Elementals

But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. (Matthew 6:33)

We love and fear the truth in this verse in equal measure. But I think there is more of fear than love. And that because the reality inherent in the same is scary, to say the least.

But have we ever sought to understand our Lord’s statement? Have we sought to internalise the message it contains? Have we sought to interrogate its implications on our daily lives?

What is God’s kingdom? What is God’s righteousness?

Therein lies the purpose and focus of this verse.

Understanding them is what will open us to the release it promises.

What is a kingdom?

It is an entity that has a king at its head.

OHMS (On His Majesty’s Service) describes the relationships the subjects have with their king.

In short, everybody and everything exists for the purposes and pleasure of the king in his realm.

Allow me, however, to share a common story to get us into the right ‘spirit’

There was this happily married couple, married for many years.

On their silver jubilee, as befits the occasion, the husband decides to serve his wife, besides other celebratory accessories.

But the wife, on seeing what was being served burst out into tears.

I can’t imagine all the spite you have allowed me to suffer all these years. Why do you remind me this on this great day? The wife screamed.

To say the husband was surprised would be an understatement.

What have I done? And what is this indignity I have subjected you to for twenty-five years?

The cause was very simple.

All the time, the husband used to butter the crust of the bread for his wife.

Where the husband came from, the crust was the best part of the bread and everybody fought for it.

On the wife’s side, however, the same crust was the worst, being treated like reject.

Whereas the husband thought he was giving his wife the best, even surrendering that best for the enjoyment of his wife, the wife thought that he was demeaning her by serving her the reject.

Incidentally, many marriages fail for such simple things

Allow me to flip this like Paul used to do and say that this is about the church and Christ, or about the relationship of a believer to God.

You see, we all love God. Or do we?

But do we care to know what kind of service we can give Him? Do we even care to know how He expects us to live? Do we know what acceptable service is like?

You see, just as in marriage your best effort might be construed to be the worst insult, it could just be that what you are offering God could be abominable to Him.

Saul was condemned and rejected for two things.

He sought to intreat God with a sacrifice when the priest delayed.

And second, he saved the best animals to give to God as a sacrifice.

Of course, his final act was fuelled by a desperation to hear God’s take on things, eventually seeking a familiar spirit to do so.

Is there anything wrong with offering a sacrifice before going to war?

Is there anything wrong with giving God the best?

Is there anything wrong with being desperate for God’s voice?

Of course not.

The only problem with those good things was that they went against God’s revelation.

They therefore became acts of rebellion.

We will many times hear arguments around someone’s heart being in the right place.

But the reality is that it does not matter where the heart is.

You simply cannot please someone on your terms. You cannot offer them pleasure on your terms.

And that is what Saul sought to do, something we do all the time.

And in marriage that is disastrous because a continual persistence on the same becomes irritation.

Allow me to give another story to illustrate this.

A rich man had a huge tree on his compound. And the same tree shed very many leaves on a daily basis.

He employed a worker whose duty was to ensure that there were no leaves under the tree.

After working that job for some time, this guy became ingenious and dealt with that menace conclusively. He cut the tree down.

When his boss came back, he was beaming, expecting a great reward for his forward thinking move.

Do you think he was rewarded?

Of course not. And it was simply because he had presumed his boss, serving him very creatively, but on his terms.

Again, we do that all the time in our marriages and faith, thinking that we will be applauded for our inventiveness.

We think that God really needs us, the same way many in marriage think that their partner would be unable to live without them.

Did God create man to complete Himself? Of course not.

Did God create Eve to complete Adam? Of course not

He actually took something out of Adam to create Eve

The word God used for the woman was helpmeet, a suitable helper.

Not an assistant, not a supervisor, not a vision bearer; just a suitable helper.

By the time Eve was brought, Adam had already named the animals and received his orders concerning how he would exercise dominion over creation.

And this still concerns the kingdom.

Do you realise that almost all of Christ’s parables and lessons were about kings and kingdoms?

It means that the issue of God’s kingdom ranked very highly in His scheme of things.

Even the Gospel is called the Gospel of the kingdom.

Allow me to look at some of those parables.

Remember the parable of the talents?

I do not know whether you realise that the wicked servant was more prudent and watchful over his lord’s resources.

You see, putting money to work opens you to the probability of losing it since even farming is no sure investment as I remember I lost all my money due to the El Nino floods of ’97. Businesses fail all the time.

This character feared to suffer loss if he put the king’s money to use, especially since he did not know when the king would be back.

The only problem was that he forgot the order he had been given, occupy till I come.

He was not told to ensure that the gift multiplied or even increased. He was only ordered to put it into use.

The profit and loss dynamic of that occupy was not his responsibility.

