Death

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:21)

I want us to look at one aspect of death we have for the most part neglected; preparedness.

When we read the Bible, there is one thing you will realise with people who were close to God. You will see them very ready for it, as if they were keeping an appointment.

And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto his people. (Genesis 49:33)

That is exceptional when looked at using the lens of our times.

Yet it is not exceptional when looked at from a purely Biblical context.

The common thing you read is that someone set his house in order and then died.

As I have severally said, Hezekiah messed because he refused to agree with God that he had completed his assignment and sought an extension of the same, bitterly.

No wonder that extension brought about Manasseh!

Another thing that I will say paints our times in very bad light is the kind of revelation we enjoy.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. (John 16:13)

How can it be called all truth if it does not include death?

What am I driving at?

God seeks to closely walk with us ALL THE TIME, not only when we are doing spiritual things.

But I think it is important to say one thing.

There must be a reason why we are unable to accurately know when our time has come.

It is because we do not know when our assignment is complete.

And do you know why that is so?

We actually do not know our assignment.

You see, I can only complete an assignment that I have been given.

And it is important to get our facts right.

Paul knew that his time had come because his assignment was complete.

And that was not because of threats of death or even being in prison because that was his constant diet over his ministry years. And a few verses of that reality are in order.

And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; (Philippians 1:25)

But withal prepare me also a lodging: for I trust that through your prayers I shall be given unto you. (Philemon 1:22)

You may remember that in Acts 16 he refused to get out of prison because his rights had been breached. Yet he had not protested for his rights when he was beaten and sent to that prison.

This means that his assignment was more important than his rights. But they became important after the assignment was completed because it opened doors to a different kind of assignment.

You remember that even when he was stoned to death that he went on without a care after being prayed back to life?

Is it therefore possible to guess the point at which his assignment ended?

And we see the same with Peter.

He is asleep when awaiting death from Herod because his assignment was way from over.

Simply because he knew that nothing could block God from His purposes.

Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me. (2Peter 1:14)

That assignment is what gave him sleep when everybody knew he was on his way to the gallows.

Its completion was the reason he knew that it was a matter of time before he rejoined Christ.

The assignment was the reason Stephen could stare his stoners and boldly and clearly share the Gospel.

It was the reason he was triumphant when he was being stoned.

And it was the reason he prayed for forgiveness for his killers; because he knew that his assignment required that stoning.

Even death from illness does not diminish that as we see with Elisha.

He closes his books before dying by delivering instructions to concerned people.

I know I am scaring people.

But my intent is different.

I want to challenge you to realise that God has an assignment for you and that connecting to that assignment should be the prime object of your existence.

And it is only when you are in your assignment that you can know when it is completed.

Ministers employ bodyguards, carry guns and live in the most secure environments because they are completely in the dark about their assignments.

Even the kinds of cars we drive will many times loudly speak about our preparedness for death.

Many will not even take a cup of water from an uncertified source because they must keep their health free from any sort of infection.

I am not saying that we become careless with our lives since they are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

But you see, it is impossible to serve God right if we are more concerned about our security than we are about our ministry.

A minister is required to eat whatever is offered without asking questions, not because he is careless, but because he is serving God, the same God who created all those microbes and viruses and therefore can direct them however He wants.

We do not trample on serpents and scorpions because we are looking for them.

We do it as we are busy on the assignment God has for us.

Poison does not become harmless to us because we are immune to it.

It is made powerless because we are on assignment.

It is essential therefore to ascertain whether we are on our assignment or not.

And that is the point of this message.

Do you know your assignment?

Is it not therefore of utmost importance that you seek to know it so that you can start walking in it?

Then death will be welcome because you will know when that assignment is completed.

Wrong Prophets

There are false prophets.

And there are wrong prophets.

False prophets give you prophecy that has not come from God; meaning that they will misguide you for the most part.

They may give you joy when God intends you to be sad as you will see in Jeremiah’s interactions with them.

Or they might send you to death as happened with Ahab.

And it is because they are giving you directions they do not have.

