Of Yokes and Burdens

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11: 28 – 30)

We love it when our ease is at someone else’s expense.

No wonder motivation sells, especially the preaching aspect.

It is all about God doing this or the other and our part is receiving and allowing it to sink in

Any teaching on Deuteronomy 28 only focuses on the blessings without explaining the conditions.

But is that the truth?

Allow me, however, to get us to the verses above.

Like we do with many other passages, we have over the years overlooked the key provisions of that promise because we want to enjoy the bounty without paying the cost.

We are being overworked and overloaded when the invitation is being made.

We have therefore focused on being relieved of the burden and think that is the end of the story. But that is not true.

Christ takes the burdensome yoke off our necks and places His yoke on that same neck. In fact, the call is on us to willingly take His yoke upon us because He has released us from the burdensome one.

But we jump off because we are free of any yoke and start running around yokeless.

That however becomes more dangerous than the yoke we had because we attract the attention of other yoke givers.

When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. (Luke 11: 24 – 26)

You see, God created us to have one yoke or the other. We are supposed to have a master to function right.

No wonder we are told that we cannot serve two masters since there must be a master one way or the other.

It is like we reason about animals.

Except probably in the places where they worship cows, there is no cow without an owner. There is no sheep without an owner.

Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother. And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again. (Deuteronomy 22: 1, 2)

That is why a believer who has been freed from all yokes will soon find himself yoked by a worse master, who in effect is the former master enraged by his escape and guarding against the repeat of its recurrence.

You also realise that we are supposed to take Christ’s yoke.

This means it is an initiative on ourselves.

Christ offers the yoke and we decide whether we take it or not because only then can we be able to learn from Him.

One thing we need to realise it that a yoke does not become functional after placing it on our neck

Placing it on our neck is the first step in the process.

And I will take us to the farmer and his methods.

What is the most effective way for a farmer to train oxen?

He will yoke an untrained ox to a trained and much stronger one. Then they will get to the road or a safe place to break the resistance of the untrained ox. This is because an ox is very strong and powerful and will destroy everything in its way, from fences to vehicles blocking its freedom from that bothersome yoke.

They will be trained when they are very young because of that power they possess.

And I write this as someone who has seen a bit of that training.

It is after some training that he will yoke them to some work, either a cart or a plough. And even then, it will still be yoked to the same ‘trainer’.

That trainer will show the new yokefellow (haven’t you read that somewhere in the New Testament?) how to function.

The trainer will give the yokefellow the assurance and confidence to attempt new things.

And the trainer will show the yokefellow how to function in his new role as a productive worker as he shows him how to interpret orders and know his bounds.

Eventually, the young bull becomes a master of the game to the point that he can function without any trainer.

That is Christ’s method too. No wonder He talks about yokes.

Or do you not realise that it is what He did with His disciples?

And he ordained twelve, that they should be with him, and that he might send them forth to preach, (Mark 3:14)

He did not open a university or Bible School to train them. He did not start a Bible Study group to train them. He did not start a church congregation to get them off ministering.

Though I have nothing particularly strong against those institutions, it is very evident that what Christ did with His twelve in three years was able to produce a better and more lasting impact in the world than the whole conglomeration of institutions has been able to produce in two thousand years.

What I mean is that our discipleship methods are woefully inadequate in reproducing ourselves as Christ’s did.

Even our way of doing church falls flat in that reality.

The yoke dynamic has been replaced with the classroom and lecture theatre one; creating a superstar in a room of affirmation addicts since what most running those rooms are products of the system whose sole object is making the room compliant and very happy.

A yoke, however, is work. It is labour. It is intense exertion. It is pain.

One must learn to handle the pressure of the yoke as well as the pull of the burden.

Incidentally, even a yoke without a burden is its own burden.

And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. (Acts 9:5)

That prick, or goad, is the tool a farmer uses to train an ox on the yoke. And that because it is not a pleasant training.