That is why the ones who occupied were rewarded irrespective of how much they produced.

He was punished for refusing to obey the king’s order.

I am sure he would not have been punished had he put the money to use and experienced loss.

Let us examine another parable to glean a few other things about God’s kingdom.

Remember the parable of the steward who was being sacked for impropriety?

Does it not surprise you that his cunning was commended by his lord?

This guides us to another aspect of the kingdom.

His boss commended him, not because he reduced the debts owed to the king but because he exhibited the ethos of his kingdom.

A king does not trade for the purposes of profit since everything and everyone in his kingdom belongs to him.

Apart from expanding his kingdom, nothing else excites a king than satisfied subjects.

And as believers we fail in this big time because we forget that simple truth.

Ministers fail because they look at their occupation or even calling as jobs to earn a living or run a spiritual enterprise. That is why pastors are nowadays called CEOs of churches.

That is why churches and ministries are closed for the simple reason that they have become ‘insolvent’.

A pastor who is unable to grow his congregation is called a failure since he does not have adequate return on investment.

We forget that Jeremiah ministered for over forty years and had nothing to show for it.

I will develop this farther in future posts.

I realise I am constrained in some way since my children are home from school and so I am not able to sufficiently build on this in time.

Incidentally, that is the parental dynamic that we should be prudent about since we are accountable to God for how we run it.

 

 

Hopeless Hopes

We are still on the message of God becoming quiet.

Incidentally, He did not go silent only on king Saul.

The Bible is replete with example and another of the same happening.

Hezekiah and Asa are other examples.

Today, however, I want us to look at instances where God appears to break that rule.

Who was Ahab?

The Bible records him as the most wicked king Israel ever had.

Yet we see God pursuing him again and again.

But that was not favouritism.

And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly. And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house. (1Kings 21: 27 – 29)

God knew that Ahab’s heart had a soft spot for His message, a spot that his continued wickedness had almost extinguished.

That is why He pursued him.

Another person is also known as the most wicked king Judah had, the king whose wickedness had ensured that Judah goes to captivity. He was the king whose sin made God to tell Jeremiah not to pray for his people because Manasseh had sealed their case.

And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, And prayed unto him: and he was intreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him again to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD he was God. (2Chronicles 33: 12, 13)

Again, we see the same thing.

This hopeless character had some flicker of hope, a flicker that God in His awesomeness could not overlook.

Whereas God completely stopped from interacting with Saul and these other kings after their sin, these despicable sinners seemed always to have God’s eye on them.

Why is that so? I know many are wondering.

It boils on a simple truth. The difference between sin and rebellion.

For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins (Hebrews 10:26)

It boils down to the state of our hearts.

Sin might be intentional and blatant. Rebellion is defiance.

Though they may appear similar, to God they are as difference as that between light and darkness.

You may remember that it was the reason that all adults who left Egypt died in the wilderness so that they do not enter the promised land.

And it was the same reason some characters were swallowed by the earth, among many other occurrences in the scriptures.

Knowing God’s will and choosing NOT to do it is what rebellion is all about.

Not knowing God’s will makes God appear lenient on us. However, choosing NOT to know God’s will may be worse than actual rebellion because it is seeking to forestall revelation.

It is akin to throwing away a map so that you can truly say that you got lost because you did not know the way.

I hope I am not making things more complicated.

It is important, however, to bring out the distinction between Hezekiah, Asa, Saul, and Manasseh and Ahab.

One side had clear orders that they disobeyed while the other was born in an environment of rebellion. One chose to do wrong while the other simply grew the sin they were part of.

In short, we can say that one knew the right and chose to disobey while the other only had sin to work with.

That is why they responded in ways that pleased God though the judgment due to their actions was not removed since as we know God must judge sin.

At the surface it appears as if God is unfair since He pursues the most wicked even as He completely refuses to speak to someone who appears to have a relationship with Him.

Spiting revelation, however, is most abominable to God because it seeks to slight Him. It seeks to demean Him to just a friend or, like we say in out language, our agemate.

That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Genesis 18:25)

That is why God must reveal His will even to the most wicked. That is why He must extend His love to the most despicable.

Because many times they will very easily respond very positively to His invitation.

Remember Jesus and His relationships in His earthly ministry? Who was the most responsive to His message?

It was the Ahabs and Manassehs of those days. It was the harlots and tax collectors. It was the Samaritans and the Romans.

Even as the religious right was always fighting Him.

The ones without the light ran towards the light that Christ possessed even as the ones who seemed to have the light scorned Him.

Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth. (John 9:41)

Someone who has been exposed to the light bears greater responsibility for their response for it than the one without that exposure.

Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment. (James 3:1 WEB)

Allow me to bring another shocking verse for our consideration.

Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you. (Matthew 21:31b)

What am I trying to get across?

We are accountable for the light we have accessed.

A misuse of that light will make God go silent on us even as He continues reaching out to the ones we have trashed in our self righteousness; the drug addicts, the tramps, the murderers and the characters Christ mentioned in that verse.

Or have we forgotten that we still have harlots and publicans amongst us?

Incidentally, my definition of a publican is that corrupt and self-seeking public servant; that representative who diverts public funds to his preferred projects, that public spokesperson who only speaks for issues beneficial to him and his circles, that leader who amasses public wealth to feather his retirement nest, that judicial officer who winks at a case involving his friend or supporter.

At the top of that pyramid of publicans you will of course find the ‘Gospel minister’ who will only go to minister where there is commensurate ‘returns’ and who will only pray and bless where his appreciation is guaranteed.

I am writing this as a gospel minister who has been at it for four decades and so know what I am saying.

However, the gospel minister does not strictly fit in the category of publicans but in the silent God team. I write this because most people place them there.

Allow me to stop here since I feel this message has the capacity to extend for a very long time.

But I trust that the message has sunk.

But in closing let me say that we will know where we are as we read and study the scriptures reverently.

When God becomes Quiet

Do you realise that God went completely silent on Saul when he rebelled against Him?

Do you realise that even when he killed a whole city of priests no rebuke was sent his way?

That even when he became so desperate to hear that voice God even then refused to speak to the point that he visited a familiar spiritual medium?

His life is one that demonstrates a great hunger to hear from God and failing to do so. And there are very many instances of that from his story.

I have said enough times that God is not like a radio or TV that is always speaking so that anybody who is listening, even passively, gets the message.

God speaks only to the ear that not only is listening to Him, but is ready to do what He says.

For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. (Isaiah 66:2)

He will never allow someone with such an attitude to fail to hear. He will never allow someone ready to obey to misinterpret His voice.

Has God ordered you to do or not do something?

How has been your response?

That determines whether He will continue to speak or go completely silent on you.

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. (Matthew 7: 24 – 27)

What does the Bible say about the way you are living your life?

Are you trembling with obedience or are you, like Saul, looking for clearer orders?

I have just felt the urgency to share this message now.

What you do with it is up to you

Crippling Crutches

What would you rather have between legs and crutches? What would be your preference between prosthetics and the original limbs?

You see, crutches are there to assist injured legs. Prosthetics are there when the actual limbs are absent or have been rendered useless.

They are not essential to their functionality. They are aids in their restoration.

However, we are wont to many times elevate those same crutches to essentiality through the overuse of the same.

Then they will become more essential to walking than the legs whose injury necessitated their usage.

The result is that we render our legs useless because we insist on using those crutches all the time.

Let me use another illustration.

What are tools?

They are the things we use to work better, faster and neater.

But we must not use them.

In our childhood we built many things, even go carts that we would ride downhill at breakneck speeds without any tools like hammers, saws and chisels.

A stone can do the work of a hammer. A shaped nail can do the work of a chisel. And a panga can do the work of a saw.

A Swahili saying goes something like this

The breakage of a cooking stick does not mean the end of cooking.

I am talking about accessories, useful accessories.

But we can very easily make them idols by thinking that there is no life without them.

Allow me to take us to one such tool.

In Kenya, the cooperative movement is a huge thing and has been growing tremendously.

Initially, it started as a means to bring together a few peasants (my word) together and have them pool together the little moneys they could raise to be able to buy some land since most had been dispossessed by the colonialist and the henchmen who took over from him.

And that served many of them very well.

Then it was developed as a means for employees who were not earning much money to be able to save to be able to purchase things they could not otherwise have accessed through their salaries, especially since banks were more interested with the rich men’s money.

It was also a means to introduce some forced discipline to save money since for most it is impossible to not spend money once it gets into their hands, especially with all those needs around.

Again, it has served that purpose quite well.

Due to those successes (and I have intentionally left out the negatives, which are also many), many people have concluded that the cooperative spirit is the only way to progress.

As such, any few people will unite their purses for whatever purpose since it has worked so well over the years.

Until is has become a religion. Until it has become a god.

You will hear some arguments bordering on blasphemy by advocates of those small cooperatives.

Who will bury you if you are not in a chama? How will you buy furniture or land without membership? How will you get married outside a chama?

In short, we have elevated the crutch above the legs it was meant to help heal. We have completely forgotten that we even have any legs.

And that is idolatry.

I hear people complaining about the constraints and unreasonable demands in those groupings and wonder who forces someone to be in such a group.

And it is in death that they are most powerful as they can then make the most punitive demands.

And nobody dare rebel because they also will need to be buried.