A wrong prophet is worse by far because he is many times a destiny shaper, but from the wrong direction.

And I will have us look at one such, Balaam.

When Israel was leaving Egypt, it was very clear the nations they were to dispossess, nations that even Abraham had been told about centuries earlier.

Then there were nations they were not to touch. And they were told under no uncertain terms who they were.

God’s word was that they should not molest them or challenge them in any way as He would not give them even an inch of their territory.

Edom, Moab, Ammon, Midian.

And it was because they were family.

But those nations did not know that.

When Israel therefore came close to their nations, they felt threatened because of what Israel was doing to the Canaanites who were their neighbours.

They therefore looked for a prophet for spiritual intervention, offering a handsome reward for his services.

Offer for reward messed the prophet.

When he was given the reason to refuse the assignment, he openly refused to give God’s word, thus communicating the message that he was looking for a better reward.

What would you have done if you were Balaam?

The right thing was to give the correct message.

Then seek for a word for the seekers from God.

Had he done that, he could have known that Moab and Ammon were safe from Israel’s expansion; and that from the One who was leading them on and giving them the lands.

But he didn’t do that.

His greed led him on a downward spiral to the point that he became a soothsayer when he discovered that He could not manipulate God to get that elusive coin.

But the saddest part in that is that he led to brothers being converted to enemies.

Contrast this.

And the LORD said unto me, Distress not the Moabites, neither contend with them in battle: for I will not give thee of their land for a possession; because I have given Ar unto the children of Lot for a possession. (Deuteronomy 2:9)

And this

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 23:3)

The prophet was the catalyst for that.

What am I saying?

A greedy prophet is more dangerous that a false prophet.

You see, Balaam was not a false prophet.

He knew God, listened to God and spoke as God told him.

But greed made listening difficult. Because it is impossible to hear God in a hurry or under pressure.

Remember Elijah?

And the giver of that gift is also not very patient because he wants his money to do the pushing and shoving on his behalf.

That is why ministry and money are on opposite sides of spirituality.

I am saying this as a minister. And I will leave you to fill the gaps.

And that because our generation are more like Barak than they are like David.

Barak sought results.

David sought God’s will and orders.

And that desire for results is the reason he dangled rewards that completely obliterated Balaam’s sensitivity and pursuit of God’s will.

This also brings up another reality I have written about; prophets who revolve around power as we saw with Ahab.

And you remember one of them slapping Michaiah and asking him when the spirit left him to get to Micaiah.

We can assume that Zedekiah fell into Balaam’s error when he became a royal prophet.

He was twisted by royal dainties to the point that he was unable to know when the spirit had completely left him.

Ministry rewards are dangerous, infinitely more dangerous that we may imagine.

This means that this post is not only about prophets.

It also concerns me who is a teacher of God’s word.

It concerns every single person God has called into ministry, even hidden ones like intercession.

Rewards will blunt the edge that is clarity about God’s orders.

However, rewards are not the culprit.

I think the expectation and reception of the same are the issues of concern, especially expectation.

This is the driver of the motivation craze running the bulk of the churches nowadays.

It is the driver of toothless sermons from our pulpits.

It is the reason heaven and hell, sin and sanctification, obedience and judgment, have been exiled from most pulpits for the longest time.

Nobody wants to scare givers with hard Biblical truths.

No wonder harlots occupy front row seats in churches baring their wares for all to see because confronting their sin would chase their tithes and offerings, to someone not as ‘radical’.

No wonder sex toys and drugs are traded in the church compounds because the peddlers are big givers.

No wonder politicians who are known for all the wrong things and celebrities who openly display their sin can sit next to pastors in forums.

Should I slow down?

But I hope you get the point.

But the point is that the gift you represent will kill the greedy minister’s spiritual sensitivity.

This means that any word he gives you could actually mess your destiny completely as Balaam did with Moab, Ammon and Midian.

That is what we see with Jeremiah’s confrontations with those prophets.

By listening to those paid prophets, the completely lost the plot that was God’s restoration because repent cannot be a paid prophet’s word.

And it is very difficult for restore to come before repent.

