Scared of Transformation?

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief. (1Timothy 1:15)

I am writing this in response to some comments I got from the message I posted last week (Are You Ready?)

The thrust of this is examining why we have issues accepting people who have been saved from the lowest strata of society by the grace of Christ. Incidentally it is important to note that all of us were saved because we had no capacity of saving ourselves.

The first reason lies with the doctrine we hold. Many believe that salvation is gradual, especially through their experience.

What do I mean by that? Their journey of faith has been on the slow lane that it dictates their theology.

Imagine being saved for decades yet never able to escape lying to get from a tight spot or strike a deal or gain an advantage? Or being saved for the longest time yet the covetousness index is so high that verses must be looked for to justify it. I have been a pastor for so long yet I can’t concentrate on counseling or praying for a needy person when I suspect that a person of means might be around.

If honesty and contentment and impartiality are taking this long to deal with, how possible is it for murder and harlotry and thievery to be dealt with conclusively in this life? Of course it is impossible according to our experience.

If truth be told, we hold the Hindu doctrine of reincarnation or the catholic doctrine of purgatory. These people can never be completely saved from their past life in this one. Again according to our experience we believe they will continue in the evils they were involved in, only in a diminishing manner. That is why we are not willing to make them fully accepted members of our fellowships. We would rather they died so that we give comforting testimonies that they died saved.

The second reason is connected to the first one. We fear how deep their conversion may go. In other words I am not ready to face the fact that my doctrine is wrong. I am not ready to see my long held doctrines and experiences being trashed by such rejects when they get saved.

I will explain. In the river we call the salvation experience we have travelers at different spots on it. Those who hold the doctrine I have mentioned normally walk along the banks of the river, sometimes wading where the water is not deep or fast flowing as they are scared of being swept off their feet. Of course they will not swim unless they get to a place where the river is dammed. They will leave the river altogether when it gets to a place where the bank is steep and walk until they get to a safer place to wade. And they still insist that they are being driven to the ocean (heaven) by the river!

Now look at these malcontents. They have been so far from the river and have the stench of the world that they are fed up with life away from the river. They will therefore throw themselves where the river is deepest and fastest so that they will be cleaned as quickly as possible. Another thing with them is that they will have a dread of the bank because many will have had personal experience about the danger the bank can place someone in because it is from the bank that the enticements of the world are seen.

This prostitute dying of AIDS is not getting saved to be respectfully buried by the church. She is fed up with her life on the fast lane. She cannot face the damage she has done to families and devastation she has done to society. She is completely fed up with that life and is looking for a way out of it. She wants to start mending the mess she has created. She has no reverse gear in her decision.

Finding a Savior does that and more. He frees her from not only guilt and condemnation. He gives her a new life (2 Corinthians 5:17). He gives her a new lease of life. She now can start reconstructing her life along new rules from a Savior who has cleansed her from that stench.

Her transformation will be so drastic that it will trash all your respectable wading on the bank. And she will not keep quiet about her former life because she will want to rescue as many as possible from the regret her life had become.

The ‘hot’ dress you so love will not be safe from her. She will tell you that it is cut and hemmed that way to ensnare men to lust and she will not be apologetic about it because her whole life was built along that. That lipstick and eye pencil and wig may be given very devilish connotations by this person who knows more than you may care to change.

The thief will expose covetousness and greed in ways that will make your life a great pretence because he has been plucked out of it and understands it because it defined his past life. The murderer will expose things that we are comfortable with for what the devil has designed them for, again from his having been in the employ of the evil one. The secular musician will expose your ‘worship teams’ and music in ways that may require that you completely do away with them as he was adept in that from worship on the other side.

Their being allowed in our fellowships will shame our complacent faith and respectable rebellion. They will insist on us joining them in the centre of the river to be swept wherever the river will take us when we insist on knowing where we stand.

The third reason is that we are scared of getting into the centre of the river since we are not willing to lose the control of our lives. And these radicals who have nothing to desire on the bank will very easily paint us as hypocrites who want to be associated with a gospel we are not practicing. And they will do that not by speaking, but by living a totally surrendered life.

Their radical conversion will show the world that we are washed out pretenders of a Gospel we neither believe nor practice.