One must give what they are told and not what they can afford.

Reminds me of Jesus telling the person who wanted to follow Him to let the dead bury their own dead.

I heard several such members complaining about all those demands and asked them who decides on who gives what and they responded it was the leaders.

Why then was everybody buying what they had been ordered, yet complaining?

The group has transitioned from being a servant to a master like we talk about electricity or money.

It becomes a very hard taskmaster.

But it doesn’t stop there though for the purposes of this ministry I won’t pursue that direction.

Allow me to look at our faith.

I have for very long been preparing Bible Reading plans for those who think that the Bible cannot be just read since it is ‘too big’.

I have several testimonies of people who have been helped tremendously by those reading plans.

But those reading plans are not the Bible.

It would be very sad if someone stopped reading the Bible because their reading plan got lost because it is just a tool to help a believer establish a consistent discipline of reading the Bible.

That person would have elevated the reading plan to an idol that is detestable to God.

Jesus advised us about the prayer closet. And that closet is a very useful tool in our prayer times.

But it is not prayer.

Otherwise, what would you do if you got into a situation where you are unable to get even a few minutes alone for a week? What would you do if in your travel you get to a place where there is nothing even remotely resembling a prayer closet? Why are we ordered to pray without ceasing?

To some it is a prayer shawl or any similar tool.

If the tool whose purpose it is to elevate your relationship with God blocks the relationship when it is absent, it has stopped being a tool but an idol.

I remember once I lived in a place where the watchman was a Muslim who was very serious on his observations.

When someone would come to him at the time he was going for prayer just beside the gate, he would insult this ‘intruder’ badly so that he allows him to go for his prayers.

From our point we might judge him as being foolish, among other things.

But that is exactly how we look when we convert the tools God has given (we have created) to aid our devotion into absolute essentials.

We have allowed crutches to replace our legs.

That was Christ’s major argument with the spiritual leaders of His time.

From the Sabbath to ceremonial cleansing, He showed them what His Father had in mind when creating those orders.

They were a means but the Jews had made them ends. They were tools but were made the essentials.

But are we any different from those guys?

Haven’t we created even bigger strictures?

I will not even mention devotional materials.

I will not mention Bible Studies.

What guides your worship?

Is it the crutches you have allowed to guide it to the point that they have obliterated the relationship that is primary to that worship?

Will you go back to your first love as Christ ordered the church at Ephesus?

Will you seek to reestablish your relationship with God on His terms without any intermediaries?

Tools are good and useful. Crutches are useful, even essential at the right time.

But they are not the project. They are not the building.

We are the building. Christ is the One building it.

We are the branches even as Christ is the vine.

Let us never forget that simple fact.

Vestiges of Revival

I do not know whether, like me, you wonder why it is the superficial elements that remain after a revival.

Do you also wonder why transformational aspects of the revival do not last long?

Why do we only associate past revivals with habits and gimmicks that leave the core of the revival outside?

I know someone will challenge me to substantiate. And I will.

I will start with the two recent ‘moves’ of God that I know quite some about since I am a witness or beneficiary of the same.

Remember the East Africa Revival of yore?

What else, apart from tukutendereza do you remember about it?

Those who were around in the eighties remember Reinhard Bonnke and the movement he was part of.

Again, what, apart from the choruses (I call them chants) can you remember about it?

That the singing of a foreign tongue one does not understand is treated as the evidence of being part of a revival movement is sad.

That a German accent is treated as evidence of having received the touch of God is again very sad.

Just like in the past when having a foreign name, speaking a foreign tongue, stopping drinking, smoking and divorcing legal wives to remain with one was treated as the clearest evidence of conversion, we are even today repeating the same mistake.

And that is disastrous to the advance of the Gospel because it leads people into wrong pursuits, resulting in wrong diagnoses and treatments of spiritual ailments.

We even declare invalids healed because they are ticking our self-made boxes.

Revival is not external though it manifests externally.

There are many unbelievers who do not use drugs or have two wives just as there are a few believers who are struggling with drugs and have complicated marriages.

Cosmetic assessment can therefore be misleading.

Allow me, however, to touch one very raw nerve.

Remember the Pentecostal/ charismatic movement? Remember the Azusa Street awakening?

Again, what is the evidence of the fullness of the Holy Spirit on someone?

How scriptural is that?

How can we accurately evaluate it?

Nobody has any capacity of assessing an unknown tongue, not even the speaker.

Not only that. The Holy Spirit is not the only One who can release that gift since even demons do.

Having been raised in that environment, I can also say that I saw seekers being taught to speak those tongues if the ‘spirit tarried’ in releasing them. Meaning that someone can speak manufactured tongues.

But that is not the purpose of this message.