What is my conclusion then?

If your closeness to your minister is dependent on what you have or represent, it is time to run away because he is a Balaam that represents great harm to your destiny.

And I am talking about your pastor, bishop, prophet, encourager, even me.

Your money does not define you.

Do not be demeaned to the point that your value is tied to what you have or represent.

In any case, why look for prophets when God has released His word for all of us to consume?

And He also released His Holy Spirit to guide us to understanding it?

You can know and obey God without those imposters.

Uniquely You

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5)

Have you ever considered that Jeremiah’s pronouncement is similar to yours?

That the only difference with it is that your assignment is not like his?

What do I mean?

God creates each person on earth with their own personal mission, a mission completely different from anyone else’s in the whole wide world.

The reality of God is that He is the creator.

Unlike us, however, He does not need existing materials to do the creating.

But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence. (1Corinthians 1: 27 – 29)

He created everything that exists out of nothing.

Due to that, God does not repeat Himself. He does not clone or duplicate anything He does.

And that because He does not need existing materials or procedures to create anything.

This means that you are one of a kind, the only one from God’s factory line. Which means that He does not have any assembly line anywhere.

You are therefore the one and only.

On the same vein, it means that the reason and purpose for His creating you is also singular.

He created you with ONLY ONE assignment in mind, an assignment ONLY YOU can accomplish.

It means that you do not have any other assignment.

The purpose of your creation is therefore that assignment and nothing else you do will complete you or it.

Sadly, many of us do not think of God’s relationship to us on those terms, many times thinking of ourselves as the products of an assembly line, albeit a divine one.

We therefore follow protocols and blueprints assembly lines use, meaning we do everything just like the next person.

But that severely limits God and His purposes because we leave the bulk of our assignment to pursue wholesale engagements.

Worse is that it puts us on a trajectory way off what we were created for.

We will encounter frustration and dysfunction due to that.

Imagine a tractor ferrying passengers or a van trying to plough!

That is how we look when we follow assembly line protocols when looked at from the divine angle.

We will perform optimally only when we align with the assignment God created for us and created us for.

The problem is that we rarely seek to know God enough to know why and what He created us for.

And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth. (Exodus 9:16)

You see, if God could create a rebellious king for His purpose, what reason do I have to suppose that I was created out of a divine whim?

The truth of the matter is that each person God creates has a single assignment exclusive to him, an assignment that completes the ‘jigsaw’ that is God’s complete creation.

However, in order to do my part, I must allow the Owner of that jigsaw to place me since it will be foolhardy, if not completely futile, to seek to find that position on my own.

And it will be even worse for me to allow another person do that placement.

There is one very popular trend (allow me to call it doctrine) that has been doing the rounds in church for a long time called the purpose driven movement.

I have attended enough seminars. If I remember well, I was at one time a qualified trainer in those seminars though I suspect God blocked me from actually training.

It appears very Biblical, wholesome.

But looking at it more critically you will find that it is a very me-centric movement.

Though there is so much mention of God and His word, there is very little surrender to God either in the pursuit or expectation.

It is close to two decades since I was there and so I do not remember much of the material.

But allow me to point out to something Christ said to get my point across, fruit.

Any God-centred movement will reproduce God’s character in its adherents.

It will produce holiness, contentment, peace.

It will produce a rest consistent with God’s presence.

But looking at the higher echelons of that movement there is very little of that you see.

Their pursuit (for those of us who seek to look beyond the rhetoric) ends up being materialistic.

A new car, a bigger car, a house, a house on the suburbs.

Then a church, a bigger church, a cathedral.

However, there is very little, if any, change on their environment.

There is very little spiritual transformation.

The sermons offer no challenge for spiritual pursuits but everything about material pursuits.

There is very little about spiritual hunger but everything about professional excellence.

It therefore produces great worldly success stories without any spiritual muscle.

Incidentally, there are a number of other similar thrusts I have been part of, trained to the point of becoming a trainer, yet when I stepped back to examine discovered them as shallow shortcuts that accomplish very little in the spiritual.