That it was Paul who was told that after his conversion tells us that the yoke is not a pleasant thing to have on our necks.

No wonder Christ yoked him to Barnabas.

And this gets us to the discipleship I am pointing at.

And I pick Barnabas because he is to me the best representation of Christ’s discipleship methods.

He picks Paul when he was rejected by the church in Jerusalem and walks with him.

We later see him going all the way to Tarsus to get him when a ministry opportunity opens up.

They part ways when they disagree on his picking another discipleship project, Mark, when he was being rejected by this same Paul.

He appears to have disappeared because his disciples shone, or appeared to outshine him. But the success of his method is proven by the fact that we have their writing.

I am convinced he continued picking on other failures and rejects as yokefellows and raising their ministerial stature to that of the two I have mentioned.

We eventually see Paul taking after him when he picks his own partners.

Apart from Silas who was already ‘qualified’, he picks unknowns and raises their statures in ministry; Timothy and Titus are some examples.

But I believe that Onesimus is the prime example of his copying his discipler.

Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me: (Philemon 1:11)

And he also treats them as his equals in all ways as he was treated by Barnabas.

Whether any do enquire of Titus, he is my partner and fellowhelper concerning you: or our brethren be enquired of, they are the messengers of the churches, and the glory of Christ. (2Corinthians 8:23)

Handing them responsibilities as they grew in handling Christ’s yoke.

These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. (Titus2:15)

Eventually allowing them to thrive on their own as Barnabas did to him.

This for me is what Biblical discipleship looks like.

And even in my story, the success stories I can quote are not the ones we had fruitful Bible Studies with but the ones (some who were rejects in one way or another) I simply walked with and gradually allowed to minister alongside me until their call to ministry materialised. Then I used my stature to open those doors for them to outgrow me.

And I didn’t know much of what I know now. I was just walking in simple obedience, sometimes even making enemies with my superiors because I was unable to let go of somebody they strongly felt was draining the swamp that was ministry.

Incidentally, after the yoking started bearing fruit, the same people who were warning me against the yokefellows I was picking would use every effort to snatch them from me by offering them good incentives and packages. They would even try their best to isolate them from me. They would then start boasting about their new sons.

But I never whined because I had done that as obedience to Christ and was not looking for acclamation from anywhere else.

I pray that we start looking at discipleship (and even mentorship) with those lenses.

Treat this post as a challenge to pray and consider whether what you are doing in Christ’s vineyard is what He would have you be doing.

Progress?

To say that we love progress might be an understatement.

But not everyone loves it because of the disruptions it causes to the existing structures.

What happened to horses and horse drawn carriages on the advent of cars? What happened to the vinyl record infrastructure when the cassette tape arrived? What happened to the cassette tape when the CD arrived? And what happened to the CD when music was condensed into small MP3 files that could fit thousands of songs in a phone? What happened to the AM and SW broadcasting infrastructure when FM gained ascendence? What happened to the film camera infrastructure when the digital camera arrived? And what will happen to the internal combustion engine infrastructure if electric vehicles completely take over as is being pushed?

Successful and thriving businesses become bankrupt overnight.

But many times, that progress may also bring some very negative social implications.

I remember reading about the ‘devastation’ making the car a closed cabin caused to morals.

Look at the cellular phone for instance.

Though it appears to have broken much ground in accessibility; though it has opened grounds for unfettered access; though it has made shopping and banking easy; though it has made the pursuit of knowledge easy and affordable, it has one the same vein introduced some clear dangers to social and filial structures.

People who can have conversations with others across the globe are unable to have any meaningful conversation at the dinner table.

People who can access money easily have become unable to plan though their gadgets have all the tools for the same.

People who can spot a lie on the other side of the globe are unable to accurately express themselves because they want to be seen ‘properly’.

People have become false, even to themselves, meaning that community has died as we have all become actors at the game of life.

But this is not the message I am sharing. This is just a wakeup message.

Because God knew about this when He was creating the world. Meaning that the Gospel addresses that aspect of our lives and communities as well.