When the evidence of a move of God is tied to the externals (allow me to call them cosmetic), we expose ourselves to two clear dangers.

The first is that we set our bar too low.

Allow me to give an example.

As I have said, I was raised in charismatic circles and so participated in all their activities since childhood.

One day in a fellowship, a mad neighbour to our church who was trouble all the time came into the church and proceeded to babble in tongues for a long time.

I do not know about the others but my young mind was confused.

If unknown tongues is the evidence of the filling of the Spirit, what does one make of a mad man speaking them?

Could it have disturbed me if it had been a mad man we never knew who had spoken those tongues?

Suppose it had been a possessed man nobody in the fellowship knew? Suppose it was a witch or wizard?

That is what I mean.

If a suit and tie are the evidence of a ministerial calling, what will one make of a conman donning the same?

If an expensive auto is the evidence of success and blessing in ministry, what do we say of the drug dealer driving an even bigger and better one?

Reminds me of Samuel in Jesse’s home.

We have transferred transformational assessment to the cosmetic.

And that means that we lose the capacity to assess anything.

But it is worse because we then leave too much slack to people having those externals even as we dismiss the validly qualified should they lack those externals.

Do you speak in tongues? Becomes the baseline as far as spirituality is concerned.

We will dismiss a mature believer who does not speak in tongues even as we accept a fornicator who can manifest that gift.

Jesus said that we will know them by their fruit, not their decorations. Yet that is what these externals are.

Setting the bar too low is catastrophic to our faith because we then will lack any real motivation for growth and maturity.

If tongues are the only requirement for walking with God, why waste my time in the disciplines of growing up yet I have the manifestation? Why spend so much time in reading and studying God’s word yet they do not increase the gift?

No wonder in those circles immaturity is endemic.

The second problem is that we open ourselves for deception.

Like in that experience I had in a fellowship long ago, it is very possible for someone having the wrong spirit to be not only accepted into our fellowship, but even allowed to lead it. And that is something I have seen all too often.

Remember that king Saul prophesied even under demonic control?

That is why we have so many bleeding believers; simply because they used the cosmetic to identify leaders. Then those leaders produced after the spirits leading them.

You see, if only speaking in tongues is the qualification, a witch can very easily qualify because demonic spirits also manifest unknown tongues.

If prophecy is the gift that can earn leadership, backslidden Saul could easily have become a pastor or even bishop. Because rebellious spirits can also prophesy.

That is why hundreds died recently following such a prophet after following his prophesying that they starve themselves to death. That is why people are buying everything, from soil to nails, to be able to access the spiritual. That is why people are travelling from all over to have someone praying to bring back their stars. That is why some are even leaving their marital responsibilities, even their marriages, to be able to follow these charlatans.

That is why cults are exploding.

We have used the cosmetic, the externals, to gauge spiritual potency instead of what the Bible clearly instructs us to do.

We are leaving the stable for the dramatic, because we deceive ourselves that drama is where the reality is.

The clearest example we can get in almost any church you encounter is in the looking for elders.

Though the Bible is very clear about the age and maturity factor, and the fact that the person should be a long-practicing believer without reproach, most churches will look for flamboyance, charisma and wealth in choosing elders.

Some will even appoint shady people because they are public figures, even unreliable politicians, to serve in spiritual positions with immense spiritual impact to appear relevant and inclusive.

Those same churches will continue to wonder why their outreach is barren.

And it is the same when churches are looking for pastors. The externals take centre stage.

The comedy, eloquence, education, as if they are looking for a PR officer for the church

Then they will wonder why spiritual growth is stunted in their church.

They will wonder why nobody seeks counsel from their man.

They wonder why their relationships are always superficial.

We must get back to the scriptures if we will have the right spiritual impact.

We must follow scriptural instructions if we must please God.

We really have no choice.

Of Grace and Debt 4 (Repentance versus Remorse)

God is interesting in the way He teaches us.

One small question can lead us into great truths.

I did not expect the simple topic of our archived sin files leading us this far.

But here we are, looking at repentance and its counterfeit, remorse. We are also looking at rebellion, the fruit of remorse.

To the casual observer, remorse is not much different from repentance since it mouths the same words in the same way.

What is the difference? I know someone is wondering.

Repentance is a turning around. It is a changing course. It is deserting the route.

Remorse is feeling sorry, many times for being caught.

You will see the term, ‘I have sinned’, enough times with the remorseful.

But that is as far as it goes.

Remember pharaoh?

How many times did he use that statement and how serious was he, gauging by the outcome once the plague necessitating that confession was removed?

Remember Balaam?

I did not know You felt this bad. I could turn back if it affects You this much.