You see, spiritual movements do not have or need any marketing gimmicks.

They require a person and team committed to personal holiness and possessing spiritual hunger that is all-compassing.

Spiritual movements are never on the lookout for followers or supporters.

They are consistent in pursuing God’s will at the personal level so that they can then impact their surroundings.

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

It is their personal pursuit of holiness that is the driver for their community’s transformation.

That is what we see when we go through God’s word

From Samuel to David to Josiah, we see the personal pursuit of holiness as the driver for national transformation.

That is why connecting to what God created you for should be the driver for any impact you are seeking, wherever.

That is what God expects of each and every one of us.

Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness. (Psalm 143:10)

And He has opened the door for us to be successful in it.

Will you start on that pursuit?

 

Inheriting Baggage 3

We have looked at inherited baggage.

We have also looked at how we can get ourselves out of that heritage.

I want us to look at how we will avoid staining our legacy with new baggage.

And I am sure after reading the past two posts on this you may already be in the know about some of the things you require to do it.

You see, if I know what brought baggage to my inheritance, I will be a fool not to know that doing the same or similar will mean that my posterity will also inherit baggage, my baggage.

And if I know how to get rid of the baggage I have inherited, I also will know enough to insulate posterity from inheriting baggage.

In short, once I have understood the dynamics of inherited baggage, I will be well positioned to avoid doing the same for my posterity.

So many words saying a simple thing.

But it is not that simple, or easy.

That because baggage does not come packaged thus.

Many times, it is packaged as an irresistible opportunity.

Many times, it is packaged as a lifetime achievement.

And many times, it is packaged as the ultimate partnership.

It is therefore important to isolate the packaging from the package to be able to soberly assess the irresistibility of poison.

Do you know how much alcohol uses on advertisement?

Do you know how many sponsorships it offers to get some visibility?

And why do they spend so much?

Because what they sell is impossible to sell using logic.

You can’t tell someone to sample alcohol by showing him where alcoholism will get him to.

But by using blitz and glitter, it is possible to tempt them to sample because the present has become all consuming.

And you may also realise that they target the youth without many responsibilities, some who are living on their parents’ resources, meaning the cost element of the ‘pastime’ is almost zero initially.

And they do that with a long-term knowledge that once someone gets hooked, they will forego food to get drunk.

Again, look at betting, the modern crave more addictive and dangerous than drugs.

I have never heard someone saying that they experienced a string of flops when they were starting.

Many times, that first bet gave a very handsome reward because they know that once you get hooked, nothing else will matter. You could even sell the house you are living in to place that bet.

What am I saying?

Baggage does not sell itself as thus.

Let me say two main things that open us to baggage.

And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. (Luke 12:15)

Greed is the first one.

And it is dangerous because it guides us to take shortcuts and take advantage of people and situations, opening us to judgment (baggage).

It is the capitalistic spirit that wants to reap the most from the least exertion.

It is the tendency to value people according to what we can get from them.

And it makes it impossible for us to minister because self interest is contrary to genuine ministry because genuine ministry says spend without expecting any returns.

The second is closely tied to it. And it is the pursuit of pleasure.

Its problem is that it blurs boundaries relating to sin and relationships.

You see, pleasure focuses me only on me. everybody and everything else exists for my enjoyment.

Those two vices thrive in the taking advantage of others for my benefit and using others for my pursuits, the two things that will bring baggage to anybody.

And this because their pursuit will always leave bleeding hearts.

Allow me to illustrate.

Imagine being in charge of a bursary program and skewing it allocations to friends and relatives.

That in effect means that the intended beneficiaries will lose out.

And since its purpose is to support those without resources to facilitate their education, you are in effect locking out the intended recipients, effectively also locking out other opportunities that education was meant to open them to.

Once in a while we get to hear of someone who qualified to join medical school (and in our country it is akin to the needle’s eye) and has had to do nondescript jobs to sustain himself because they couldn’t afford the barest to get the loan.

They are discovered over ten years later, still yearning to join medical school yet surrendered to fate.

