14th Hour Miracles

We love testimonies of eleventh-hour interventions.

Help arrives just in time

Intervention happens at the nick of time.

But do you realise that God is not constrained to the eleventh hour?

Do you realise that He can get glory even beyond the eleventh hour?

And the Bible is full of such.

Shadrach and his friends were not rescued just before they were thrown into the fire. Daniel’s intervention did not arrive just as he was about to be thrown into the den of lions. Joseph was not rescued before misfortunes happened.

This means that eleventh hour interventions, though far more comfortable and safer for us, are many times the exception instead of the rule.

Allow me to get to my testimony.

I had been invited to Nairobi to start a ministry after waiting for God’s clear order for about four years after leaving employment, again on His orders.

Ministry thrived and started bearing fruit.

But the big guys in the structure developed other ideas; they wanted me to be their poster boy. They wanted me to be their PR item. They wanted me to run their errands.

I confronted them, of course respectfully.

The reason you called me is because you were clear that God has called me into ministry. Do you think I should start listening and following you just because you are the ones holding the purse strings? Should I stop listening to Him because you are my superiors?

They tried to push their weight around.

Incidentally I was doing exactly what they had called me to be doing and so they couldn’t say that I was ineffective.

To cut the long story short, I became a problem to those ministry bosses.

Mark you, these were long term friends, people I highly respected.

They therefore kicked me out and even killed the ministry to erase my involvement in it.

Here I was in the city, without friends or means of support.

And of course, very hurt by the open betrayal of people I had spiritually held in high esteem.

But then I prayed and God spoke.

He told me that He was the One who had wanted me in Nairobi and that they were the tool God used.

I had of course wanted to go back home because there I had a house and a piece of land but God again spoke.

He wanted me in Nairobi and He will take care of me.

Of course that settled it. Or did it?

Here I am with a growing family and no friends or supporters staying in Nairobi that was difficult to stay in ten years earlier as a single person with a salary.

But I chose obedience. But I told God that I would not be raising support from the experiences of friends I had seen struggle through that.

So, here I was in Nairobi without any support.

The first thing I did was to move from a house run by estate agents.

Again, because of a retired neighbour who probably died from the harassment caused by them.

Any slight delay and they would come and confiscate all his things then return them when the rent is paid after including may other charges like that confiscation and transport.

I moved from the estate I was and the first place I got was small for my family. And in my spirit, I felt that the move was very temporal.

We therefore continued praying for the right house.

One time, my son, who was seven then, prayed and his prayer was a description of a house.

As I was walking around the neighbourhood looking for vacant houses, I found the exact house my son had been praying about, every detail.

The landlord was an old man who was very agreeable because he even allowed us to move in at the middle of the month yet start paying rent the next month.

I had of course told him that I was a minister and that my rent would not be predictable.

Not long after that, rent did not come. One month. Two months.

I think that alarmed him because I had not been there even three months. I therefore did not have any argument since there was no evidence of the provision I ‘claimed’.

He therefore gave me a deadline (a 15th) to pay rent or he throws me out.

He was not even opposed to my moving out without paying that rent as he seemed intent on having his house back.

A friend I had discipled offered to help.

He would look for a smaller house and pay rent. Then he would take a friend’s handcart that he would pay much later and help us move.

But God had said He would take care of us and so I refused that help.

If God could get any glory by letting us be thrown to the streets, who was I to resist?

And so we waited.

Another thing worth noting is that my cell phone had a weak battery (those days there was nowhere to buy batteries) and so it had to be on power to function.

This means I did not have it during the day.

I arrived home on 14th evening and find a message from a friend.

Please pass by my office. And in case you do not find me, ask for so and so.

That offered hope. But hope that was almost too late because the mzee had told me that come 15th, there would be no talking.

On 15th, I woke up very early.

I thought to rush to see my friend and if it is the miracle I needed, I rush back.

As I was praying, God told me

What are you running away from?

I remembered I had allowed God to get the glory from by being thrown out to the streets and decided to wait for him to do his worst.

But he didn’t come.

At 10.30, I decided to leave and told my wife to tell him that I left after he didn’t come.

I was given an envelope (my friend was not around)

I went to the church (that was nearby) and gave thanks before even opening it.

In it was the full rent plus food money (of course I have not told you that even food was a challenge).

I then went back home.

The mzee had still not come.

I therefore told my wife and son to take the rent and tell him that we had waited but he had not come.

Today is the 14th, is what he said. Mark you he was an educated fellow.

He then went to look at his calendar and was shocked that it was actually the 15th.

So what was I actually running away from since God had actually sorted out the calendar?

There are many testimonies that happened in that house; from reduction of rent, twice, to being fed better than his children even with rent arrears.

And our departure was as dramatic when the season ended.

 

Provision

I have recently sensed that direction of my online ministry is changing for some time.

It appears like I cannot write those long messages (at least for now) that you know me for.

