Learning Grace from Lifts

And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment: And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless. Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 22: 11 – 13)

For those without an experience with lifts, let me explain to get us on one page.

Assume you are intending to travel someplace and you do not have any means for the same. Then a friend with a car offers to take you there and back at no cost. That in simple terms is a lift though there are many variations to this.

Do you realize that you are held captive by this person who has given you that lift? You will go where he wants, eat what he offers, visit whoever he visits and reach according to his plans. In short you transfer all your plans to his fancies. He might even leave you to watch over his car as he goes to reconnect with family and friends.

Should a breakage occur, you will be the first to go and check what is wrong. You will change the wheel when there is a puncture. You will push when it gets stuck.

Let me even get to a very simple task. A matatu (public transport) gives you a lift, saving you twenty shillings (a quarter dollar).

Do you realize that nobody will remind you to stand when the vehicle gets full and a free seat is required? Again you will be the first to get out if something requiring an extra hand pops up. All for twenty bob! Yet the ones who have paid that little money will not even care to find out what is happening outside.

The one who offers the lift is the one who sets the rules. And he is not required to consult or even inform you of them.

That is what happened in this story Jesus gave. You realize that the qualified rejected the king’s offer. That is when he invited the rejects and the totally unqualified to his wedding party.

But it was the king’s party. He therefore was the one responsible for setting the rules.

Probably the character here thought he was dressed well enough to need the kings wedding uniform, if I may call it that. He may have thought that he was better than the layabouts who had been collected from the byways and trenches of the city that desperately needed to be made presentable.

He forgot that it was a lift he was enjoying. That is why he was punished for attending a wedding.

God calls us and offers salvation. How many now think that we receive it on our terms? How many preachers are so fluent on the fact that God requires nothing from us after saving us?

Could Jesus have talked about the strait road and door if salvation was as ‘free’ as these preachers are so fluent at teaching? Why did He not talk about the salvation highway?

Do verses like this make sense to these preachers?

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: (Hebrews 12:14)

Is claiming and grabbing and possessing all there is to our faith? Is the seed (whatever it is made to mean) all that God requires from His worshipers?

Does ‘go and sin no more’ mean anything to them?

God is the King, and the King of kings at that. It therefore means that everybody and everything is His subject, meaning that we are all completely subject to His rules.

Of course His rules are recorded in the scriptures. And they are the standards we are expected to abide by.

We are not the ones who have invited ourselves to the party (salvation). It means that we really have no business deciding how to live there.

In fact, even our preferences have no business there.

We have been offered a lift to heaven if I may call it that. We must go there according to the ne who has offered us that lift.

Abiding by different rules automatically means that we really are not on that lift and that if we are we will be banished like the smart invitee in our parable.

How are you walking in that lift?

Let me give an example.

I am involved in the writing ministry.

Among the things it involves is walking with new and unpublished writers to have their message in print as booklets, books or magazines. And I am brought very many of these.

The first thing many ask me is how much I will charge for my services (editing, layout, etc.). of course I do not charge for ministry. And that single fact has helped me through numerous challenges, the first being that God can order me out of a project. The second being that I can offer unflattering criticism as God leads without fearing.

There have been instances of headstrong writers insisting mainly on personal opinion against scripture (I am sure you know of the strain and flow of revelations nowadays). They then insist the same must be part of the publication.

I will simply pull out of the project.

Now suppose I was paid?

The reason I can be loyal to God is that I am not on any writer’s payroll. I am not enjoying any lifts in this ministry God has entrusted to me and so can comfortably turn down any offer that does not agree with revelation.

I have pulled out of a magazine I was part of because the managing editor doctored my article without consulting me yet I was in the editorial team. It would have been a disaster had I been being paid.

God sets the rules, all of them, when He offers grace.

It is deception to think that we can live as we will when we are still talking about grace. We are completely deluded when we speak grace with the same mouth we speak self-fulfillment and will.

It is a lift we are enjoying.

Key Holders

Then thus came every maiden unto the king; whatsoever she desired was given her to go with her out of the house of the women unto the king's house. Now when the turn of Esther, the daughter of Abihail the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her for his daughter, was come to go in unto the king, she required nothing but what Hegai the king's chamberlain, the keeper of the women, appointed. And Esther obtained favour in the sight of all them that looked upon her. (Esther 2: 13, 15)

Grace is very interesting.