A Muslim has to consider ultimate rejection to the point of being ready to die for becoming a Christian. How do I willingly receive him if I have problems telling the person I want to marry that I am a Christian for fear that they may call me boring? How ready am I to hug him when I am unable to resist ungodly chatter in the office or classroom because I might be labeled old school? How do I receive him when he is every time exposing my shallow Christian experience?

Why must they be radical? A person who has been saved from drowning will apart from developing a great fear of water become extremely sensitive about water bodies. They will notice things others do not think exist because the drowning will be very high in their subconscious even if they were to forget they ever drowned.

I once jumped from a tree to the ground as a child (just for fun) and felt something that denied me the joys of climbing trees as a boy though I broke no bones. Someone who has ever got a good enough electric shock may change direction when he finds an exposed wire without even examining it to find out whether it is connected to an electric source.

This will explain why these people will become sensitive to small things (sins) we assume. You see they were rescued from the depths of sin and did not get saved because a friend was getting saved or it was becoming fashionable or they wanted the preacher to feel nice some people had come forward. They came to the Savior because they needed saving and for no other reason. That is the reason sin in any shade will attract their attention, however insignificant it may appear to us.

Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. (1Peter 2: 1 – 3)

They will insist on maintaining a childlike desire for the things of God because they have a spiritual phobia for their former lives. They will not allow respectability and political correctness mar that growth. No wonder they make us uncomfortable.

The other reason is simple envy and jealousy. We hate it when they get saved after us and become deeper quicker, even surpass our carefully laid down Christianity.

I will post a chapter of my book ‘Envy, the Destroyers blank cheque’ to explain what I mean. We hate it when the last become first and become better in all ways as Christ said.

Chapter 5: Envy, the Fuel

There was this young man who was so bad. He was actually the baddest of a very bad family. I remember talking to most in the family who said they desired the young man to get saved.

We became friends and I started sharing the gospel with him over a long time. This is because he was drunk most of the time. And he was always fighting somebody.

Eventually, he asked Christ into his life and his was a conversion that didn’t need any argument. He was transformed instantly. He stopped drinking and drugs, started treating his family well. Even the neighbors immediately confessed to the change in his life.

I got him a Bible and he spent so much time reading it, then coming to me for clarification concerning some of the things he had read.

About two weeks later, he came to me very drunk and very bitter. Know what had happened? His mother and elder brother had actually taken him to a bar and got him drunk. And nothing I did could change that reverse transformation.

Then I got to think. Nobody wants to be the baddest of them all. This young man had been the undisputed black sheep of the family, meaning that the others were better than he was. His changing threatened their goodness. They had to change or they would be seen in all their badness. But they didn’t want to change. So the baddest had to continue the way he was.

I know of ladies who pray for their husbands to stop drinking or promiscuity yet respond very negatively when he actually stops. You see as long as you are very bad, my bad appears good enough. Like we know change is not always welcome when it comes to me, my desire for someone to change actually wants someone to change only for my convenience, not for their good. And that is envy.

I want to shine, and if your changing will challenge my shining, I would rather prefer you in your badness. Your change should ensure that my goodness is not challenged. And I can’t be sure of that. It would be safer if you stayed the way you are, and then I can continue sharing those prayer requests.

Several years ago someone told me, ‘I was happy when you became serious with God, but you have now become too serious’. You see, as long as I was walking in teenage rebellion, he appeared very religious, but when I really connected with Christ, his Christianity started appearing shallow. That was envy.

I know of wives who stand in the way of their husbands’ ministries because it does not give them as much visibility they feel they need or their husbands become too famous. They will therefore persecute their husbands and deny them as much as can be denied so that the ministry is strangled. They will actually send destroying angels after their husbands just so that they can be put in a prominent position to feed their vanity whatever else God says. It started as their ministry but she eventually found that the background is not a position to occupy. I would not be surprised that many of the women ministers are there just for the publicity.

I know of husbands who send destroying angels to their wives because they are excelling in their job and getting promotions faster than them. Some actually turn physical for the same reason. They had agreed that both hold a job but he had not considered the promotions.

Some will physically destroy what their partner has made since it threatens their position. Some will dispose of what they think makes their partner more popular.

How much am I willing to give up for my brother? You see as long as I have not sorted that in my heart, my prayer will be very shallow. I will be like this family that was praying for their son to get saved yet could not face it when he did so.