Recently, a friend requested a testimony he had heard me give and the release for that was immediate.

It is therefore possible that God is leading me to share short testimonies of what He has been doing with my life.

There are too many testimonies about God’s provision as I continue serving Him that I can only share a few.

As a background, I minister as God directs.

This means that I have no support structure (institutional or financial) backing me.

I also do not raise support or even challenge people to support me.

For the most part people will respond to God’s promptings to support me and what God has called me to.

This testimony is about the time my firstborn joined high school.

The calling letter had come with all the requirements and reporting dates.

However, up to the last day (deadline) of reporting, the only thing I had acquired for his schooling was a box.

When a deadline passes, the vacancy is declared vacant and somebody else can be offered that chance.

After praying and getting no provision, I decided to do something I do when the road is not clear, especially provision; I do what the ten lepers did, I start walking in the direction I have been ordered.

And that is what I did.

I had enough money to take me and my son to town (Nairobi) and nothing else.

I therefore picked the box and asked my son to join me.

After getting to town, I received some money and started buying the required books.

(M-Pesa, mobile money transfer had started)

After finishing that, I received some other money and started buying the uniform, of course no branded since I did not have much money.

I then took a matatu to the estate the school was at to buy beddings and similar items as well as label them.

I received some money that I deposited for fees (there was a bank nearby).

Then we left for the school, at this time evening was approaching.

And I was scared, especially because I did not have branded uniform.

You see I had before then taken students to school and been forced to buy from their preferred shop, even for non-branded uniform.

(I remember once going all the way beyond Busia [phones pick Uganda network there] and was forced to buy a skirt that looked just like the one I had bought in Nairobi because I had not bought from ‘their’ shop).

I was therefore scared that I would be forced to buy uniform afresh when I did not have any money. I also do not think I had bought enough stationary.

But what happened was interesting.

The teacher receiving us just asked one question

Do you have the uniform?

When I said yes, he simply received my son. He did not check anything.

And I had not even paid all the fees.

Forgiveness

(A friend asked for this testimony and I thought to share it here as well)

When I was working in the Media and posted at Marsabit, I encountered an armed robber.

As a background, there was no public transport in the Isiolo – Marsabit – Moyale route those days.

We therefore rode trucks transporting goods, and paid very expensively for that.

Another dynamic was that there were highway robbers (called shiftas after the shifta menace of the 70s).

This meant that the trucks would travel in convoys.

The journey goes through the desert and so many times it meant the trucks would leave very early.

I had been on leave and was therefore going back to work.

On this day, I had spent the night at my brother’s place some distance from town.

I left shortly after three.

Not long after, I met someone I knew as a robber.

In fact, he proudly called himself a murderer.

His name was Ibilisi (lucifer), a name he was proud of so I suspect it was a nickname.

The last time I knew he had gone to prison.

More surprising was that he operated from Meru and not Isiolo.

I therefore pretended not to know him for obvious reasons.

He asked for money and I gave him and thought the worst was over.

I suspected he realised that I knew him because he hit me with that bolted club at the back of my head.

I came to probably two hours later, completely unaware of where I was.

But it was still dark.

I started walking anyhow.

The only thing I knew was that I had been attacked and was severely wounded as I was bleeding even from the ears.

I then stumbled on a church mission where there were watchmen at the gate.

I told them I was wounded and needed help and they turned me away.

I fell again and became unconscious for some other minutes.

When I came to again, I was able to recollect where I was.

I started walking toward the Police station which was kilometres away.

The officer I met wrote me a note to take to the hospital so that I could be helped.

The hospital was also some distance away but I walked.

By then dawn was approaching.

I met a distant cousin who worked at the hospital as he was coming from his shift.

On seeing me, he took me back to hospital so that I do not struggle with much protocol.

He left when he was sure I was being attended to.

Then they required an X ray and required payment.

Interestingly, another cousin was the accountant of the hospital who was told about my case when he met the other one.

He therefore was able to authorise that X ray.

My skull had been dented by that knock.

Then I was taken to the wards.

I was initially taken to the observation ward because the nurses thought I would somehow die.

Many would come and look at me and openly wonder

You are not dead? And many other such questions.

It appears that the guy was a professional and only God frustrated his mission.

Two days at the observation ward and I was taken to the normal ward after which I was discharged after another two days.

It took some time before my memory was fully healed.

As an example, I would be holding the guitar to play the intro to a song in church and I can’t recollect the tune and someone has to hum for me to catch.

I probably need to state that he took my bag which had tools I had bought very expensively and some Bibles especially a Study Bible I prized.

After I felt better, I went to the police to report since I knew the guy.

After several visits, I realised that they were not in a hurry to do anything. And I was then operating from home in Meru.

In fact, I at one time saw him at our market. When he saw me, he was so shaken because I think he had been convinced that I had died.

The family decided that we will need to take the police to court to force them to take action, especially since the offender was known.