That was his response when he realised that his ass had saved him from death

And we see the same with king Saul when he was confronted, both times. And we see him when again he has to deal with David sparing his life, twice.

Do you realise that the same happened with Judas?

Remorse seeks to soften the blow our sin has attracted.

Now look at repentance.

David has ordered a census, gotten convicted and been given options.

God goes ahead to carry out the judgment that is not restricted to the offender as sins and their judgment mostly are.

And David spake unto the LORD when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly: but these sheep, what have they done? let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father's house. (2Samuel 24:7)

Repentance takes responsibility, full responsibility.

When Judas took the blood money back to the temple, he was in effect transferring his guilt to the leaders instead of taking responsibility for his part in the same.

And it was the same with Saul.

You were late. The army forced me.

Transferring or sharing the responsibility in the sinning has no capacity of freeing the sinner.

Sin is personal before it becomes corporate.

I will nurture lust before looking for or being found by a partner.

I will nurture greed before I can join the corrupt.

I must therefore deal with my sin personally before I can help somebody else deal with theirs.

And I must face it directly before God for anything worthwhile to occur.

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. (Psalm 51:4)

We must be ready to face God because He is the One most intimately connected to the state of our spirits. He therefore knows the sin we are confessing beyond those feeble words we speak.

Look at the prodigal son.

He deals with God before attempting to deal with his father because he knew that it is only by getting right with God that we can be able to right things with people.

But remorse thinks otherwise because it confesses to the offended people or partners in sin.

And I think it is because they can easily be able to explain their fallibility to other fallible people

I tried my best or I will from today try my best makes enough sense to fallible man and is able to buy some sort of pardon from the offended.

But is that enough with God? Is it acceptable to God?

Imagine Peter taking the remorse route?

He would turn to the crowd he had been warming himself with and say something like this.

Look what you have made me do? How can you make me deny my Lord?

That is essentially what Judas did.

Remorse seeks to share the guilt but repentance transfers the full weight of the sin on the offender like we see with David and Peter in this instance.

Repentance leaves me exposed for correction whereas remorse seeks to share the responsibility of the same.

God convicts individuals. Remorse seeks corporate ‘repentance’ so that I am not the only guilty character around.

In David’s adultery and murder, it would be impossible to absolve Bathsheba from guilt, especially knowing the scriptural instruction.

But David never in his repentance quoted her part in his sin, however prominent it may have been.

I hope we are getting somewhere so far.

Allow me to summarise what I have shared so far.

Remorse is related more to regret than it is to a change.

That is why there is always so much explaining and justifying and explaining away the fact of the offense.

It is what the Bible calls worldly sorrow that leads to death.

Remorse is actually short-circuited repentance because it refuses to go the full hog in its actions.

Remorse will be content if its offense is understood than it is to deal with sin.

Due to that, no real transactions are carried out in their heart and spirit. This means that sin is excused instead of excised, leaving the spirit more wounded than it was before facing the sin.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. (Psalm 32: 3, 4)

No wonder suicide or its associated actions are the result as we see with Ahithophel, Saul, Judas, Balaam, etc.

This because the guilt will continue eating up the person, simply because they are not ready to completely deal with their sin.

Remorse seeks to save face at all costs. It does not want the exposure required for change to occur.

But repentance bares all, first before God and then to people.

I think that was the purpose of sackcloth.

Remember what David did when he was offered the land, animals and materials to make the altar God had ordered.

I caused this. Allow me to deal with it myself, was his response.

It was my sin. I will not allow anybody else to rectify it.

He was not afraid of people knowing that he was the cause of the plague that killed seventy thousand of his people. And he was not afraid of taking responsibility for the same, publicly.

We also remember Paul calling himself the chief of sinners for the same reason.

Remorse, though in many ways it looks just like repentance, does not offer any restorative benefits.

It is a cosmetic front to avoid dealing with actual sin.

Relevance, the Curse of Our Generation

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Romans 12:2)

I was looking at music videos in a PSV when it occurred to me that there is no distinction between a worship video and an obscene one for the most part.

You can shout as hard as you may, but you will allow me some time to explain why I am saying this.

What is our standard? Where do we get our marching orders? Who gauges our success?

What makes a Christian influencer? What kind of influence does he wield?

What brings about Christian impact? Where is it most visible?

Who guides our values?

Why am I asking all these questions? You may be wondering.

The truth of the matter is that how each of us answers will determine the level of our transformation, or lack of it, in our faith.

You might be a very successful, even impactful pastor (or any other superstar minister), yet be completely invisible in the spiritual realm.

Likes and follows are not spiritual standards. And I am not condemning them or even calling them wicked.

I am simply saying that they are purely worldly standards.