All the time when there are enough scholarship and bursary awards that have been going to the rich who are close to those awarding offices.

Do you think the prayers of those people you defrauded will afford you peace?

You are in effect creating a baggage empire for your posterity.

Or you think God created all the women for your pleasure and so are sampling them as a connoisseur without a care in the world.

Think of the families you are breaking. Think of the futures you are wrecking as you play with those university beauties. Think of the children who are confused as they do not know who between the present father and resource pouring father to hold on to. Think of the illegitimate children you are spreading everywhere.

Do you think there is any safety in your pride? Do you think your children are safe?

The truth of the matter is that your posterity will inherit all that baggage.

Remember Gehazi whose pursuit of that low hanging fruit of Naaman’s free offer that his boss had adamantly refused opened his generations to leprosy?

Or Joab whose ambition and retaliatory justice opened his to judgment?

Or David whose single fling opened his to unending violence?

Or Solomon whose entrepreneurial pursuits tore David’s kingdom?

All these were for the most part God’s people committed to God’s purpose and surrendered to God’s revelation.

Yet they slipped.

Because baggage is packaged by the enemy of our souls who has been at it long enough to take advantage of our vulnerabilities

Knowing God and living according to His revelation is the only way to ensure your posterity enjoys their lives and prosperity without baggage.

But it requires constant vigilance on our side.

Fellowship Offerings

But the soul that eateth of the flesh of the sacrifice of peace offerings, that pertain unto the LORD, having his uncleanness upon him, even that soul shall be cut off from his people. (Leviticus 7:20)

Let us think about food for a moment.

Most people think of food as innocent and/or without boundaries.

But is it?

Food is not as innocent as many think.

All food carries with it some baggage.

Allow me to give some verses to set this off

When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat. (Proverbs 23: 1 - 3)

You do not dine with a ruler without an invitation.

Why then should such a meal be called deceitful meat?

It is because a ruler always has an agenda. And this means that his food reeks of that agenda

You are therefore safer outside that dining table than inside if you are not aware of the agenda that required your presence as you could be heading to the gallows even as you celebrate that promotion.

Or you do not remember Haman?

We have two scenarios in Matthew 22 about a king and his son’s wedding.

The honourable who were invited to the party trashed the invitation and were killed and their city razed.

That is why I say that a ruler’s invitation is never innocent since rejecting it can easily become criminal.

But then the king orders his servants to go everywhere to look for guests since a king’s party must be well attended.

Another reality comes to play.

As he was going through his guests, he found one that had probably thought his dress was honourable enough that he refused to dress in the king’s uniform, and probably he was right.

But just as the ones who had rejected the invite he was also condemned to severe punishment. Yet he had more or less been forced into that wedding, probably being diverted from some other worthy pursuit.

That may have been the reason he did not want to change his clothes so that he could get back to his affairs as soon as the wedding concluded.

That is what food can do.

And it is not only the ruler’s food. It is any food.

But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. (1Corinthians 5:11)

You see, food indicates fellowship, oneness.

I must in essence agree with what you represent to positively respond to your invitation to dine.

It is therefore utter folly to agree to dine with someone to mend fences because someone will be being bought.

We dine to celebrate the fact that we have mended fences.

But many times, we do not do that, only to discover that the wrong narrative has been painted about our unity because we agreed to dine.

I have seen that a few times, sometimes even being duped to participate, only to regret my folly.

You can’t separate food and agenda.

And that is why the fellowship (peace) offerings we see in the verse above have very solid boundaries, with death/ banishment being the punishment of any breach.

This means that fellowship is not the simple coming together to feast.

To God, it is a coming together of His people to celebrate Him.

That is why it is called a sacrifice or offering.

The community was offering their celebration and fellowship to God.

They would give God the fat and feast on the rest.

But before that they were also required to give the priests their portion.

The whole community came together to celebrate God’s goodness.

And that is why for the most part private slaughter was forbidden. Because many times someone would be drawn into honouring other gods (and effort and success are such), thus slowly leading one’s heart from God.

That is not easy when done God’s way.