But I had been praying.

And the hospital had been extending my leave, especially since the clotted blood stuck in one ear was not in a hurry to come out.

God told me to go back to work and so I went and the plan of taking the police to court died.

As I continued praying, God challenged me to start praying for the guy.

But how does one pray for someone who had killed him but for God’s intervention?

Incidentally, God had given me Psalm 34:7 as the reason I did not die.

As I prayed, God slowly started working on my heart until I started praying good things for him; he finds salvation, he ministers alongside me, etc.

Eventually, I was able to completely forgive him.

But I didn’t know that until God confirmed it.

After I left work, I went back home to await other orders.

I got involved in a denomination that planned a youth camp in the school near the shopping centre.

There were many events, but in the evenings, we had meetings where we would talk to the youth and share the Gospel.

On this day I was the one leading and I asked whether there was someone who wanted to get saved.

Who do I see walking from the back?

The guy who had ‘killed’ me in Isiolo.

But instead of feeling bitter or edgy, I felt such a release and love that I gladly led him to Christ.

But this is not what I have been asked to write about.

Yet the next story would not be clear if I had left out this one.

Marsabit had enough drama for me and my faith.

I went because God told me to ask for the transfer.

I therefore expected ministry to thrive because at that time we were praying through Operation World and combined it with praying about unreached people in Kenya.

I went and there was confusion and pain all over, for the most part.

After that assault, and combined with some intense persecution at work, I decided that God did not call me to Marsabit and I had just imagined it since there was so much pain (at one time my salary had been stopped for six months)

I requested for a transfer and even looked for transport to move.

Then I thought to ask God for a sign, a sign that I knew He could not beat.

But He did it anyway.

This confirmed to me that He wanted me in Marsabit.

I therefore settled.

He had showed me a church deep in the Manyattas and I went there with gusto.

Even the bosses who had engineered the stoppage of my salary had gone and so I thought things would get better.

Incidentally, my friend, who had been at loggerheads with those other bosses, was the one who was made my boss.

But my joy was short-lived, especially as ministry opportunities started opening up

I will not speculate, but as ministry started getting clarity and results, my friend completely turned against me, started placing as many blocks as he would to those ministry openings.

He even started accusing me of anything, asking for explanations from me for very funny (let me not say stupid) things.

The other staff could not understand.

The others had done the machination in secret. This one was openly fighting me as a person.

To imagine I had to walk twelve kilometres (one way) to town and back to do my shopping yet the rest of the staff would be taken by the station vehicle is one such reality.

My life became one battle after another.

Incidentally, that persecution and incessant accusations is what God used when He wanted me to leave employment because I told Him I would be ready to leave employment but I was not ready to resign.

But this time I was no leaving as had been the case of planning to go for a transfer. God had clearly asked me to leave employment.

It is only that I wanted Him to work out in such a way that I would never be in doubt that He had asked me whatever else happened.

I was later called to start a student ministry in Nairobi.

As I had learnt when I was dealing with the guy who had attempted to kill me, I was sure that God wanted me to pray for this guy who had made my life a living hell of sorts.

After a few years, I felt that God had healed my heart of bitterness and anything else that would stand between me and what God wanted for me.

I prayed and asked God to give me the evidence that He had healed my heart.

God is very interesting.

I had friends in the tallest building in Nairobi (then) and would visit them.

That was a government office which had an unending stream of visitors at all times. The lifts are packed at all times.

I therefore got into one lift and this former boss enters.

Nobody else enters and I know that my heart has healed.

But it does not stop there.

We start talking.

The lift goes up to the 29th floor without anybody entering. It would stop, people would look in and simply not enter.

Then it goes down to the ground floor the same way.

It then went up, again the same way. But this time he stepped out at the floor he was visiting.

That was how God confirmed to me that He had healed my heart of any bitterness against him.

Any questions?

 

Anchor or Dead-Weight?

Ministry is exciting.

Ministry is empowering.

Ministry is liberating.

What then about the minister?

What about his support systems?

You see, a minister is not an island as is normally said.

A minister depends on structures, not only to stand, but to thrive.

The effectiveness of a minister is determined by the kind of support structures he has.

But it is more important to say that a minister’s success is determined by his proximity to God’s orders, and how close his support structures also are to those orders.

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14: 26, 27)

God’s call and orders predetermine the structures we will use or reject.

That is why Abraham was ordered out of all his support structures to be able to respond to God’s call.

And that is what Jesus is saying in these verses.

Our support structures may appear like launching pads for ministry when they are the tethering pegs ensuring we do not lift off.

Think of a job

I was called as a student.

Then God took me to college and then to a job.

I enjoyed ministering when I was employed because I had the money to follow my calling without needing anybody else’s support.

But the dynamic of what I am saying here became very clear.

A boss opposed to your call and values can make it almost impossible to minister as God would have you.