But allow me to delve into the new thing; Artificial Intelligence, or AI.

And you will allow me to look at just one aspect to get my point across.

In the past, clever characters were able to ‘hack’ into betting platforms and obtain win after win before the gamers realised that they had become the game. And that was before computers, leave alone internet.

Someone would take their time to understand the numbers, programs, procedures to be able to accurately predict the winning tickets and where they could be bought.

And since betting is a science, they would be able to hit the jackpot again and again because they were ready and willing their brains toward that end.

You see, algorithms did not start with the digital age as many think.

These characters would almost fleece the gamers since they would always win big as they would get the jackpot and several other big ‘consolation’ prizes.

Now imagine with me that a few gamblers go the AI way with their predictions. And we know that gamblers will stop at nothing to win.

Which algorithm will win since we are pitting AI against AI?

Who will clean up the mess?

Internet and social media have killed community for the larger part

AI could kill humanity for all it is worth.

You see, social media has taught us to create a front that our community will love.

AI will stop us from thinking. It will stop us from problem solving because it will be doing it for us.

Now imagine what that will do to an already fractured community!

I might be looking like an alarmist, and I hope I am.

But as always, I seek to operate outside boxes. And I also want people to think beyond what they can see.

But probably I am not talking about you.

If so, forget everything I have said.

There are several cases all over the world filed against social media and the actual damage it has caused, especially to children and youth, from suicide to bulimia to depression to gambling.

At the back of those cases is the compulsive nature of social media and its use of artificial intelligence.

Go to any social media site and in a short time it is able to accurately guide you to everything you want, from videos to comedy to scientific studies to politics.

It becomes difficult, and for a young person, impossible, to stop scrolling since only what you love is popping up, the kinds of friends you fancy are shown, all your interests are given prominence.

I heard that one young person scrolled non-stop for over sixteen hours.

She is accusing the social media owners because she was then underage.

And that is just one aspect of that progress.

Think of her relationships with parents and siblings.

Think of her studies.

Even without AI, social media was addictive for all the new things it presented.

With AI, it becomes compulsively and addictively so.

But it gets worse.

AI shows you not only what you want to see, it will ultimately even shape what you think you want to see.

In short, it will start guiding your thinking, your problem solving, your feelings and your decisions.

And that is dangerous, even wrong.

That because God always holds us accountable for our choices and decisions.

Like a musician recently said in response to AI composing Gospel songs, AI cannot be spirit filled, meaning that it has no capacity for responding to God at any time.

Imagining that is like imagining a car (even AI programmed) will know where I am going and take me there without any prompting from me. And it is even worse when we associate it with God.

Algorithms are an amalgamation of all the information the system receives that it uses to guide its output.

But you are not the conclusion of a debate and voting process.

You are a person created uniquely by God with a particular assignment on your head.

AI looks for the common ground for all the input it receives.

But there is something even more sinister.

A media house has an editorial policy guided by its owner.

That is what decides what stories to cover, which issues to give prominence, etc.

Sadly, it is only in political campaigns that this aspect of the media is clearly seen. And people assume that that is where it ends, yet it doesn’t.

The media owner runs his agenda on his media house, craftily and subtly shaping the opinions of those under his ‘kingdom’.

Do you think it is any different with AI and the social media it runs?

Of course not.

It is far worse.

We are therefore looking at control beyond anything we have ever imagined.

But let me stop here.

Fill your own gaps.

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 Moses’s wife? 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.

Do I stop here?

Prodigal Explanations 2

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. (Luke 15:20)

In the last post, I explained why the shepherd and father were the focus of those parables.

However, I think it might be an anticlimax for most if I do not dispose of one of the verses the error of trashing the faithful for the prodigal hangs on.

Why did the father see his son afar off.

In the didactic error, the narrative pushed is that the father stopped everything to wait for the prodigal to come back home.

His life stopped the moment the prodigal left home for the pig pen.

