or land without membership? How will you get married outside a chama?

In short, we have elevated the crutch above the legs it was meant to help heal. We have completely forgotten that we even have any legs.

And that is idolatry.

I hear people complaining about the constraints and unreasonable demands in those groupings and wonder who forces someone to be in such a group.

And it is in death that they are most powerful as they can then make the most punitive demands.

And nobody dare rebel because they also will need to be buried.

One must give what they are told and not what they can afford.

Reminds me of Jesus telling the person who wanted to follow Him to let the dead bury their own dead.

I heard several such members complaining about all those demands and asked them who decides on who gives what and they responded it was the leaders.

Why then was everybody buying what they had been ordered, yet complaining?

The group has transitioned from being a servant to a master like we talk about electricity or money.

It becomes a very hard taskmaster.

But it doesn’t stop there though for the purposes of this ministry I won’t pursue that direction.

Allow me to look at our faith.

I have for very long been preparing Bible Reading plans for those who think that the Bible cannot be just read since it is ‘too big’.

I have several testimonies of people who have been helped tremendously by those reading plans.

But those reading plans are not the Bible.

It would be very sad if someone stopped reading the Bible because their reading plan got lost because it is just a tool to help a believer establish a consistent discipline of reading the Bible.

That person would have elevated the reading plan to an idol that is detestable to God.

Jesus advised us about the prayer closet. And that closet is a very useful tool in our prayer times.

But it is not prayer.

Otherwise, what would you do if you got into a situation where you are unable to get even a few minutes alone for a week? What would you do if in your travel you get to a place where there is nothing even remotely resembling a prayer closet? Why are we ordered to pray without ceasing?

To some it is a prayer shawl or any similar tool.

If the tool whose purpose it is to elevate your relationship with God blocks the relationship when it is absent, it has stopped being a tool but an idol.

I remember once I lived in a place where the watchman was a Muslim who was very serious on his observations.

When someone would come to him at the time he was going for prayer just beside the gate, he would insult this ‘intruder’ badly so that he allows him to go for his prayers.

From our point we might judge him as being foolish, among other things.

But that is exactly how we look when we convert the tools God has given (we have created) to aid our devotion into absolute essentials.

We have allowed crutches to replace our legs.

That was Christ’s major argument with the spiritual leaders of His time.

From the Sabbath to ceremonial cleansing, He showed them what His Father had in mind when creating those orders.

They were a means but the Jews had made them ends. They were tools but were made the essentials.

But are we any different from those guys?

Haven’t we created even bigger strictures?

I will not even mention devotional materials.

I will not mention Bible Studies.

What guides your worship?

Is it the crutches you have allowed to guide it to the point that they have obliterated the relationship that is primary to that worship?

Will you go back to your first love as Christ ordered the church at Ephesus?

Will you seek to reestablish your relationship with God on His terms without any intermediaries?

Tools are good and useful. Crutches are useful, even essential at the right time.

But they are not the project. They are not the building.

We are the building. Christ is the One building it.

We are the branches even as Christ is the vine.

Let us never forget that simple fact.

Vestiges of Revival

I do not know whether, like me, you wonder why it is the superficial elements that remain after a revival.

Do you also wonder why transformational aspects of the revival do not last long?

Why do we only associate past revivals with habits and gimmicks that leave the core of the revival outside?

I know someone will challenge me to substantiate. And I will.

I will start with the two recent ‘moves’ of God that I know quite some about since I am a witness or beneficiary of the same.

Remember the East Africa Revival of yore?

What else, apart from tukutendereza do you remember about it?

Those who were around in the eighties remember Reinhard Bonnke and the movement he was part of.

Again, what, apart from the choruses (I call them chants) can you remember about it?

That the singing of a foreign tongue one does not understand is treated as the evidence of being part of a revival movement is sad.

That a German accent is treated as evidence of having received the touch of God is again very sad.

Just like in the past when having a foreign name, speaking a foreign tongue, stopping drinking, smoking and divorcing legal wives to remain with one was treated as the clearest evidence of conversion, we are even today repeating the same mistake.

And that is disastrous to the advance of the Gospel because it leads people into wrong pursuits, resulting in wrong diagnoses and treatments of spiritual ailments.

We even declare invalids healed because they are ticking our self-made boxes.

Revival is not external though it manifests externally.

There are many unbelievers who do not use drugs or have two wives just as there are a few believers who are struggling with drugs and have complicated marriages.