A boss who hates ministry (probably because your ministry is a daily reminder that he deserted the faith) will place innumerable blocks to your ministry.

In effect, you become a most deadly enemy to bosses who have a thing with your practice of faith and ministry.

A boss can plan your shifts in such a way that your ministry schedules are suffocated.

And as was with me then, he would micromanage it to ensure that that nobody else could hold brief for me even when there was an abundance of friends willing to step in because they respected my call, some who knew about my call since college.

This means that a job, as liberating as it may be, has other dynamics that could stifle ministry instead of enhancing it.

And rebelling against those structures is not an option unless they are calling on you to act against your faith, something I also underwent with other bosses.

I have indicated elsewhere that there was a time my salary was stopped for six months for a fabricated desertion.

But the reason was sadder; I had refused to attend a staff meeting in restaurant with a club because an earlier meeting had ended in drunkenness and that offended the bosses immensely.

What am I saying?

A job as a means of ministry support is dependent on many factors; schedules, duties, structures, colleagues, etc.

Yet the same job is a very visible ministry opportunity. It is actually a ministry opportunity that I believe is the major reason God would take you there.

Treat money and ministry elsewhere as secondary reasons.

There are ministry doors that opened in those job situations that could not have opened elsewhere. There were evangelistic openings that could not have opened elsewhere. There were interfaith interactions that could not have occurred elsewhere.

You are therefore first a minister at your workplace before accessing those resources it offers.

Many will make a huge mess of their workplace by focusing on ministry elsewhere and forgetting that Jerusalem of theirs.

They are therefore talking and planning for this or the other outreach even as they become shoddy in their workplaces. They kill their witness where God has placed them by focusing all their effort on the uttermost realms.

You must be faithful and excel in the workplace before God can entrust you with greater opportunities.

It is the same with business.

It is hard to be a great minister yet a shoddy businessman, especially when you are depending on that business to fund your ministry.

I will need to also reiterate that that business is also a ministry forum.

God places you in that business as His minister.

Money is a consequence of that first obedience.

And the same dynamic plays there.

Your other ministry must not interfere with that first one.

You do not unceremoniously leave your customers high and dry even as you are pursuing other ministry.

Your faith is respected by your reliability. It is respected by your customer relationships.

You will lose ministry opportunities if you think that the business is there only for the money. You could then be treated as a harlot.

Let us now look at direct ministry support where I am given money and other resources to minister.

Many people think that is a simple open and close transaction.

But is it?

For someone to give their resources to a minister, they must agree with whatever the minister is doing. They must want to be part of what the minister is doing.

It is essential therefore that the said minister justify that support if he must continue receiving it.

However, that is not easy for many ministers and ministries.

It is impossible for some.

Think of this missionary who is labouring in an unresponsive ground without any visible results for a decade or two. Think of this minister who is on the dumps rescuing derelicts where a single rescue may take years. Think of this other one who is reaching out to harlots with methods most would question and whose success is also painfully slow. Think of this one who dealing with confidential stuff. Think of the one dealing with the underworld; drug and arms dealers, pimps.

It would be impossible for them to issue satisfactory reports to justify the support they receive.

That is why some ministers cook reports. That is why some exaggerate results. That is why become professional liars so that the support flows.

Support also places an unpleasant dynamic to many ministers.

Unless God has spoken to the supporters Himself. Then they will not place that heavy yoke on His minister.

And I am speaking this as a minister who has experienced all that, and more.

And church support may be even more constricting because we have a pastor and board that must be satisfied by those reports before unwillingly releasing those few coins.

I remember not so long ago where a denomination closed in the whereabouts of sixty churches and sacked their pastors because they were not making a good return on its investment.

That is what I mean.

Allow me to get to the most delicate part of this message.

And it is about a wife supporting her husband’s ministry.

Of course, it appears very good and positive. And I will not begrudge that.

But even that has its own caveats.

Remember the common proverb, he who pays the piper calls the tune?

That is exactly what I mean.

It is very difficult to lord over someone who is paying your keep.

And it is near impossible to submit to somebody who lives off your provision.

There must be some situations where it works perfectly. But I believe it is in an infinitesimal number of cases, if there are any. And this is where we will have an exceptionally spiritually alert woman.

Why am I saying this?

In Genesis, we see the woman having a desire to rule over her husband.

The fall was in fact the evidence of that reversal of order.

And in this she had found the man complete; with resources and authority.

Her questioning her husband’s orders is the reason we fell.

If it is difficult for a woman to submit to a man with resources and authority, what do you think will happen to a woman who is the backbone of her man’s ministry?

As an example, I believe that many pastors and bishops who have their wives as fellow pastors do so due to the pressure of that same woman because she resents the background.

Numbers 30 deals with vows, the important one for our topic being those of a married woman, who must get her husband’s clear go ahead before proceeding.

Would she need that if even her husband ministers at her mercy (through her resources of course)?