We are always shouting that it is more blessed to give than it is to receive.

Though that is scriptural, we many times seem to imply that it is cursed to receive.

I want us today to look at the grace of receiving, especially as a blessing. And it is because the grace of receiving is in itself a giving, a giving sometimes higher than that of actual giving.

You see, many give of their excess. Remember Jesus and the widow’s mite? It therefore means they do not feel much loss from their giving.

And some give of their waste. I have seen some things given in churches to minister to the poor and wondered how a sober and sane person can give tattered and worthless clothes to minister to those without.

Anyway, back to our topic.

I want us to look at Esther.

Did she aspire to be a queen? We are not told. But it is possible she was forced into the king’s court as her faith would not have allowed her to play the whore as a qualification for becoming a queen.

But nobody negotiates with a king as he owns everybody and everything in his kingdom. Incidentally it also applies to Christ.

She is therefore taken to the palace. And that is where we see her grace shining.

What was it? She was surrendered to God who had allowed her to be taken to that test, if I may call it so.

Being taken to the palace gave her a status, a major one. Imagine she had seven maidens at her beck and call!

She shines out because she releases them to serve her. She became what many leaders want to be known as yet are rarely able to become; a servant leader. She allowed them to serve her by serving their service.

Look at it this way. You are a potential queen being prepared for the same and these are your servants to make you queen material.

Let us go to our verse to get it very clearly.

When a girl’s day came to meet the king, she was given a blank check to make herself as marketable (presentable) to the king as possible. She wore what she chose, slayed as much as she could so that the king could remember her name later as that was her passport to being queen.

Now imagine yourself at that point.

I am sure that the pressure was worse for Esther as failing would have reduced her to a whore according to her faith. Sex with the king without marriage to him automatically made her a whore. Worse still is that she would then be reduced to one professionally as she would be compelled to join his harem.

What does she do when she faced such a daunting task?

She surrenders to her handlers.

She actually told them to choose her future for her. She surrenders control completely.

Now imagine you were that team. How would you have felt?

That is empowerment at its best. Someone has just placed her whole life and future in your hands.

And that is how she won.

You see, the other maidens did not know the king. Esther’s team knew the king intricately.

The other maidens who used their authority beautified themselves according to their fancies. They used their expertise to approach the king. They used their experience. They used their training.

In surrendering her privilege, Esther automatically transferred herself to the king’s court.

You see, her team (incidentally, all the maidens’ teams) knew the king and his court. And Esther had given them the chance to shine. She had returned her blank check and told them to cash it.

With that she became unbeatable and unforgettable to the king.

They knew the king’s colors. They knew the king’s pleasures. They knew the ornaments the king loved. They knew the sandals the king approved. They knew the scents that moved him.

And Esther was now their project. She had stopped being their job. Her failure could have cut them deep almost to the point of devastation. Pressure on them would have been less had they been the ones going to the king.

They therefore did their job in such a way that there could be no room for failure. And it was impossible for such a team to fail.

By choosing to give by receiving, she was able to get authority. She shone by giving others the power to shine. She chose to receive instead of giving orders.

I doubt Esther was the most beautiful of the virgins. She was a normal Jewess and I doubt she stood out otherwise everybody could have known her people long before she was dragged into that court.

But she stood out because she allowed other people’s involvement to stand out.

Now imagine with me the girls presenting themselves to the king. And here we are talking about one chance in a lifetime. You miss it and you miss out.

One comes exquisitely dressed as she came from a family with class. The king can barely take his eyes off her. He thinks that finally the chase is over. But then her perfume! Not only can’t he endure it; but he is allergic to it and starts sneezing the longer he stays with her.

The other comes all decked up with pearls as she really wants to impress. But how can the king be impressed with his own pearls?

Another comes really sensuously dressed as in her mind the king was just looking for a sex toy.

Another comes dressed nicely but her colors depress the king.

On and on and on they came, each with her peculiarity.

Again assume our girl was number thirty something. We know the girls were taken from all over the kingdom consisting of 170 provinces.

Her team knows the king completely. They know his phobias and pleasant reminisces. They know his allergies. They know his colors.

They therefore dress Esther with a simplicity that is complex as it took into consideration what the king loved and hated; what memories were pleasant or painful and what colors he loved seeing.