Is that how love operates?

It probably does when we are looking at the romantic aspects of what we deceive ourselves is love.

But a father’s love does not operate that way.

Neither does God’s love.

For example, why did he not plead with the prodigal to not leave? Why did he not refuse to give him his inheritance so that he does not leave?

He must have realised that the son’s heart had already relocated from his authority and that remaining with him would have caused greater damage to them both than if he left.

Nobody repents before seeing the error of their ways.

As I have severally written about rebellion; rebels explain their sins instead of confronting them.

The young rebel therefore needed to face the rebellion against his father. Otherwise, it could have meant unending confrontation.

Or why do we have children (and wives) killing a man to access his wealth?

It is very possible that the young son could have resorted to that had his father used reason to force him to stay at home.

The father let him go because the son was already out there and that it was that inheritance that was keeping him at home. And that he would stop at nothing to get that inheritance.

But the father knew something else.

The earth is a very small place for rebels and egocentric individuals

He knew that his son would waste his inheritance in a very short time.

And he knew that he will feel the pinch so hard that he will reconsider his folly.

And of course, he hoped that his son would repent before the world swallowed him.

It is very possible that he was following that son’s descent.

He was monitoring him to be able to assess how close he was to repentance.

He therefore knew when he was ready to come home.

Let me give an observation before you accuse me of imagining too much.

I have been involved with street kids (actually men)

Quite a number come from wealth and influence as it is the vagabond spirit that leads them to those streets.

The truth of the matter is that the families those boys come from closely monitor their grown children, albeit very secretly, to avoid them running off somewhere else.

And that is made very clear when they fall sick, have an accident or die.

Then the family would come with their full force to assist their prodigal.

I am sure that this father was like those others.

It is very possible that he already knew that his son had repented even before he began that humbling trek home.

He also knew that the son would be extremely ashamed of facing his father just as he knew that a confrontation with his elder brother may have been catastrophic.

That is why he was looking out for him. He knew that he was on his way home

Otherwise explain to me the logic and practicality of a father standing at the gate for the months or years the prodigal had been away.

It was the father’s love that brought him to the gate once he realised that his son was bound home.

He cut off that beautiful speech because he knew that the heart had changed.

He wanted to mend the relationship because he knew that his son was a new man and that he had learnt his lessons.

We lose our children when we refuse to allow them to leave.

We lose them when we use reason to convince them to stay.

And we will lose ourselves when we force them to remain by denying them their inheritance because they will then take it by force.

The father was not fixated at the gate.

He was there because he knew that his son was on his way home.

Prodigal Explanations (Updated)

Controversial is a tag many people label me and the teaching ministry God has called me to.

And it is not because I seek controversy anywhere.

I just seek to make us understand scripture in its natural context, not in the hyperpersonal context many seek to drive.

That is why I ask those ‘controversial’ questions that make many ‘successful’ ministers wince.

Let us look at Luke 15 for instance

The popular teaching (the only teaching I have heard) is that the shepherd left the ninety and nine to look for the one lost sheep. The assumption driven being that he left them to themselves because the lost one was way more valuable than the remaining ninety-nine.

To imagine such would be absurd.

How can a sane man, leave alone the owner of the sheep, desert the bulk of his flock to seek for the lost one that may already have been consumed by wild animals?

The shepherd did not leave the ninety-nine on their own. He could not leave the ninety-nine on their own.

The first reason being that sheep cannot survive without a shepherd.

If he left them without another shepherd, chances are that by the time he returned with that lone sheep he would find that ten have wandered away and become lost.

The second scenario is that wild animals would have enjoyed a feast because sheep not only do not know how to fight, they also do not know how to run.

The third scenario is that they would see an animal, probably an innocent dog, and scatter.

And Jesus saith unto them, All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. (Mark 14:27)

The shepherd did not therefore leave the ninety-nine on their own. He left them with hired shepherds.

Why did he not send the said shepherds to seek for the lone sheep? I know someone is wondering.