Who between the holder of the purse and the carrier of the vision will be the determinant of the direction the ministry will take?

I am becoming such a wet blanket for some. But I believe sanity is more important than feelings.

Vision is the pursuit of an order from God whereas support is the response to an appeal.

Can a husband have the kind of authority he needs to pursue God’s order if he is subject to his wife’s support?

If, for some of us who rely on God’s people for all support, we have support shifting all the time, do you think a wife’s support is immoveable? Can she also have second thoughts about our pursuit of God’s call?

I am dealing here with a husband who ministers and the wife is holding a job or running a business to support him.

I am also talking of this man who raises support but the wife has to have a business or run a business to supplement that support.

She will therefore be required to step in again and again to rescue her husband when the support taps run dry as they always do.

If Sarah gave up and pushed Abraham to bend the rules to take Hagar after sixty years of faithfully waiting, yet she was feeding off his bounty and relationship with God, what makes you think that a wife would not get tired of stepping in so many times after a support dip?

What makes you think that she will agree to leave her job or close her business when God orders you to order her?

What makes you think she will listen to you when you receive an order she resents?

Those are the things I want us to think about.

She will in theory be the virtuous woman.

But her holding the pulse strings makes her somebody else, a major stakeholder to something she does not understand, as happened with Sarah and many others.

Or you do not remember Zipporah? Or Michal? Or Rachael?

A man must get his orders from heaven. And those orders do not need a wife to understand or even agree with.

Her position is bowing down to the lordship of her husband as he pursues those orders.

And it is impossible, I feel, for someone to bow down to someone who bows to them for support.

Many think a working woman is an asset to a minister but I feel the opposite is the reality.

I am throwing very heavy stones on a topic many will gladly stone me for saying.

But that is what I get when I interact with the word of God.

That is what I see when I observe ministers who are comfortable because mama is holding the fort with her resourcefulness even as he labours in the unyielding field.

It becomes worse when the ministry eventually picks up and is able to completely take care of the minister because mama will many times refuse to leave that job or close the business because she believes that job is the insurance scheme for the family, since, who knows whether that support is sustainable, anyway?

Or she will insist on being part of the decision making and resource sharing determining team in the ministry so that there are no shocks she is not part of.

This means she will be a housewife most of the time but must be there when ministers are determining the direction ministry is taking, having a bigger vote than any of the ones on the ground.

Or she will be in the background yet her husband or board cannot make any decision without her input because of her initial investment.

Should I stop here?

Forgetfulness

Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: (Numbers 14: 22, 23)

We were having a discussion about forgetfulness.

Though we differed on a few things, we were agreed on the fact that forgetfulness is sin.

In short, forgetting what I am supposed to remember is sin.

Then I got to consider forgetfulness.

Do you know that it could be foundational in the whole dynamic of sin?

It could actually be the sin that enables and empowers all other sins.

We say, ‘once bitten, twice shy’, because we are employing memory.

You remove that memory and you can be bitten all the time.

Let us look at a very common sin, illicit sex, or, in short, sex outside divine and societal boundaries.

Who doesn’t know that they could be caught and dealt with ruthlessly?

Who doesn’t know about STI, even terminal ones?

Who doesn’t know about the shame that accompanies that thrill?

Who doesn’t know that their marriage could collapse due to that?

Who among the unmarried doesn’t know that they are playing with their future?

Who among the students doesn’t know that that thrill will affect, may even kill their studies?

However, looking at the reality on the ground, sexual immorality is growing at alarming rates everywhere you look.

Boundaries are being demolished all the time.

That despite the fact that divorce is soaring and that is the key driver.

This despite the fact that there are enough examples of students whose lives have been cut short and others have had to do the same to their studies.

This despite the fact that businesses are collapsing as a direct result of that.

What does this tell us?

We choose to remember what favours our circumstance.

We employ selective amnesia for that short thrill.

In short, we forget everything else when the sex animal gets aroused.

No wonder Proverbs says that the sexually immoral lacks sense, or is an idiot if we used more current wording.

But it is the same when pursuit for self interest takes charge.

Look at greed. Or addiction. Or gambling

Look at corruption. Or overindulgence.

Someone is digging themself into a hole they know is bottomless yet lacks any sense to stop digging, yet it is in their power to do so.

Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth! (Isaiah 5:8)

The pursuit of things and wealth is one very stupid pursuit when looked at from outside.

You wonder what drives someone to pursue wealth at the expense of self.

Why does someone who has everything never stop grabbing?

Why does someone with more wealth than his posterity could ever exhaust however profligately they live and spend never pause to wonder why they still are unable to pause in their grabbing?

There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail. (Ecclesiastes 4:8)

The rich fool in Jesus’ parable was wiser than most of us because he at least came to the conclusion of his pursuit when he realised that he had made enough to live on for the rest of his life.

The fact that there are wealthy people who die of hunger in their busyness as their employees and labourers are left enjoying their wealth is telling on that pursuit.

