When Fame Overflows Your Banks

Is not this David, of whom they sang one to another in dances, saying, Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands? (1Samuel 29:5)

Have you realized that David in this instance had been in hiding on foreign lands for some years?

Yet his efforts at hiding were always hampered by his earlier fame. He had established a definition.

Incidentally there were no newspapers and TV and so you may wonder how the Philistines knew how he looked like. Yet they knew. And this is the second time he is found out.

I recently posted about Peter and how his speech gave him away when was trying his best to melt into the woodwork. Then I have also posted of beautiful feet and the fact that they are not what eyes call beautiful, meaning that they are found in the wrong places, humanly speaking. Of course much earlier I posted to show that sin is always exposed however much we may try to hide it.

Today I want us to realize that our position in the spiritual realm can also not be hidden, and that whether we were trying to do so or not.

A pastor gave me this testimony, his.

He at one time got completely exhausted and disappointed in ministry as can happen to the best of us, and decided he was done with serving God.

He therefore decided to sin in a way that would force God to disqualify him, sleep with a harlot.

He decided to travel to a distant town where chances of being known would be slim and then look for a brothel.

Then what happens? The first harlot he meets falls on his feet.

‘Pastor, please help me’, she cried out to him. And he has to become a pastor once again.

He got back home and after another punishing season of ministry still decides to go to a different distant town to do the same thing. And the scenario was repeated.

That is when he realized that there was no way to get away from the responsibilities God had placed on him. And that is what we see with Jonah’s story.

What we are and what we do in the spiritual realm is broadcast throughout the spiritual realm, and especially in the opposing realm.

Again I remember the many times I have gone to churches nobody knows me and wanted to enjoy for once being on the back bench learning from others. I therefore sit at the most unobtrusive position so that nobody notices me.

Then out of nowhere (or so I think) someone comes from the front to where I am ‘hiding’ and invites me to share the word yet I there are other visitors in the congregation.

One time we had gone to visit a lady who found faith and salvation (plus of course great release) as we ministered. She therefore became very committed to ‘our’ church.

Incidentally, she came from a great distance and came carrying a very heavy son, too heavy for many young people in church to even lift. Yet she came to church punctually, even before some leaders had arrived.

I therefore purposed to visit her with the young man I was discipling using the motor bike I was using then. And the distance was long even on the bike.

Sadly, we found that she was not at home. We waited for some time but decided to leave because it was becoming late even with a bike. We therefore decided to leave.

But on the way we found our path blocked by the villagers. They then told us that we looked like preachers and therefore they had decided that they would not allow us to leave their village before we preached to them. Of course it was a pleasure for me to do so. Yet none of us had ever seen the other.

We are known as ministers of Christ. We therefore cannot hide even if we wanted.

I feel this is very instructive even as we approach times when living our faith will be dangerous. I am talking about times when persecution will be legal worldwide as it is in countries with Muslim and other demonic religious majorities.

Like the persecuted church over the ages, we must learn to live in such a way that our visibility does not hamper the witness of the church.

What do I mean? I know someone is wondering.

Being that visible in the spiritual realm, picking me and putting me out of circulation is no big deal. I should therefore live and minister in such a way that I am making as many as possible as portent as I am in the spiritual realm before my time comes. And that is what the persecuted church continues to do to survive even as we are fighting to remain relevant and visible.

Incidentally that is the only thing Christ commanded us to be doing, making disciples.

Do you realize that the word Christian appears much later in the book of Acts? The word before then was disciple, meaning that the focus of the church was teaching like Christ commanded. Incidentally even the word Christian was not the flimsy weight we make it today.

We should be in the business of raising other ministers since that is our calling as ministers.

Look at one favorite verse our generation loves quoting.

He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a full grown man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we may no longer be children, tossed back and forth and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, Christ; from whom all the body, being fitted and knit together through that which every joint supplies, according to the working in measure of each individual part, makes the body increase to the building up of itself in love. (Ephesians 4: 11 – 16)

Why we love verse 11 and conveniently ignore verse 12 beats comprehension.

God did not call us to star. Christ is the Morning Star and does not need any other star.

We are supposed to be raising believers who are just like Christ.

And we do that by focusing on making ourselves the best copies of Christ we can be so that they cannot be misled when they copy us.

Remember Paul advising the church to imitate him as he imitated Christ?

We can have the boldness to tell people that if we are fully committed to a life of complete obedience. Then we won’t be scared if we produce clones of ourselves because we are confirmed clones of Christ. And I say this because we are always producing clones of ourselves as we minister, especially at the leadership level. We do not therefore get to choose whether we will produce clones or not. We can only determine by our lives the kind of clones we will produce.

Our clones will be just like us.

That is why a superstar minister produces superstar clones, a Bible bending minister produces Bible bending clones, a promise claiming minister produces the same, a greedy minister produces a greedy clone, and so on. And that was how Peter was able to be recognized even when he was swearing otherwise.

Would it not be better for the church when our potency is not for display? That those who can recognize us do not do so because we seek to attract attention?

This is because our ‘children’ will be just like us. Then even if they will arrest us they will have our clones to deal with.