When Stubble Lasts 2

We looked at stubble and some of the reasons it can last a long time and continue producing the heat it is supposed to produce.

At the back of everything is the fact that the stubble is backed by the God it is connected to.

I need to remind us that the stubble I am talking about is the young and/or new believer.

As I was developing that message, I went to the net to look for some scriptural songs for my children since as you know much of what is now called Gospel music is nothing but just music with a smattering mention of Jesus or any other spiritual sounding jargon to bait the ignorant.

I remembered Keith Green since any song I knew he sang was solidly scriptural. Incidentally, the only thing I knew about him apart from his songs was his face.

I came across a documentary about him and of course was interested.

To say I was shocked may be an understatement.

He died at 28 after being a Christian for seven years, coming from a past that was tumultuous to say the least.

But one thing will stand out when you listen to that documentary or even listen to his songs.

He took God seriously. He did not understand why believers were living a life different from what the Bible plainly says.

As a result of that, he opened his home to the needy; drug addicts, homeless, pregnant girls and a mix of all those useless cases churches would not touch with a ten-foot pole.

Until his house was full beyond capacity. Then he rented another. And another. And another.

Then he bought one. Then another.

And that in a city.

Until he needed to buy a ranch so that he could do what the Bible says without breaking city rules since he couldn’t turn anyone away.

Not only was he feeding and sheltering all those people, he was also teaching them the Bible as he was also learning; meaning that he was offering them a wholesome spiritual diet.

All his life before his conversion, he had craved stardom in music.

After he became a Christian, he became the bestselling musician in a short while. And it went against what he was learning from God.

Then the selling of albums and tickets to his concerts also went against what God was teaching him and he had to cancel a record deal.

He had to build his own studio to record songs that he gave away. He also started a magazine that he also gave away, and not in exchange for an offering as modern televangelists do.

All that and more in seven years!

That for me is the stubble I am talking about.

He was a young man who was able to have a monumental impact because he took God and His word seriously.

And that is the kind of faith God requires. The faith that only stubble can replicate because it has no past, no experience, no history.

It is seed on virgin ground.

His intake of the word was not dirtied by the experiences of those who had been raised in church.

He made enemies because he was questioning everything that did not make sense to the word he was reading. And many believers, more so leaders, hated him because his taking the word at face value was a constant source of rebuke.

Yet, not only was he able to bring throngs to salvation, he was able to challenge many more to offering themselves for missions.

After his death in a plane crash, even more responded to his call to take the Gospel to the nations from the last songs and messages he had released or that were recorded.

So, what am I saying?

Stubble can and does last. It can continue blazing for long

But that is not automatic.

It needs a fuel source to be able to do so.

That fuel is the word of God and how the said stubble relates with it.

But it is not only that.

Stubble can also graduate to be blazing logs if its relationship with God and His word is alive.

It loses its fire when experience starts ruling.

Remember John the Baptist recognising Christ when both were in their mothers’ wombs yet looking for clarification towards the end of his ministry?

That is what I mean.

The childlike faith must continue for stubble to continue blazing, even graduating to a more lasting fuel source.

 

When Stubble Lasts

But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13)

In our youth, much was talked about our radical salvation and obedience, most of which was not positive.

Among the most popular cliches was the one saying that a youth’s salvation is comparable to a fire fuelled by stubble.

I have also written elsewhere that when I joined the media, I was told matter-of-factly that it would not take long before I was back to the world. And there were many samples he was using to prove his point.

Yet not only did some of us survive that fallout, but we even went ahead and thrived, not only in our faith, but also in ministry.

I have used discipleship as what separated us from the rest.

But today I want us to examine another aspect that God opened my eyes recently through my farming.

When I feed goats, I will normally cut their feed into small pieces to reduce wastage.

But even then, they will not eat everything. Meaning that quite a bit gets wasted.

That is quite some stubble.

But even that stubble is not useless to the farmer.

If you burn it, it makes very good fertilizer, especially one that is resistant to the termites that ravage everything in our farms.

Once a pile of stubble is big enough, I light it so that I will later use the remains to plant trees which are most targeted by the termites.

One time I had a pile of stubble that burnt for over three days, of course not blazing all the time. It would show some evidence of a fire when I had thought that it was long dead. Yet there had even been a little drizzle one of the days.

For me it was astounding that stubble could retain its fire for so long. It was unimaginable that a stubble fire could last that long.