Forgetfulness is the reason Adam sinned.

The evil one just needed to question what God said, shift it ever so slightly to imply what He meant, to lure our first parents to rebellion.

And he succeeded because he dealt with the person who did not get the original memo since she couldn’t argue about an order directed elsewhere.

Then, because of her feminine appeal, she was able to shift Adam from the order, because she ate of the fruit before informing him and most likely questioned God’s ‘threat’ of death.

Did God really say? was Satan’s snare.

Will we really die? must have been Eve’s rolled eye challenge to Adam after she ate the fruit.

And the fall happened because of that slight memory lapse.

Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee. (Psalm 119:11)

The only insurance we have against sin is God’s word stored in our hearts.

This is because it is the only one that can direct our heart to be aligned to God’s word since that is where it originates from.

But it doesn’t easily get into the heart’s storage.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. (Jeremiah 17: 9, 10)

There must be effort to condition the heart to willingly host God’s word.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success. (Joshua 1:8)

Before it gets into the heart, it must be the conversation around me. it must be the topic I am constantly engrossed in, consistently.

I must be committed to spending adequate time hearing, reading, studying, memorizing and meditating on God’s word for it to have that kind of impact in my heart.

I cannot be flippant with my intake of God’s word and expect to have God’s worldview.

I can’t spend time following news and trends and expect to find my rest in God.

I can’t spend more time in worldly pursuits and expect to have a heart leaning heavenward.

In short, the amount of effort I spend on my pursuit of God’s revelation (Bible), will determine the state of my heart as far as God is concerned.

And it will be evident to anybody around me.

Preachers whose sermons revolve around current affairs show you where they are feeding from.

In this world cup season, you can be sure that most fellowships revolve around it, because that is where the hearts are.

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

The filling comes because there is a desperation in that pursuit.

You cannot use your spare time to pursue godliness and expect to achieve anywhere close to someone who is up long before daybreak in his pursuit.

You do not expect to get as much from prayer when you are squeezing moments to do it as the person who dedicates hours toward the same.

You do not expect as much from your intake of scripture when you will open your Bible before bed as the person who has set up a study room, time and resources for his pursuit.

That is why there are believers who are decades in the faith who have never matured yet you find a firebrand new believer taking great strides in a very short time because of his sold-out nature.

We are still dealing with forgetfulness.

I just want us to realise that God’s word is the glue that binds us to all His revelation, past, present and future.

It is the one that activates our memory and kills our forgetfulness.

Allow me, however, to get us a scriptural example of forgetfulness.

Esau was third in line on Abraham’s promise.

He must have spent some years with the patriarch and heard enough stories about his journey of faith.

He of course knew of his father’s pursuit of a wife and its demands.

Yet for a meal he kicked himself out of that position.

Imagine hunger disinheriting you!

Worse still, he married Canaanite girls.

Yet he didn’t realise that his father was saddened by that breach until Isaac issued a similar order to Jacob.

Yet we know that Esau was a very hard-working man.

This simply means that his heart was not as hard working as his body.

Or that he allowed his hard-working body to dictate terms to his heart.

No wonder a birthright could be exchanged with a plate of stew.

And going the lengths his grandfather went to get a wife for his father was untenable to his basic need of a wife, even wives.

You even realise as he was meeting his brother that he had completely forgotten how he was tricked out of what had been his; because he had made it anyhow.

Esau was not spiritually leaning and so had little awareness of the spiritual.

And we are not much different if we become preoccupied with the here and now at the expense of the eternal.

The reality is that everything the world offers is temporal, however permanent we may want to make it appear.

And that is so from wealth to fun to power.

We are like a child who thinks he has an unlimited amount of time and energy.

We are like a tycoon’s child who looks down on everybody beneath his class because of the wealth he was born into, wealth he may waste in a flash once the one who made it exits the scene.

We are like that limousine chauffeur looking down on one driving his own ramshackle without realising that this one he is looking down on at least knows how to manage his own car.

All these forget the basics.

His parents were once children.

That tycoon sweated to create that wealth.

That limousine is not his.

In short, the main problem is that someone looks at the temporal and interprets it as eternal because of that forgetfulness.

And we do that even in ministry

For example, what are the marks of a successful minister or ministry?

We revere huge churches, large congregations, impressively large autos and huge titles.

We will want to tap into the anointing of someone who dines with kings without asking whether he could be a sellout to the Gospel of the kingdom.

We want to be mentored by the megastars of the church without caring to know where that stardom is based.

We conveniently forget that when God looks at His ministers, faithfulness in their obedience is the only currency He uses.

We also conveniently forget that Christ’s anointing manifested first in preaching the Gospel to the poor and underprivileged.

We also choose to forget that Christ’s mark of greatness was washing other’s feet, not lording over them.

We therefore forget God’s standards for the world’s allure.

We forget His standards for the world’s rewards.