There must be a priest who represented God’s ministry and who would have ensured that things were done according to God’s revelation (word).

And since it was also forbidden for that meat to last beyond two days or it would have been unclean (abominable to God), there also must have been neighbours and friends

And if any of the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings be eaten at all on the third day, it shall not be accepted, neither shall it be imputed unto him that offereth it: it shall be an abomination, and the soul that eateth of it shall bear his iniquity. (Leviticus 7:18)

This because no family can eat a cow in two days.

Eating together was the Old Testament equivalent of probably what would later become synagogue and then church as it brought the community together in fellowship.

Fellowship and food are interrelated. Food builds fellowship as fellowship unleashes sharing in other aspects of community.

And as is known, astute businessmen know the power of a meal to seal a deal because having fellowship over a meal releases warm feelings all over.

This is confusing for many especially when I bring about business.

But the purpose is to show that it is not only in the faith where meals have a greater purpose than just filling a stomach.

What is the summary of this whole thing?

Watch out where you eat. Watch out with whom you eat.

Even more important, pray about those invitations and respond as God would have you.

And I am not scaring you.

Christ protects us in our ignorance, though we may have to go through some consequences.

But He does not cover our rebellion or folly.

Official Secrets

I recently wrote about the people Jesus promoted from servants to friends (the Hagar series) with the main point being that any breach of such trust results not in a demotion to our former positions but to complete banishment.

Let us deal it in a slightly different way by looking at the public service.

When I joined the government many years ago, there was a form we had to sign that was taken from the Official Secrets Act.

In it, you agreed that you will not share anything you came across by virtue of your position.

This meant that doing so would be a criminal offence punishable by a fine or prison sentence.

Why am I bringing it here?

Nowadays it happens so often I wonder whether anyone signs such a document on joining the government.

I remember listening about a senior government official who resigned because he disagreed with his boss on an action the boss took using the information he got by virtue of his position.

However, the saddest part of that drama is that he wrote a letter, available to the media, explaining his reasons. And people were lauding him!

You wonder how we can be so foolish as to praise a snitch!

Reminds me of someone some time back in our country who secretly recorded his colleagues and made the recordings public to score a political goal as an anti corruption champion.

Again, he was praised.

But that prise was very short term as he disappeared completely.

Yet it was said that he made his name working for international NGOs before returning home to make a difference.

Who do you think will be comfortable with such a person in their boardroom?

I have heard pastors complain that nobody goes to them for prayer or counselling. Only to discover that it is because they cannot keep their mouth shut.

You share something with them and hear it in the sermon with only your name omitted.

Will you ever go to him again? Will anyone who knows the story you shared with him trust him with theirs? Will you ever recommend him to anyone else, however desperate their situation is?

Trust is like a rare clay or ceramic jar.

It is priceless but also fragile.

You break it and there is no way of reconstructing it.

Let us get back to official secrets.

You get a senior position because you are trusted.

Incidentally, that comes even before competency.

That trust means that your boss will be vulnerable to you because he knows you will always have his back like they say.

It is therefore immoral to use that vulnerability to expose him.

Leviticus 18 talks about sex and uses the term nakedness.

Sleeping with someone’s wife is called exposing his nakedness.

And that is the vulnerability I am talking about. Her husband has exposed his vulnerability (and nakedness) to her and you are exposing it.

No wonder the sentence for that was stoning.

It means that if I occupy an office, everything I encounter in that office literally belongs to that office whether I have taken any oath or not.

Incidentally, the law also says that anything I receive by the virtue of being in that office belongs to that office, even personal stuff.

A former prime minister in Asia is dealing with a case where he sold a watch they were given when on a state visit to another country.

Yet most will simply transfer the ownership of everything they receive to themselves.

That is why we have people who have insane amounts of land and shares in almost all profitable companies operating in their countries as well as having properties and money in safe havens abroad.

Yet they do not call that open pilferage as theft of national wealth. They do not think (or choose not to think) of that as grand corruption.

They will call that traffic cop receiving half a dollar bribe as corrupt when they are transferring wealth their office (through them) receives to their person.