Yet it did, shooting a blaze once in a long while, yet a blaze all the same.

It means that a stubble fire can survive without ‘solid’ fire holders like sticks and logs.

Can that describe our faith? I am convinced so.

But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. (Hebrews 3:13)

How does it happen?

The first reality is that the stubble was in a heap. It was not scattered all over.

It is in fellowship that stubble, which is what a young believer (or any new believer for that case) can maintain their fire.

My father told me that when they used to herd (like all pastoralists do), they used to bury an ember of some trees and they would find it ready to restart a fire months later.

There were no matches those times and so starting a fire was a difficult and complex task.

Incidentally, that was how households used to ensure a fire in the morning in my childhood. The person who did not have good firewood to ‘bury’ those embers would always be on her neighbours’ doors looking for live embers to start her fire.

Not many had access to good wood that could keep their fire overnight since it would be a collection of the sticks and stubble that could be gathered anywhere. Good firewood could only be gotten from the forest which was illegal anyway, and quite a distance.

We are talking about lasting fire from stubble. It is only that I feel that background is important.

Stubble blazes brightly and powerfully, but only for a short time. Then it dies as suddenly.

But a pile of stubble can go on for a long time.

That is why many young people have blazing faith in school or college yet are unable to keep their fire once they leave those institutions.

That is why young people in college will use their pocket money to fund, plan and go for evangelistic outreaches all over yet have a very hard time supporting ministry when they get those well-paying jobs.

Their fellowship made their stubble fire blazing. But only when that fellowship lasted.

Remove them from the fellowship and they many times become worse than the ones who had never come across the Gospel.

That is when you see a young person who was blasting their fellow believer for compromise because they maintained close friendship with their villager who was not born again gets married to a clear infidel when they leave the warmth of that fellowship.

Fellowship is vitally important for stubble as it determines who lasts and who falls by the wayside.

And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching. (Hebrews 10: 24, 25)

But that is not the only reason stubble can last. But it is a key reason all the same.

Fellowship is essential to the new believer. But it has to be the fellowship of people who are seeking to grow in the knowledge and obedience to God.

A fellowship around a man or woman of God has no capacity to make stubble blaze at all since it has human instead of divine fuel.

A true man of God will focus the fellowship of those following him to the knowledge and obedience to God. He will, like John the Baptist, seek to diminish even as Christ explodes in the lives of those following him. And I have left ‘her’ intentionally.

The other reason stubble can last is the purity of their faith. It is the innocence that comes from ‘foolishly’ following whatever they know God says.

I have left discipleship out of this intentionally. I hope you will get my reason as I go on.

Why did Jesus say that we should have a child’s faith.

It is unstained by experience, stories, reasonings.

God guards that folly and innocence.

You have heard of this or the other missionary who left his mission station heartbroken because after decades of ministry, they did not get a single convert. Some even backslide because they pour the blame of their barrenness on God.

Many decades later, they learn of thriving churches that are the direct fruit of their ‘unfruitful’ ministry exertion.

How did that church grow without a Bible, teacher and many other essentials that make a church grow?

They chose Christ and followed Him according to the little knowledge the missionary had given them even in their rebellion.

They walked with the little revelation they had received and God was able to fuel that stubble with His Holy Spirit.

I have interacted with people who became believers amidst idolatry and witchcraft who were lone believers for a long time. And some of them were children or young people.

They could not have fellowship because the nearest believer was very far and they were scared of associating with someone from such a background.

But they thrived all the same.

When I was in college, I hosted a brother who was beaten and kicked out of home because he had dared to become born again in a Roman Catholic family.

I think that is the kind of faith Timothy had inherited. And it was the kind of faith Apollos possessed.

I have been invited to teach in churches that do not have Bibles, in churches where even the pastor is illiterate.

But they do not have the challenges we are battling with because of the purity of their faith.

God is interested in growing their faith even though His church is actively resistant to His call to take the requisite materials to them.

I am therefore writing this as a call and plea for you to pray and be ready to be used to make that a reality.

But they will not stop growing because we are resistant and rebellious.

They believed in Christ and so Christ will sustain and grow their faith.

Holding on to the little they know will open them to a power able to sustain their faith under whatever pressure the enemy could exert.

It is the same way Rahab the harlot and Ruth were able to connect to the faith of Israel.

That was the same way Josiah was able to bring a revival amidst certain judgment.

And the Bible is full of such characters.