And like Israel, we are condemned with wandering year after year, wallowing in our choices.

Can I stop here? 

Manasseh

2 Chronicles 33 talks about Manasseh, the most wicked king of Judah, the king whose wickedness was the reason for the captivity.

I want us to examine that wickedness by looking at his father, Hezekiah.

Incidentally, Hezekiah is widely known as a godly king with a stellar history of faith.

After he had prayed against his death and was added fifteen years, he became proud. And it is from that that we get these verses.

And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. And he said, Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days? (2Kings 20: 18, 19)

It was therefore in that backslidden state that he raised young Manasseh.

But his backslidden state did not go as far as Solomon’s since only his heart had shifted. It was only in his heart that fire for God had become all but extinguished.

Outwardly, he was the same Hezekiah

This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. (Matthew 15:8)

No wonder he had no issues with his sons being castrated to serve other kings.

You see, with pride, self becomes the predominantly guiding light.

In fact, even his prayer against death went along those lines.

How can you be so unfair, appears the pitch of that prayer.

You do not weep bitterly unless you feel unfairly treated.

And to imagine it was God it was directed at!

That is the kind of heart that raised young Manasseh.

Sadly, the mouth continued speaking the right things.

But we know that children do not listen to words.

They normally glean from the heart and spirit.

An example is this parent who sends his children to buy him a smoke yet never forgets to remind them that smoking is dangerous. Or the one railing against drunkenness when they know that he becomes more talkative after a pint.

All his children will become smokers despite all those warnings.

And that is what happened to Hezekiah’s powerful testimonies of his earlier spiritual exploits.

The only thing that young child was able to pick was that godless and rebellious spirit.

Another thing that made it so tragic was that he had not grown enough to examine the evidence to establish whether his father was lying or even what had happened for his life to be that shallow.

He respected his father and picked that rebellious spirit from him.

No wonder he hated God with so much passion!

He couldn’t distinguish between the God his father spoke so passionately and convincingly about and the rebellious spirit he lived by.

This means that when push came to shove, he would choose the spirit and trash the testimony.

Your actions are speaking so loudly that I can’t hear what you are saying, is the outcome of a life lived at cross purposes when picked by a child like Manasseh.

Your life is being lived in full colour that there is absolutely no attraction at all from the fuzzy, hazy and undistinguishable monochrome images your narratives are trying to point me to.

I am still speaking about spiritual leadership and parenting.

And we are doing this all the time, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we believe it or not.

I know someone is shouting to me to prove one or the other thing.

Manasseh is the sum total of Hezekiah’s backslidden state.

And I will take us to the answer people are asking for.

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. And he took away the strange gods, and the idol out of the house of the LORD, and all the altars that he had built in the mount of the house of the LORD, and in Jerusalem, and cast them out of the city. And he repaired the altar of the LORD, and sacrificed thereon peace offerings and thank offerings, and commanded Judah to serve the LORD God of Israel. (2Chronicles 33: 12, 13, 15, 16)

He required his own encounter with God to know that the God his father had been speaking about was actually God and acted accordingly.

That realisation could have led to a huge revival.

The only impediment was that his earlier state had been so bad that it became impossible for that revival to reverse the damage his spiritual heritage had planted.

This also proves something many always refuse to face; and it is that the earlier someone responds to and starts serving God, the better everything becomes.

Simply because there is very little baggage involved.

I do not know whether people say it nowadays, but when we were young, people would plead for time to ‘eat’ life first and get saved later.

I have ministered with that sample of believers and one very visible dynamic you will notice without looking is regret.

The wastefulness of a life lived outside God’s revelation cannot be hidden because the damages accrued therein are constant pricks on one’s whole existence.

A worse thing would be a backslidden life, especially Hezekiah’s kind of backsliding.

And that because it is like a cancer eating ever so slowly and unobtrusively, especially to the backslider. And some examples are in order.

Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent. (Revelation 2: 4, 5)

The previous verses read like a huge commendation.

Nothing about the church was questionable.

But the fire in their heart had waned.

That is what they were being rebuked for.

Think about doing ministry on autopilot!

This means it is possible to do ministry for so long as to do it by instinct. To the point that I can backslide and nobody will be able to know the difference.

Please note that I am not talking about the outward backsliding as we see with Solomon, Uzziah and many others.

Reminds me of the ministers in Matthew 7

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)

They were not able to know when their ministry was deleted from God’s records because they were not able to see the fire in their hearts cooling off ever so slowly.

That is the backsliding I want us to consider here.

And it is important to do it because for the most part none of us is able to see it in us or even in our circles.

And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. (Revelation 3:1)

As was the case with the church in Ephesus, the externals were glowing. But the internals were completely kaput.

And both required the eye of the Only One who could see the heart to diagnose their situation.

It means that, apart from God, only someone whose eyes God has opened can see that reality and accurately address it.