In Matthew 25, Jesus gives the reality of the final judgment by separating two teams; one being condemned and the other being rewarded.

It is interesting that both teams pose the same question, WHEN?

One group was wondering when they did all those things they were being commended for. The other was asking when those opportunities bypassed them.

That is what is guiding this message.

We are looking for relevance and success from the wrong place as believers.

This makes us bend our values in that wrong direction.

We will then applaud the success coming from those exertions and mourn when we fail to attain success there.

We will make enemies of those who refuse to applaud us, simply because they look for success in God’s direction.

Let me ask a little question.

What is the relevance of smoke and disco lights in worship?

In fact, what does that word disco have to do with anything godly, let alone worship?

What accessory is a dance crew to worship? What does it add to worship?

Why, in the first place, do we need to look at people, dancing ones at that, to be able to worship or even praise?

I did not want to ask this as I have addressed it in past posts. But I will.

What is Biblical praise? What is Biblical worship?

Who is the object of that praise or worship?

What is our part in that praise or worship?

I will not answer these questions. And not because I have addressed them comprehensively in past posts.

I just want you to go to the scriptures prayerfully and ask that God Himself gives you those answers.

You have been spoon fed enough. It is time for you to look for food, not just to feed yourself, but also to feed those under your responsibility.

There will not be spoon fed spiritual babes in heaven. There will not be milk drinking babes in heaven.

Would it then not be more important to grow up in your faith?

 

 

With or For?

And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4)

I want us to look at the starkest difference between the Old Covenant and the New. And it is in those two little words.

What does it mean? I know someone is wondering.

A nation has ambassadors.

These people represent the nation sending them.

He acts for the entity he represents.

Touching him is akin to touching the entity that sent him

When he misbehaves in his host nation, the worst they can do to him is order him to leave since they cannot arrest him, whatever he may have done. And it is to the entity that sent him that his expulsion is given, not the offender.

But he does not enjoy diplomatic immunity for nothing.

He is expected to perform his duties with an excellence not expected of most people since he is the pride of his sending entity.

He must undergo strenuous training to understand diplomatic etiquette so that he does not overstep his position.

Compare that with the son of royalty. And I will give us one very sad verse.

But those husbandmen said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. (Mark 12:7)

That son does not represent the king. He is part of the king.

A son will, on being sent by the king, be taking the kingdom with him.

A son reigns with the king. An ambassador acts for the king.

An ambassador acts with the powers vested on him. A prince not only goes in the name of the king, he is in many ways the king since he is part of him as his son.

An ambassador goes by the guidelines and rules set by the king. A prince goes by the decisions he was part of, some of which originated with him.

An ambassador is ordered. A prince goes in the name of the king.

An ambassador is not final in his negotiations because he must get a final order from the king. A prince’s decision carries the weight of the king.

An ambassador must act within the bounds set for him. A prince acts as the king in all ways since he is part of him.

I hope all these words are leading you somewhere because that is the kind of message God wants to get to us.

Old Testament prophets acted on instructions they were given. Priests behaved according to the rules set for their duties.

And look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount. (Exodus 25:40)

There was no room for creativity or inventiveness. It was the rule book or nothing.

Remember Uzzah or Aaron’s sons?

Look at the New Testament.             

Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18:18)

I hope you can see the difference. But allow me to give an OT verse

And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:34)

In the NT God starts with the heart as opposed to the OT where He started with the rule book.

No wonder the yardstick is way higher than it was in the OT.

Spite is akin to murder. A look is adultery. Discontent is idolatry.

Because the dynamic has completely changed.

And of course I will give us the verse that gets us there.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: (John 1:12)

We become sons after our salvation.

This means we carry the Person of God by the way we live and so do not really need rules.

But as members of the palace, we are bound by the palace etiquette because that is now my residence.

I represent the king not just more than an ambassador, I must be the King personified. Remember Christ saying this?

Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? (John 14:9)

But this is not a motivational message.

I do not want to challenge you to tell your neighbour that you are now reigning with Christ.

This is a post about maturity.

Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. (Galatians 4: 1, 2)

A prince does not reign just because he is a son to the king.

Let me give us a case in point

Remember this prince who got tired of royal constraints and opted out of being a working royal, even moving out of royal domain?

He was not denounced.

But his supporters were shocked when his children were deprived of royal titles.

Being a son is not synonymous with reigning with the king.

Only the son who qualifies can represent the king.

The prodigal did not go in the name of his father though he was a son.

No wonder he came back on his knees after realising that his freedom was worse than slavery under his father’s reign. I am sure that he ran off because he had thought that his father’s was a reign of terror.

Reigning does not simply mean sitting on a throne.

A throne is weighty, too weighty even for a son

Remember that when the reigning king was a prince he could not marry the girl he loved and married one he had no feelings for because that is how a crown prince must behave.