From Joseph to Daniel to Obadiah in Ahab’s palace.

They thrived though they lacked the traditional means or support to even stand.

And that is the whole understanding of grace. God will give you what you need to accomplish what He has called you to be and do.

This means that there is really no excuse for sin and backsliding.

That is simply the result of the choices we make and not because of the environment we were in.

But you do not have to be stubble all your life.

You can read the Bible for yourself. You can grow through knowing God through obedience to everything He reveals to you.

You can grow to be a blazing log that can help stubble to continue blazing for Christ.

But being stubble is not a lost cause.

I was stubble. But now I am not. And it can happen to you.

 

To the Last Drop

How do you feel when you hear a minister has committed suicide? How do you feel when you hear of a minister lost in alcoholism? How do you feel when you hear of a minister battling depression? How do you feel when you hear that a minister’s marriage has collapsed?

Do you ever wonder how it happened? Does it worry you? Do you lose peace and sleep?

Does it become a prayer burden?

I have written about hibernating ministers. You can read that on the blog.

But today I want us to look at the exhausted ministers. I want to look at the completely used up ministers. I want us to look at the ministers who gave to the last drop.

Look at Elijah.

But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. (1Kings 19:4)

Do you wonder why he is praying to die when he was actually running away from being killed?

And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. (1Kings 19:14)

The prophet was exhausted, completely finished.

It was not fear that made him run away.

Facing the king and his eight fifty prophets was a more daunting task. It was laced with more danger.

We can comfortably say that Elijah was too exhausted to think or see straight.

Can you imagine the kind of host he had defeated in the spiritual realm in that confrontation at Carmel? Can you imagine the kind of warfare he was involved in when he was God’s Idler in Zarephath? (you can read ‘God’s Idler’ on the blog)

That had a very heavy bearing on how he felt at that time.

The truth of the matter is that he had given until he had nothing else to give.

That is why the first thing God gave him was food and sleep, even before He could deal with what was troubling him.

How are you as a minister?

How close are you to where Elijah was at this time?

Where do you go when you reach that point? Is there a brother you can confide in and share your fears with?

Are you that brother? Do you open your heart to all these exhausted ministers who have nowhere else to run to? Will you help them in those battles?

I know I have been a shoulder for a few of those ministers over the years though it is probably a bigger battle for the brothers helping the exhausted to hold their fort.

But it is always worth it.

 

Giving Niceness 3

For he loveth our nation, and he hath built us a synagogue. (Luke 7:5)

I want us to look at another aspect of giving that God approves.

And it is the giving that does not attract anything to ourselves since we stand to gain nothing from it. It is a giving that could open us to insults from the ones we gave to or towards.

This centurion is famous in the scriptures for one major reason; he understood authority. To the point that Jesus said He had not seen such faith in Israel.

But behind that was a faith-guided lifestyle.

How does someone build a synagogue he is prohibited from entering? How does someone build something he would defile by entering; a building he would be stoned had he attempted to enter?

Yet he built it anyway.

How does someone seek the healing services from someone he is disqualified from hosting for someone who treats him as an infidel?

Isn’t it interesting that his servant was a Jew that he ‘knew’ qualified for that healing? I am sure he could not have ‘risked’ looking for healing for his person or family if we are to go according to his reasoning.

For me, that is exceptional giving.

The other person who gave in such a way was the Samaritan we call good.

He invested his time, care and resources for a person who would have easily spat on his face. A person who may have wished that he had died rather than having his life saved by a Samaritan.

It is possible he ordered the innkeeper not to reveal his identity because what he was pursuing was healing for a person he had found in need.

Yet they gave. And God commended them for so doing.

Do we ever give in such a way? Will we give like that?

Simply because that attracts God’s approval and of course blessing.

But it is more exciting giving for the cameras and rewards and ‘revenge’.

But those have their rewards here and nothing from God who knows the heart from where all giving originates.

Though the rewards for worldly and selfish led giving are many times immediate, the substance of the rewards for God led giving are eternal because they start at the heart.

That is what I want us to pursue.

Giving Niceness 2

Whoso boasteth himself of a false gift is like clouds and wind without rain. (Proverbs 25:14)

I want us to look at one or two things about our giving in view of my last post.

The primary one is giving for show. It is showing the extent of my generosity.

It is giving that is not prompted by a heart full of love.

Do you know what that is like?

It is like cheating in an exam.