Sadly, many times, he is made the enemy by the systems and people in that state, something I have seen enough times in ministry.

It requires immense humility and faith from us to even imagine that we could be so backslidden when the reports of our exploits are glowing wherever we look.

Incidentally, that is why prophets are always endangered. They can see what God is seeing, an unpleasant reality that we are not willing or ready to face.

But if we released ourselves to God and allowed Him to shine His all-powerful flashlight on our spirits, we will see ourselves as He sees us.

However, I feel there are some guidelines to help us navigate this confusing maze where actions and words are removed from the state of the heart. And self is the clearest one.

By self, do not just think of ego.

Think of structures, histories, relationships, impacts,

What makes you bend the rules ever so slightly?

Who takes you from a ‘lesser’ ministry opportunities?

Why do you refuse to minister at particular places?

What makes your blood hot for no reason?

What makes you look the other way when a supporter or partner is in the wrong?

When our life’s direction shifts slightly off Christ and His agenda, Christ and His assignment, Christ and His passion, Christ and His victory, we have shifted from the straight and narrow.

We are slightly off the centre. But off the centre all the same.

Why is it that sycophants are the ones who get closest to the centre of ministries and churches even as people who are known for their spirituality are slowly but surely kicked away from those decision-making centres?

Why is it that the people who enjoy the best support are the cheer leaders for the leadership instead of the ones doing the actual ministry?

Why do senior ministers with means shun their filial responsibilities if their own families refuse to join their cheerleading choirs?

Why do senior ministers ringfence their offices to block serious believers (especially those they grew up with in ministry) from getting in?

Why is retirement anathema to senior ministers?

All these questions are meant to guide us to the state of our spirits.

But I believe it is more important for us to get positive glimpses of the right thing.

A fire in the spirit is indicated by an overflowing passion for God and His agenda, an agenda that is completely opposed to the pursuit of mine.

He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30)

And we will start with Biblical examples.

Jacob is dying.

He calls his sons and reminds them of The Promise, reminding them to continue being faithful to it and even requiring to be buried there.

Joseph is also dying.

As a way of ensuring that the promise is never forgotten, he requires an intergenerational oath to ensure it is never forgotten by asking that his bones be buried in the promised land. And it was a promise that would take centuries to come to fruition.

Moses is told his time was up.

Deuteronomy is the product where he is passing his fire to the next generation. And he also prepared Joshua and anointed him to take over from him.

We see the same with Joshua. And David.

In the New Testament, we see the same with Paul.

In his earlier letters, he is pushing around as Paul.

In his later letters, we are seeing him again passing the fire by issuing instructions and guidelines to another generation of ministers, giving them status and authority to minister.

We see the same with Peter and John.

The fire of God in a heart grows outward to infect others.

But it does more than that.

It allows those others to thrive, even outshine the origin of that fire.

Remember Moses when some were reported to have prophesied outside the centre and someone wanted them stopped?

And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the LORD'S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them! (Number 11:29)

A heart on fire for God is not content blazing alone.

Fire always spreads.

This means that, if I am scared of seeing the spread of my fire; if I am scared of losing control of that spread; if I want to always want to be in charge of my fire, ...

It is probably the most glaring indication that I have lost my spiritual fire.

It is most probably true that the fire I have is self created and self sustained.

It is probable that I lost God’s fire loooong ago and am operating on counterfeit fire, a strange fire that is offensive to God.

God’s fire thinks about the next generation.

God’s fire prepares aggressively to ensure that the next generation has even better tools (greater fire) to blaze.

And God’s fire prepares to exit the stage and watches that next generation blaze even better than it did.

As I have written about elders, that is the reason priests and Levites retired at fifty as per God’s own commandment.

This is so that they can enjoy seeing the result of their passing on their fire.

What am I saying?

I am shouting from the rooftops that you are completely and probably hopelessly backslidden if you are unable think of ministry without you.

And the folly of it all is that you will eventually exit that stage.

You will either become too infirm to perform or even die.

Even the wife or child you are planning to hand over to for your security will also exit.

Worse still, they could become like little Manasseh who will put to shame everything you so painfully built.

All because you became too selfish to give God the space to run His enterprise.

Your fire is not God’s fire unless it is intergenerational.

It is not God’s fire unless it allows for your letting go of everything to allow it to spread as God chooses.

Why is it so difficult to let go of ministry you openly say is God’s when in your youth you left everything, from jobs to classes to businesses, to pursue it?

Why is it becoming painful to imagine that ministry thriving without you?

I know this is an extremely hard teaching.

But I am convinced it is a message for our generation.

Because we were such a radical generation and nothing could stand between us and God’s revelation.

We left families. We left churches. We left jobs. We left businesses. We left security. We left relationships.

It is hard to imagine that God’s ministry has now become a personal enterprise or a club for a select few.

Will we allow God to shine His powerful spotlight on our hearts?

Will we go to the closet to ensure He does it His way?

God bless you