Cosmetic assessment can therefore be misleading.

Allow me, however, to touch one very raw nerve.

Remember the Pentecostal/ charismatic movement? Remember the Azusa Street awakening?

Again, what is the evidence of the fullness of the Holy Spirit on someone?

How scriptural is that?

How can we accurately evaluate it?

Nobody has any capacity of assessing an unknown tongue, not even the speaker.

Not only that. The Holy Spirit is not the only One who can release that gift since even demons do.

Having been raised in that environment, I can also say that I saw seekers being taught to speak those tongues if the ‘spirit tarried’ in releasing them. Meaning that someone can speak manufactured tongues.

But that is not the purpose of this message.

When the evidence of a move of God is tied to the externals (allow me to call them cosmetic), we expose ourselves to two clear dangers.

The first is that we set our bar too low.

Allow me to give an example.

As I have said, I was raised in charismatic circles and so participated in all their activities since childhood.

One day in a fellowship, a mad neighbour to our church who was trouble all the time came into the church and proceeded to babble in tongues for a long time.

I do not know about the others but my young mind was confused.

If unknown tongues is the evidence of the filling of the Spirit, what does one make of a mad man speaking them?

Could it have disturbed me if it had been a mad man we never knew who had spoken those tongues?

Suppose it had been a possessed man nobody in the fellowship knew? Suppose it was a witch or wizard?

That is what I mean.

If a suit and tie are the evidence of a ministerial calling, what will one make of a conman donning the same?

If an expensive auto is the evidence of success and blessing in ministry, what do we say of the drug dealer driving an even bigger and better one?

Reminds me of Samuel in Jesse’s home.

We have transferred transformational assessment to the cosmetic.

And that means that we lose the capacity to assess anything.

But it is worse because we then leave too much slack to people having those externals even as we dismiss the validly qualified should they lack those externals.

Do you speak in tongues? Becomes the baseline as far as spirituality is concerned.

We will dismiss a mature believer who does not speak in tongues even as we accept a fornicator who can manifest that gift.

Jesus said that we will know them by their fruit, not their decorations. Yet that is what these externals are.

Setting the bar too low is catastrophic to our faith because we then will lack any real motivation for growth and maturity.

If tongues are the only requirement for walking with God, why waste my time in the disciplines of growing up yet I have the manifestation? Why spend so much time in reading and studying God’s word yet they do not increase the gift?

No wonder in those circles immaturity is endemic.

The second problem is that we open ourselves for deception.

Like in that experience I had in a fellowship long ago, it is very possible for someone having the wrong spirit to be not only accepted into our fellowship, but even allowed to lead it. And that is something I have seen all too often.

Remember that king Saul prophesied even under demonic control?

That is why we have so many bleeding believers; simply because they used the cosmetic to identify leaders. Then those leaders produced after the spirits leading them.

You see, if only speaking in tongues is the qualification, a witch can very easily qualify because demonic spirits also manifest unknown tongues.

If prophecy is the gift that can earn leadership, backslidden Saul could easily have become a pastor or even bishop. Because rebellious spirits can also prophesy.

That is why hundreds died recently following such a prophet after following his prophesying that they starve themselves to death. That is why people are buying everything, from soil to nails, to be able to access the spiritual. That is why people are travelling from all over to have someone praying to bring back their stars. That is why some are even leaving their marital responsibilities, even their marriages, to be able to follow these charlatans.

That is why cults are exploding.

We have used the cosmetic, the externals, to gauge spiritual potency instead of what the Bible clearly instructs us to do.

We are leaving the stable for the dramatic, because we deceive ourselves that drama is where the reality is.

The clearest example we can get in almost any church you encounter is in the looking for elders.

Though the Bible is very clear about the age and maturity factor, and the fact that the person should be a long-practicing believer without reproach, most churches will look for flamboyance, charisma and wealth in choosing elders.

Some will even appoint shady people because they are public figures, even unreliable politicians, to serve in spiritual positions with immense spiritual impact to appear relevant and inclusive.

Those same churches will continue to wonder why their outreach is barren.

And it is the same when churches are looking for pastors. The externals take centre stage.

The comedy, eloquence, education, as if they are looking for a PR officer for the church

Then they will wonder why spiritual growth is stunted in their church.

They will wonder why nobody seeks counsel from their man.

They wonder why their relationships are always superficial.

We must get back to the scriptures if we will have the right spiritual impact.

We must follow scriptural instructions if we must please God.

We really have no choice.