They then applied a perfume that was almost impossible to smell, but one that gave the king pleasant reminisces of the best times in his mother’s bosom, flooding his mind with a feeling of security that he had not felt for a long time.

When she leaves in the morning the king realizes that he can never take his mind off her. She was like someone he had known all his life, someone he could not afford to let go.

And it was the same for days.

He calls for another girl and can barely see her as his mind is still transfixed on Esther. He then realized that it would be Esther or nobody else.

That, I believe is how Esther became queen.

All because she gave the gift of receiving!

I am sure that a further reason for their passion in helping Esther was the realization that her getting the position could have made their work easier and even better from their interaction with her in those preparation rooms. That is why everybody loved her.

How many of us give others a chance to shine by ministering to us? How many do not mind others taking glory on their behalf?

Dating and Scripture

I want to state as categorically as I can that I find dating a very unscriptural concept.

In fact, even love before marriage is a very dangerous thing as the few examples we have in scripture demonstrate.

Jacob loved Rachael long before he married her and there was no end in the drama in their shared life. In his later years, it becomes clear that he had realized that Leah was the solid partner in his life and faith.

David also loved Michal before marrying her. Again we see enough drama to the point that he breaks scripture to get her back from her husband among much other drama.

I know some will shout Joseph and Mary.

Do you realize they were pledged to be married? It was marriage in waiting. That is why when Joseph discovered her pregnancy he planned to DIVORCE her secretly. Again God says the same. Do not fear to take Mary YOUR WIFE, not AS your wife.

They were not dating but waiting to consummate their marriage.

Dating is like touching the water to gauge its temperature yet you are not ready to bathe. It is like smelling well cooked food yet you know you will not partake of it for a long time.

In any case, what does the Bible say about love?

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. (Song of Songs 8: 6, 7)

How do you test death?  That is the way you test love.

It demonstrates the folly of wanting to prove its presence or otherwise.

Look at Isaac. He married Rebecca before he had set his eyes on her.

Yet his love endured her barrenness for twenty years without looking for any plan B. Compare that with Rachael.

Nowhere in the Bible have I seen any scent of dating. And it becomes even worse for believers because it really points at our lack of faith and obedience.

You see, if we must test our relationship and compatibility (whatever that means), we really are not open to God’s guidance. It can’t be faith if it is plotted by our ingenuity.

Does it mean I can just pick anybody on the street and we make a wonderful couple? I know someone is asking.

Yes. And that is if God is the One who has directed me there.

You see, the outward can cover a lot of stuff, some of it so unsavory. And like the scriptures say only God is able to accurately look at the content of one’s heart.

A very spiritual person could be very wicked and not even know it. Why?

The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked like Jeremiah wrote. And he continued by stating that ONLY THE Lord knows the heart of man.

Some people are good because they have no opportunity to become bad.

Some are holy because they have no opening for becoming wicked.

Some are generous because they have had no chance of being stingy.

And some are religious because they know nothing else.

Yet others are bad because they have no opportunity to be good.

What I am saying is that only God knows the capacity of a person to holiness or wickedness. And dating has no capacity at all of exposing that inner man for your assessment.

Could anyone have dated Rahab the harlot? Yet we are able to see her faith and later inclusion in the lineage of Christ. Why? God had assessed her heart even when she was in condemned Jericho and knew she had the capacity for better faith than most in Israel.

Those are some of the things dating blocks even as it opens doors to other dangerous issues.

Explain to me how someone can date for five years and divorce after two or less years. What knowledge did they not possess in that time or what secret had they not known in those years to divorce so quickly? Yet that is rife nowadays.

Like I also ask, how many people who marry people they have never seen like Isaac have dramatic marriages, especially where parents and other authority figures were involved?

The truth is that the human heart is deceptively wicked. You can stay with a person for a lifetime and never really know what they are like.

Worse still is that in dating we have two actors, each wanting to paint themselves in the best colors as they seek to see below the surface of their companion.

There is no faith involved in dating. There is no divine guidance involved in dating.

Worse still, dating exposes the daters to spiritual risks and temptations that would have been absent otherwise.

How many fall into sexual sin during the dating period?

The emotional energy required for dating is monumental. The spiritual sacrifice required is prohibitive since it does not come from faith.

This explains why very few who date for long (over two years) get married

Sadly, the breakages are rarely mutual. One person will lose steam as the other increases theirs.