Sheep have a connection to their shepherd.

John 10 explains that.

They only knew his voice and would therefore respond when he called.

Second is that he is the one who knew them each by name.

The hireling would know that he was in charge of a hundred sheep whereas the shepherd knew each of them by name.

The hiring would count, one, two, ... ninety-nine, one is missing. The shepherd would know the particular sheep that was missing

He also knew their bleat and so would be able to hear it when it responded to his calls or when it was screaming for attention or rescue.

Compare that with a nursery full of children yet a mother would without fail know when it was her child crying.

The hiring would be at a loss in his search because he did not possess the relationship required for that rescue. He wouldn’t have been able to know whether it had joined another flock because not only would he not have been able to identify it, the same sheep would not recognise him or his intentions.

The shepherd would be on his seeking sing the sheep’s favourite songs and call out nicely to the lost sheep by name.

That would have made it possible for it to extricate itself from a new flock it had joined because of the shepherd’s appeals. It could also have bleated if it had been hidden or ensnared in a bush where the shepherd could not see.

The point of what I am saying is that the shepherd did not neglect the ninety-nine to seek the lost sheep.

Why is this important?

Elevating the one lost against the ninety-nine obedient sheep makes the shepherd stupid, to say the least.

He did not go to seek the lost sheep because it was better or of greater worth than the rest. He did not go to seek it because his flock desperately needed the lost sheep, because I doubt that they had even noticed the loss.

He sought the lost sheep because it was a member of his flock. He sought it because his flock was incomplete without that one sheep.

Taking a coin from a million makes it stop being a million. And nobody would feel that void more than a shepherd who knew each one of them by name.

The parable’s focus was more on the shepherd than it was on the sheep.

It was about the love a shepherd has for each and every one of his sheep.

Look also at the parable of the prodigal son.

I have never heard any preaching saying anything positive about the son who stayed (though I have preached). Many seek to paint him as very stupid and irresponsible.

To all the preachers I have heard preaching on this, it is the prodigal son who knew the way, chose right, etc.

But the father is very categorical about the value of his elder son, the one who stayed. I have never heard any preacher mentioning the fact, leave alone explaining why the father was pleading with the elder son

You are always with me. Everything I have is yours.

The father was not rebuking his faithful son.

When the prodigal took his inheritance, everything else that remained belonged to the son, even the fatted calf that was slaughtered for the prodigal.

The father was explaining grace and mercy to his faithful son.

The prodigal was not the show stopper. He was someone needing forgiveness and mercy.

But is that the way it is preached?

Yet the problem goes beyond preaching.

That error in understanding; that doctrinal error, has huge implications on how we do religion; on how we practice ministry.

A gangster becomes a believer. A wizard becomes a believer. A Muslim or Hindu becomes a believer. A fraudster becomes a believer.

His testimony is so flowery that he is made a pastor before a year is over.

This despite the fact that there are many in the congregation who have faithfully served that congregation for decades, some who have even executed the role of pastor over the years and whose pastoral calling is not in question.

Yet they are overlooked when the church needs to employ a pastor just because the prodigal has come back home.

All the rules are broken to accommodate the prodigal.

In short, the prodigal is given the inheritance the elder son had painstakingly maintained and which legally belonged to him. Simply speaking, the elder son is kicked out of his inheritance.

On coming back, the prodigal owned nothing, deserved nothing.

He was clothed with his elder brother’s clothes and fed with his elder brother’s fatted calf.

The father’s concern was that the elder son extends grace to his brother and not to share his inheritance with him.

The prodigal had recovered his sonship. But he did not have any inheritance since he had wasted his.

Only his brother’s grace and mercy could have made that possible.

And even then, it could not have been restoration but mercy because he had left nothing.

The reversal of that is the reason there is so much disillusionment in many churches.

A congregation has been giving faithfully for the longest time, running the church’s programs without complaining.