He had to wait for that forced wife to depart before marrying the girl of his dreams – in their old age!

Not every prince reigns with his father. It is not even automatic for the eldest prince to occupy his father’s throne.

A prince must be adequately prepared to reign with his father.

It means that for our verse to be actualised we must become princes worth that responsibility.

We must be thoroughly and completely polished to run errands for the King, the King of kings nonetheless.

So, if you must turn to your neighbour, the question I would have you ask is, can you be entrusted with the throne of the King of kings?

And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle. (Exodus 12:29)

This son was more like Joseph, subject to the king only as far as the name (throne) was concerned.

Remember that with Joseph the king was more or less subject to him since he basically put all Egypt at his service?

But what trust necessitates that?

Pharaoh had realised that Joseph possessed something his whole kingdom lacked.

Incidentally, that is how believers reign.

Our anointing (forget the motivators) gives us tools that nobody else has and solutions nobody else can access.

I should in passing mention something so distinct between the OT and New; the casting of lots, Urim and Thummim.

Lots were cast as a way to know God’s will.

Do you realise that you will never find that in the NT except at the Upper Room prior to Pentecost?

And why so?

The residence of the Holy Spirit had shifted from structures to living beings, believers in Christ.

He could then direct with greater precision that all those OT tools.

Then God would not need His people to make a choice between one against the other but clearly speak His will to His children.

And Moses was a type who had God speaking to him mouth to mouth. He had access most are even unable to dream of.

That is the dynamic you see when you read the New Testament.

But why does He seem to speak to one and not another? You may be asking.

Not all the sons have an equal access to their father. Not all the sons can be entrusted with their father’s errands.

It is the mature sons, sons who understand and value their positions and responsibilities, who are groomed for the crown.

Many people approach me to ask how they can hear from God and are shocked when I do not give them a 1, 2, 3 step plan.

And it is because listening to God is not a skill one acquires or is trained for.

Hearing God is the product of great obedience and surrender to God’s revelation.

In simple terms, God speaks to people who are ready to do His bidding at all times.

For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. (Isaiah 66:2)

To understand this word trembleth, I want you to look at an athlete at the start of a race waiting for the starting gun to go off.

It is a trembling with anticipation, with expectation, with a longing to blast off the blocks.

That person will never struggle to hear God’s voice or know God’s will. Because God will never want to lengthen that anticipation, that tension.

So when people ask me how they can know God’s will, I will only ask them one simple question, how ready are you to run off in the direction God shows you? How ready are you to do what He orders you?

Therein is the ‘short cut’ to hearing God and knowing His will.

God will never speak for the simple purpose of someone hearing His voice.

Israel heard Him at Sinai and still perished in the wilderness for rebellion.

But I never heard of one who was seeking obedience fumbling around unable to know exactly what God wanted with him.

God simply speaks to the ears of those whose hands and feet are set to move on hearing.

And that is the point at which we can then start reigning with Him because we will have absorbed His nature through our unbridled obedience and surrender.

However, that reigning does not raise us to His level.

Remember that even the twenty-four elders who were reigning with God would all the time be throwing their thrones in surrender under the One they were reigning with?

Let us look at a few scriptural examples.

The first is David.

His introduction is sobering because God Himself says that he is a man after His own heart.

That becomes clearer when we see how he operates.

Imagine someone whose worship on the harp exorcises demons and heals!

In short, the worship of his fingers did not need any verbal accompaniment to perform.

One thing we see with him is the constant seeking to have God’s word on his situations, however urgent or desperate they were like when his army wanted to stone him.

He was reigning with God because he always sought to establish God’s position and orders on his circumstances.

No wonder he was always told that he was fighting God’s wars; that his army was God’s army.

The other is Elisha.

This old man (or who becomes bald in teenage?) was content to wash Elijah’s hands after leaving a wealthy farming concern.

He was an errand boy for this eccentric prophet.

No wonder he was able to inherit that prophetic mantle.

Our prime example is Jesus and Philippians 2 describes Him.

Moses is another great example.

The long and short of what I am saying is that for someone to reign with Christ, he must be in a proper relationship of trust and submission to the one he will reign with.

Christ was equal to God in essence but submitted Himself lower than His creation to effectively reign with Hia Father.

Remember Him saying that He only does what He sees His Father doing?

Do you remember that this was one of the reasons He was crucified?

The reality is that God wills that we reign with Him.

But like Gehazi and Judas we have some hidden self propelling instincts that we strive to satisfy.

Our submission is therefore subject more to our self interest than to the One we seek to reign with.

That immediately and permanently disqualifies us.

Can you be entrusted to reign with Christ?