Everybody will applaud you for an excellent job and excellent study habits.

But the One who matters, the One who determines everything beyond success, knows you as a thief, a cheat, plain and simple.

Incidentally, in these digital times, one great concern for the educational systems is graduates whose success was outsourced, many times from the so-called third world countries.

I know people who never went to college who earn their keep by doing assignments and even projects for university students in the west, even PhD students.

And that student will boast of the honours degree they get that way.

Incidentally, the higher the pass one’s customers get, the higher the rating he will get and the higher the pay he will receive from future students.

The workforce is even more worried as these cheaters will come to the job market, not just what in the past was called half-baked, but ones who barely entered the kitchen, leave alone the oven where the baking is done.

That is how God looks at our giving when we do it for beholders. It is how it is when we give for the cameras.

You see, God looks at the heart. He looks at the motive.

There is giving that is detestable to God. There is a giving that offends God.

And it is not because it is not generous.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. (1Corinthians 13:3)

That is God’s standard, love.

Any other reason is not acceptable to God.

I understand that some supporters must see their giving to continue supporting. I understand some donors insist on those pictures to continue giving.

And there is nothing inherently wrong with pictures.

But God looks at the heart. God looks at where those pictures are coming from or going at the heart level.

God will approve one picture and judge another one for the same reason, He sees beyond the simple giving that we will see.

That is why you will see Jesus’ teaching about giving in a completely different way than we may expect.

Like giving dinners to people who have no capacity to reciprocate. And loving enemies.

And of course in Matthew 6 when He is talking about the whole aspect of public versus private religion.

A Biblical example is in order though it might not be so exactly to the point.

Remember Saul getting delighted when David fell in love with his daughter? Yet at that time the same David was his enemy, the same man he had denied his other daughter that he had promised to the person who killed Goliath.

Why did he lower the requirements to ensure that David had to comply?

And Saul said, I will give him her, that she may be a snare to him, and that the hand of the Philistines may be against him. (1Samuel 18:21a)

That was not a giving prompted by love. It was not a positive giving.

It was a giving whose driving force was extermination.

Or the time David was giving Uriah a leave from war.

Those were gifts, abominable ones in God’s eyes though very generous to any beholder.

One reason I am a minister is to help connect God’s people to God’s standard in all things.

You see, I have been able to minister for almost 40 years because God’s people have consistently given towards the ministry God has called me to.

In short, for the most part, you can say that I live off the giving of God’s people.

To me, it would be a disaster if your giving is not acknowledged by the God I am ministering to.

It would be better for you that I starve from lack of your giving that giving me support that does not go according to God’s revelation through His word. And I am sure I will never starve because God always has people He raises for the support of His ministers.

Incidentally, He could still use you to give in a way that is not a blessing to you. And I will have no idea. Or do you not remember that it was the Midianite soldier who prophesied for Gideon to confirm God’s order?

It would sadden me so much for any of my supporters to be used in such a way.

That is why I am writing this to help you examine your giving to ensure that it is not only generous or even sacrificial, but also that it meets God’s threshold.

You see, very few ministers care whether the people supporting them will through that support access spiritual dividends. They just care that they are supported.

Many do not care to teach their people the kind of giving that is acceptable to God, provided it reaches their desk. Money is just money, becomes their mantra.

But I would rather starve than enjoy the support of someone whose support is not recognised in heaven, some that is even detestable in God’s eyes.

Ananias gave sacrificially, and died. And that is not the kind of support I want.

That is why I tell people expressing interest in supporting me to pray about it so that they can get heavens go ahead concerning it.

And I know that directly limits the kind of support I can access because many flee when I refuse to give figures and burdens and promptings. Because then they would be opening their purses for God’s exclusive use, a very scary prospect.

I want the people giving towards my ministry to grow through that giving. I love to see people who give towards the ministry God has called me to get better clarity about their resources, not just the support they are giving me.

That is why I do not mind when a key supporter is redirected elsewhere as they prayed since they stopped supporting me under God’s direction, many times because there are many in ministry who are not as visible as I am who also need support.

God is at liberty to redirect support just as He is at liberty to redirect His minister.

He is at liberty to shift my support base as He is at liberty shift my ministry base.

He is the boss, not only of the ministry He has called me, but also of the people He calls (mark the word called) to support me as I minister to Him.

Provided my supporter is growing in their relationship with God, I will be content whether it is me they are supporting or somebody else.