Yet a newbie comes with a single large cheque and he suddenly becomes the only example worth emulating, even being entrusted with the finances of the church. And this even before seeking to know how that cheque came about.

A songster who has sung for the devil all their life joins the church and he/she all of a sudden becomes the portrait of the church’s ‘praise and worship’ even before being discipled or taking membership.

It appears as if the church had never sung before that moment.

I hope you understand me.

The church seems to reward waywardness than faithfulness, especially when the wayward was way wayward before coming back.

We forget this

Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. (Revelation 2:10)

These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful. (Revelation 17:14)

The only thing God seems to reward is faithfulness

Remember Matthew 7 where ministers are parading their credentials of powerful ministry and Christ tells them that He never knew them?

The church is doing the opposite, and has been doing for the longest time, I think primarily through the misunderstanding of the Luke 15 parables.

This is what is making ministers so anxious to pursue worldly validation however called they are.

They are stealing their pastoral responsibilities to get that PhD from a spurious college because they are scared that a prodigal may overthrow them.

Some are even making their churches businesses with them at the head to forestall a prodigal finding a simple church.

Many pastors have sold out to motivation because they are more scared of the prodigal coming home than they are of offending God.

Yet if we focused on being faithful in our calling, we will not be scared of losing out on anything. Because God will not kick us out when we are faithful to Him.

I have been kicked out of positions. I have had my support stopped without notice.

All because I insisted on doing what God has called me to.

And God has taken care of me that I have no complaints.

It is painful to see the compromised taking over our positions and destroying what we have built.

It hurts to see someone who has served faithfully scandalised so that the prodigal can take the position he has painstakingly served without recognition.

But God is faithful.

And He rewards faithfulness.

Not drama. Not impact. Not titles. Not credentials.

We become so unlike Him therefore when we misunderstand and misinterpret Luke 15.

Inheriting Baggage

A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD. An Ammonite or Moabite shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to their tenth generation shall they not enter into the congregation of the LORD for ever: (Deuteronomy 23: 2, 3)

There are a few issues that raise the temperature of any environment than inheritance.

And there are even fewer issues that attract fiercer emotion than the same.

Yet today I want us to look at inheritance in a slightly different way by looking at the kind of baggage inheritance could bring.

A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just. (Proverbs 13:22)

This verse does not say that the sinner does not leave any inheritance for his children though that is what it appears to mean at face value.

Bread of deceit is sweet to a man; but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. (Proverbs 20:17)

It just means that the sinner’s inheritance will be defiled by his sin; meaning that it will not last as it is exposed to God’s judgment. It will in effect pass on the judgment to forebears.

That is the baggage I am talking about.

But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. (Genesis 15:16)

Like everything in nature, wickedness grows, matures and reproduces. That is what this verse is saying.

This means that an heir inherits and multiplies, not just the wealth, but also the spirituality his ancestors lived by.

This means that if a parent had created wealth through deceit, deceit and its judgment become part of the heir’s inheritance.

If the parent had involved spiritual machinations in his acquisition of his wealth, his heirs will, in addition to inheriting wealth also inherit spiritual involvement and judgment.

And if a parent had gained his wealth through fraudulent and shortcut methods, his heirs will as part of taking the wealth also inherit that baggage.

And that because God is just.

You do not expect to make your wealth through selling drugs to make other parents’ children zombies and expect your legacy to come out right.

You do not expect to make your money by selling drugs meant for the poor and expect that wealth to enrich your posterity aright.

You do not prey on poor people’s girls, even messing their education to fulfil your sexual fantasies and expect your generations to swim in moral security.

Allow me to diverge with a history lesson.

There are families (clans) where I come from whose girls can never be first wives. You marry her as your first wife and you will die very quickly. (Could this have been the reason Judah was scared of giving Tamar to the only son that was left?). Interestingly, as always happens, their girls are usually very beautiful.

I sat an elder down and asked for the reason.

In the long past in that clan (when it was a family), a girl was in betrothed to an agemate.