Again this explains the many cases of murder and other crimes on people who loved each other to hell and back. You see, one deposits his last coin as the other is closing their joint account, leaving one emotionally bankrupt. This can explain their desperation and illogical actions. And it becomes worse because the spiritual was given a ride elsewhere.

Suppose we listened to God when we wanted to get married? Suppose we asked Him to guide us to the person He prepared before creating the world to be our partner? And suppose we followed His lead?

The first result will be our commitment to the marriage, the number one reason marriages stand.

The second will be the growth of our love for each other and for God.

The third will be the absence of any looking over the fence for any grass to see if it is greener since God can only give the best. It means we will stop comparing our spouse with others, our marriage with others since we know that ours was made in heaven where all others ought to have been made from.

Even our disagreements will be looked at with the same lens.

Will we be led by the Spirit in marriage like we like to boast about other things? Will our worship extend beyond singing (the only thing some think worship is) to the choice of the person we get married to?

Will we shed our preferences and prior wrong training on marriage to wait on God concerning this pivotal aspect of our lives?

To get you off your high horse of knowledge, explain to me why childhood sweethearts divorce, or even fight. Haven’t they known each other all their lives even before loving as adults and thinking of marriage?

Of course there are scriptural standards, and they are very clear when we read the Bible. But do you think God can flout His rules when you ask Him to give you a spouse? Can He?

Gratitude Reloaded

On 5^th December 1985, I clearly heard God’s call for my life and said Yes.

What an adventure it has been!

I was only a teenager then in form 5.

God has taken me places and done things TO me even as He did through me. That is why I am very grateful.

He has taught me and transformed me in ways that some people are unable to imagine the kind of person I was before that operation began. Just the other day we were talking with my friend and I mentioned the fact that I was chased from the scout movement in school for insubordination and he wondered whether I ever had issues with insubordination. Please thank God with me.

I remember the head teacher (they were called headmasters then) at Lodwar High School had vowed to expel me before we closed school when I refused to allow him get me a transfer because I had become a pain in his neck though I do not even know what crime I had committed. The only thing I know was that I was not good to authority and authority figures everywhere as even prefects feared me.

Anyway, God stepped in and changed me without changing my name.

I was scared of going back to school because of that vow, especially because the headmaster was a Catholic brother and he had just renewed his term.

But who is God? (direct translation)

I found that he had been replaced.

I therefore started Form 6 on a clean slate.

And that is where I started ministry. But of course that was also where my discipleship journey started with Mike and Ann Wekesa.

And the ministry even then thrived. With a friend we started a devotional minute before the assembly and it became almost another assembly. Where is my friend Joseph?

So much that in a Catholic run school they started including me in sharing devotions during assembly. That is where they started calling me pastor.

Where was I heading to?

As I was clearing, the new headmaster was giving me the leaving certificate. Then he opened my file and saw some unsavory reports.

He showed me and asked who was so bad as to write such things on my file.

Of course I told him that they were true and then shared the Gospel with him.

God has done so much in my life as I have followed Him in obedience.

From singing to songwriting to running and starting choirs to instruments,

From evangelism to preaching to teaching,

From encouragement to nurturing,

From missions to church planting,

From spiritual warfare to healing its victims,

From writing books to helping grow writers,

I am grateful to God, very grateful.

I am just scratching the surface of what God has been about my life since I responded to His call.

Please join me in thanking Him.

And pray for my next phase.

Of course I have written elsewhere about it but it won’t hurt to repeat.

I am old (if you are disputing, I think you are old too)

I feel God wants me to settle down to what old people spend their energy on.

I want to focus on raising another generation of ministers.

In short, I want anyone God has called to benefit from my experiences in ministry and not just my ministry. My ministry now is therefore using everything I have to build other ministers by pouring myself into them.

‘Ministry and Mortality’ and ‘Varsity on the Hill’ are posts talking about this aspect of my ministry. You can get them on the blog.

I feel I should stop travelling (and haven’t I travelled!) unless for the express purpose of raising or growing ministers. I want to travel to resolve ministerial issues. I want to travel to encourage ministers. I want to travel to empower ministers. I want to travel to equip ministers.

Ministers are my focus in this phase.

Talk of mentoring and equipping.

Therefore as you join me in thanking God for these 34 years of great faithfulness, please say a prayer about these ministers that He will be bringing my way for the ministry God has for me toward them.

But I am very grateful to God.