I might pray for deliverance for my sister but as long as I am feeling threatened by what she could become when delivered; my prayer is actually an abomination to God. I might be praying for a successful marriage life for my child, but if I fear it may be better than mine, I might be sending a destroying angel their way.

I might be praying for my brother to come off drugs and promiscuity, but if I fear that his changing might make me appear less good, I could actually be the reason they are there.

Let us examine our hearts to see whether there is a seed of envy therein. Then let us become bold and ask God to uproot it in totality. And offer to support Him by doing whatever He reveals to us.

End of chapter

I have not exhausted the reasons but I hope these will help you think through what may be making you resist the salvation of the nations, especially those who are desperate for that salvation.

One final reason I will state is that for the most part most of us are scared of taking on high risk assignments because they will sometimes expose our reputations to disrepute. I remember one time God gave me an assignment in a field which risked my whole life’s integrity and testimony because it was in a very muddied place. I remember asking God what I will do for my name if I took that assignment and His response was this verse.

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. (Mark 8:35)

I therefore had to choose between my reputation and God’s assignment. I am glad I chose His assignment because though I appeared to lose my name in the short term (I was even confronted by friends for my backsliding and even the church came for its guitar that I was using for the assignment), God bailed me out conclusively as revival broke out in that field.

But these have no names to defend. They have no reputations to protect. This means that any assignment does not place any such risks for them as serving the King of kings is enough reputation for them as they have no name to save.

It therefore means that their commitment to the cause of Christ will not have any hindrances, hindrances that our being in the field for long enough has given us a stature that may stand in the way of our obedience.

I have a friend who was a hardened criminal who got saved in prison. His commitment to ministry puts to shame many established ministers as I have seen him walk twenty km to minister when he does not have bus fare instead of give excuses or looking for someone to pay fare for him.

I also have a former terrorist who is at the frontline of Muslim outreach. He is never scared to speak about his faith even next to the mosque. He can’t remember how many times they have attempted to kill him, from stabbing him to knocking him down using whatever they could.

You see, someone who was ready, even prepared to die for the devil counts it a great privilege to die for Christ, something we are not even willing to explore.

That is the kind of commitment that scares us to death. And that is one key reason we would rather they do not join or fellowships or churches. They will expose the phoniness of our faith.

And the scriptures support that. Joseph was hated by his brothers not just because he dreamt. He was hated because the dreams had a divine twist to them.

King Saul did not seek to kill David because he was a threat to his kingdom. He knew that David was extremely loyal. But his spirituality was the actual threat because he was not willing to face his backslidden state.

Look at Jesus also. Who were His enemies? It was the spiritual leadership that was looking for ways to eliminate Him. The rabble (prostitutes and tax collectors) gladly heard Him and followed Him.

And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 8: 11, 12)

… Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward, that ye might believe him. (Matthew 21: 31b, 32)

You realize that it was the spiritual elite that killed Him. The down and outs gladly received Him.

What is the consequence of our behavior? Like the spiritual leaders of Christ’s time we will be shoved off the reward reserved for the true worshippers. And they very easily could be the jailbirds, former terrorists and murderers and HIV positive prostitutes even as we enjoy the pampering of the world and all that it offers.

I know of former Muslim women and girls who were raped and intentionally infected with HIV yet still remain in the faith. I know of men who were disinherited and even had all the wealth they had made taken away yet still remain faithful to the Savior. And many die for making that simple decision we make when all eyes are closed. All the time as we are preaching breakthrough and favor on purely material terms! And we still believe we will lead them heavenward.

It is very possible that we will be shoved aside as these rejects will lead us to God.

My suspicion (and it is something I have been saying) is that the next revival to happen in Kenya could very easily start from the Somali people. And it is simply because their salvation must have considered everything, life included. They therefore will come to Christ not as a fashion accessory but as the only solution to their sins.

Are you prepared to receive these rejects and welcome them wholeheartedly into the faith or will you be shoved aside for them to get into the household of faith. There are no other options.

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37)

But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. (Matthew 23:13)

Who are you in this scenario? Would you prefer to be somebody else?

Will you join God in reconciling the world to Him or will you be the obstacle that must be removed for His agenda to be realized?

As for me and my house, we have determined to be all and do all to ensure that the whole world comes to the realization and worship of her Savior. Who will join me?