As things were rolling at their own speed, an older and wealthier man came and talked to the father about marrying her. And that wealth was able to move that mountain so that the girl was ordered to marry the old man and leave the man she had been planning a future with the whole time.

It is said that this girl went to her new husband and committed suicide. That in effect left the curse on their girls to always be like her.

That is called the girl’s curse.

That father chose cows over honour. And they are reaping that, countless generations later.

Incidentally, and contrary to what most believe, a curse must not be spoken to take effect, just like a blessing.

Blessing a person walking in a curse is a futile exercise just as cursing a person walking in a blessing.

How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? or how shall I defy, whom the LORD hath not defied? (Numbers 23:8)

I have always argued that blessings and curses are not products of proclamations of authority figures since the authority figures can only tap into what has already been released.

A blessing and curse are in simple terms a harvest of actions we have sowed. They are the rewards of a production line composed of actions and the attitudes guiding them.

Lest you think I am diverging, and even if I am diverging, it is important for us to learn that our actions and words reach very far into our future, to the point of directly affecting our posterity.

Just as my children will inherit the property and investments I have made over the years, we must internalise the fact that they will also inherit the investments our words and actions have been making over those same years.

Just as some investments will appreciate over the years, so will my words and actions, long after I am gone.

However, it is not a simple linear equation when we look at the spirituality of some of those investments. And that because the spiritual has a grip on every facet of life. Though there are times that clapback is brutally frontal.

Reminds me of some incidents that repeat themselves once in a while.

A tycoon preys on university girls.

But being a honourable member of society, he does not visit the haunts others visit.

He hires a hotel room and scouts to get him the best catch that he will meet in his room and finish his business without wasting much time or getting noticed, insisting that he finds the girl completely naked to save on time.

This time he gets to his room and finds his own daughter naked in the room, the same daughter he had securely sent to university by ensuring that she lacked nothing.

One of those old men became insane.

He had thought that it is only the daughters of the poor who are involved in such business. Only to discover that rich kids also seek the thrill their rich parents pursue, and not for the money.

Or this married man who frequented brothels for a lunch time quickie only to find his wife on the other side of the same business one day.

But those are rare occurrences.

Just as a seed takes time to become food, the seeds our actions, words and attitudes plant also require time to get to fruition, many times meaning it is later generations that will reap the harvest.

Our thoughts, attitudes and actions over time become like an incubated egg, the produce another generation of the producers of the same things.

That is the essence of the iniquity of the Amorites.

Though people fight for the positive aspects of their inheritance, it is the hidden (spiritual) aspects that are more portent, especially since they have no documents, wills and trustees to administer them just as no courts or tribunals can interpret them.

However, they are surer than the ground you walk on.

We will therefore be wise if we interrogated our inheritance to understand the hidden bonuses running with it.

Some of that inheritance is traits.

Some of what we call tribal and racial traits and weaknesses are simply spiritual inheritance gone long enough.

An heir will inherit everything that defined the owner of his inheritance, not just the material aspects of the same.

It is important for us to realise that even as we poise ourselves for that inevitable possession of our inheritance.

As an example, a pastor inherits his father’s wealth, wealth that was created by the manufacture or sale of intoxicants.

Though the arrangement removes him from any involvement of the same, it would be foolhardy to assume that he can divorce himself from the judgment his inheritance had attracted through its acquisition. It would also be foolish to assume that his pastoring would shield his posterity from the same judgment.

No spiritual posturing can weaken spiritual inheritance.

In a later post we will look at how we can avoid getting trapped or out of such inheritance.

Hagar 4

For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king. (1Samuel 15:23)

We are still on friends losing that friend badge and today we will look at another aspect that is sending droves of ministers to hell, rebellion.

What is rebellion?

It is a wilful refusal to obey an order from a superior.

And in our case this superior is none other that Christ, the Lord of lords and King of kings. This superior is the One who has decided to call us His friends.

Entitlement was what guided our rejection in our last post.