The cop is bending the rules for a pittance when his boss is stealing truckloads from the nation he is pretending to lead.

The education official in charge of scholarships rigs the system to ensure his unqualified child gets that scholarship at the expense of the validly qualified needy student when his salary is adequate to educate his child.

The health official must travel outside the country for a flu shot when the ministry he leads is unable to provide care for the masses, the same ministry that is paying for that overseas treatment, yet his salary could afford that treatment.

And I must not leave the pastor of course.

A pastor who makes his living from a church in the slums lives on the suburbs on the land that slum church bought him and travels with the guzzler they bought him when they can hardly afford to put food on their tables.

His children will be taken to premier education institutions and even universities abroad when his parishioners struggle to take theirs through public schools, yet it is these same people who pay for that education.

And pastors also travel abroad and receive gifts that they quietly transfer to their persons. Yet he was sent by the church.

Ruffling feathers is fine when you are the one doing it but very bad when you are on the receiving end.

And it is comedic when you are pointing out the sins of others when you are guilty of the same or even worse sins. Remember Romans 2?

That is why I have put the minister of the Gospel on that list, because I am a minister too.

You will see such a preacher pouring hell and brimstone on thieving politicians and other public officers from that ornate pulpit he forced his congregation to buy when they could not afford because he felt the previous was beneath his status.

He will then get from that pulpit to drive that guzzler he forced his congregation to buy for him, a congregation less than 5% can afford a bike, let alone a barely moving jalopy.

Then he will drive to his mansion on the leafy suburbs that the same congregation was forced to buy, a congregation where less than 1% have their own homes, a majority barely able to afford decent abodes.

No wonder the church has lost her cutting edge.

Most of the leaders at the top carry the same rot the politicians and public officers carry.

And it is also no wonder that the same politicians are completely at home in our churches. The people at the top are kindred spirits.

They probably gave the pastor a gift and saw him swallowing it alone instead of taking it or even sharing it with his congregation.

Some are thinking that I am hitting so low.

But as a minister I am fully aware that I must intentionally be very careful how I handle any gifts I receive. I must pray and listen very keenly to know what to do with any gift I receive.

This is because there are two offices in one; minister the person and minister the office.

I must establish with God which one received the gift in question.

Incidentally it is the same way in a church where the leadership must (though I doubt any does) establish where the giving was directed to before spending it.

This is because most givers trust the spirituality of the managers of that gift to know the focus of their giving.

Imagine the pain the giver will feel and the prayer he will pray when his focus was on missions and you diverted it to maintenance of structures!

Imagine the pain the giver will feel when he gave his offering to minister to the needy in the church and you divert the same to beautifying the steeple or buy a new pulpit!

Imagine the pain the giver will feel if he gave toward neighbourhood evangelism and you used it to buy new instruments when the old ones were almost new!

And I am not saying that those other needs are unimportant. I am not saying that the pastor should not eat of live well.

Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn. (Deuteronomy 25:4)

I am simply saying that the ox should be eating as it is treading the corn. It is not released to feed on the corn

It is a travesty when the ox is released to the corn when it is not treading it.

It is a sin when the incidentals (structures, emoluments) take the lion’s share of the offerings.

This is because very few think or pray about them when considering giving to the church

Elevating them to primary focus is therefore a clean breach of trust.

It is akin to releasing the ox to the corn before it starts treading it.

I hope I am making a point here.

I am dealing with things that bring judgment to us because we are like that ox that thinks the corn belongs to it and therefore gets to the store to eat it because it does not see any difference between eating as it treads it and eating it from the store.

In any case, it is easier and fills faster eating from the store.

Sawasawa?

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 some 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 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 method.

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 appeared to outshine him. But the success of his method is proven by the fact that we have their writings.

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 or affirmation 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.

One thing I must say in closing, however, is that the expectation of doing discipleship that way is that the disciple must be allowed to outshine his discipler, Jesus being our example.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. (John 14:12)

We have also seen Barnabas demonstrating the same thing.

And in the Old Testament we have Moses and Jonathan operating the same way