Just as obedience is what God uses to judge my ministry, it is obedience to His prompting that He will use to judge the people He has entrusted with supporting ministry and ministers.

I am never the gauge God will use to judge a giver. It is obedience to His leading that He will use.

And I am writing this at the point I really need support as I am going through a very tough stretch.

But you do not have to give me to be obedient to God. It might actually be the opposite.

But the non negotiable is that you MUST listen and do what God tells you to do.

God does not only tell His servants to give. He tells them where and how to give.

That is the only giving that pleases God.

 

Giving Niceness

And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing. And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury: For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living. (Mark 12: 42 – 44)

Yesterday, I took a father and his disabled daughter for assistance to get a wheelchair and met with this challenge I am sharing here.

I me two friends who were cheerfully helping these throngs with disability access the assistance they had come for.

But that is not where it stops.

(And you will allow me to leave out their names because as you know about me, I never want to interfere with their reward in heaven by giving you an opportunity to applaud them)

Another reason, though not as powerful, is that I have not told them I am sharing this since I know they will not want to be feted in such a way or forum.

One was called from a place far from the city to participate in the exercise, and I am almost sure he was not being paid. He was invited because he had access to persons with disability through his involvement with them over the years.

I have seen him serving in church for years with a disability that is so obvious and limiting yet doesn’t seem disturbed with those common falls his condition occasions. He will get up and continue serving as if nothing had happened.

The second, apart from having a disability, is also facing huge health challenges.

Yet, there they were, serving with a cheerfulness that was infectious.

It is a giving that can only be coming from the heart.

It is a giving that goes beyond giving things or service but a giving of self.

Many people only give what they have. But these were giving who they were.

Like the poor widow, they were giving all their living.

Treat this short message as a challenge

How do you give? What do you give?

And it encompasses all, from offerings to charity to supporting ministry.

This because to God, the only giving that gets His applause is the one originating from a sold-out heart that sacrifices who they are through what and how they give.

My prayer is that our giving will meet God’s threshold.

Essential non-Essentials

I want us to look at our lives and ministry.

This because we can be so swallowed by the externals that we forget the basics of our ministry.

And I have made that apparently conflicting title intentionally.

As I am gradually getting into fitting on the Biblical elder role, I many times have to deal with handling many a question and resolve many a dilemma.

Interestingly, probably the most recurrent has to do with a call to ministry.

The surprising thing is that even before many would come up with the clarity of the call, they will be thinking and sourcing for the equipment they will require for the ministry they are not very clear about at that point.

Allow me to give an example

Someone is sensing a call to start a church.

He will come asking for prayer for clarity. Then with the same breath will ask for prayer and assistance to procure musical instruments and a sound system.

Yet it might be in a place without electricity.

But even worse, since it will be a new church, there are essentially no people to play those instruments or crowds to need that public address.

Why does a need for equipment come before the clarity of the call?

That is where my title comes from.

What will happen when you get the equipment before clarifying the call? Suppose God shows you a different ministry?

You will be compelled to pursue that call on your own. That call must be there whatever else God says.

You see, you cannot disappoint the people who gave towards the procurement of that equipment.

Isn’t that what is called putting the cart before the horse?

Allow me to give an oblique example from the scriptures

In Jeremiah 42 we have some people coming to the prophet for clarity concerning the direction they were to take due to the crisis they were in.

The prophet prayed and of course received guidance from on high. He simply gave the message as he had received it.

In chapter 43, we have the ones who had sought that clarity accusing Jeremiah of corruption because the prophecy did not go the way they had anticipated.

You wonder why they had asked for prayer in the first place.

The truth is that they had already decided on what they would do and needed God’s rubber stamp to feel spiritual.

It is like the people who will approach an oracle concerning leaving employment for ministry because they already know that they would be retrenched or sacked instead of asking what they would need to do because they will soon be out of a job.

Or the couple who are seeking to know God’s will concerning marriage when they are already living together or have already set up everything for their wedding.

What do you want God to say or do?

God’s will is primary. It should be the highest pursuit of our lives and experience.

We do not seek His will with a plan B in our minds. It is His will or nothing.

Probably you sense that God is issuing one order or the other to you.

Wouldn’t the best thing to establish without doubt whether that is what He is ordering you first before laying the groundwork for something you are not sure off.

Or do you think that the same God who issued the order is unable to help you in that groundwork?