I think it is that same entitlement on steroids that takes us to rebellion.

If what I deserve guides my expectations, what is below my class guides my rebellion.

However, as ministers, we are able to bathe those issues in a barrage of verses to make them spiritual, even godly.

I am working on a post on impossible orders based on 1 Kings 20: 35, 36 where a young man is killed by a lion because he refuses to hit his friend enough to inflict an injury.

But I do not want to go that far because I know enough of us would not even want to imagine such an order. Or have you ever heard that being preached?

We will look at simple orders that we routinely disobey.

You have prepared a very good sermon because the invitation came long before the event. You had prayed adequately in the preparation of that sermon.

Then, as you are waiting to be called to preach, God orders you to put that sermon and its notes down.

What will you do?

I was a very young preacher the first time it happened and it shook me to my bones.

But after reasoning with God for the longest time (meaning that it was getting closer and closer to the time I would be called), I agreed to do so and was immediately called to the pulpit.

People talk about butterflies, but for me at that time birds were fluttering in my chest.

I stood up, opened the Bible and started preaching, though I have no idea what I preached.

But several people got saved when I made the invitation.

Many ministers will never entertain such disruptions in their routines, especially established ministers with a thing or two to prove.

Or how would you behave if you are given a contrary message to your most popular ones?

But that is just one aspect.

Allow me to give a scenario I have used again and again to explain what I am saying.

God probably sent you to a harvest field in your youth. Meaning you went with just a backpack or small box with all your possessions.

Then God blessed and multiplied your obedience and your small mission effort has become a denomination with you at its helm, meaning that they maintain you very well.

You are now in your middle age with children in college, their demands ever increasing.

What would you do if God calls you out of all that to begin another outreach without the support of that denomination? What would you do if the denomination you founded then tells you to choose between serving them and ‘following your whims’ when you share those orders?

Sadly, that is where most ministers lose that coveted friend badge.

Their craving for security blinds them to the demands Christ makes on them.

How up to date are you with your Lord?

Are you still following the orders He gave decades ago even when they ceased being orders.

You see, an evangelist stops being one when he starts shepherding.

In the same way a missionary ceases being one once he starts running a church, even the one he started.

Just as you would not be called a youth or children’s pastor if you continue with the same crowd you started with years ago.

This means that I should expect and listen to new orders once the dynamics of the one I was pursuing are overtaken by reality or circumstances.

But many ministers get stuck. And that becomes rebellion.

The only dynamic that does not change is the reality that I am Christ’s slave, even when He calls me a friend, especially when He calls me Friend.

I should be consistently hearing new orders to remain relevant.

Another thing associated with senior ministers is dictated by that seniority.

And that is the sifting of the voices they listen to.

And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou made of the king's counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten? (2Chronicles 25:16a)

These ministers are so senior that they must qualify the voices they listen to. They must look at the CVs of anyone with a message to them.

Incidentally, I believe this is the reason many senior ministers employ personal assistants and bodyguards to forestall any unfiltered prophecy from reaching them.

I do not want to call it pride though it is not far from that.

I think God used that ass on Balaam because he had blocked any other avenues for that rebuke.

Sadly, many senior ministers may be worse that that as they may require that ass to present its CV and especially explain why it is not scared of ‘touching mine anointed’.

We believe that God does and can use anything to pass His message.

Why then do we look for excuses to restrict those sources? Why do we fear hearing messages from enemies as if God cannot use an enemy to speak to His servants?

What killed Josiah?

God used his enemy to order him from the war that killed him.

Incidentally, that heathen king was adamant that those were God’s orders.

But Josiah thought he knew better and chose to go to war instead of seeking clarification for that enemy king’s voice, especially because he had said that they had proceeded from God.

Like many of those senior ministers, he was too spiritual to listen to a heathen king.

Sadly, and to his detriment, he learnt too late that his spirituality had trashed God’s voice because he had restricted it to the channels he approved.

I hope you get what I mean.