Unshared Revelations

I want us to look at something we all know with a different lens.

Have you ever asked why Isaac favored Esau and Rebecca favored Jacob?

They were twins, born the same day.

Yet their father loved the firstborn and the mother was so ‘smitten’ by the younger that she could risk a curse to cheat the system that was her husband to ensure that her choice was blessed.

I want to take us back to her pregnancy.

Remember she waited for twenty years to conceive? That Isaac had to pray for a breakthrough?

Then the pregnancy became complicated, so complicated that she sought God concerning what she was carrying.

God answered her before the twins were born.

The elder will serve the younger was God’s revelation.

I doubt that she ever shared that with her husband, making him behave as his culture required, prepare the first born to take over leadership.

But Rebecca did not completely forget the word she was given. Meaning that she moved with the revelation.

Suppose Rebecca had shared God’s revelation with her husband, do you think he could have called Esau for the blessing?

Isaac was a man of faith. Incidentally he came from a background where he overtook his father’s firstborn because of revelation.

He simply could not have trashed revelation since he was the product of one in more ways than one.

For one, Abraham had waited for him for an even longer time. Then he was born when his brother was fourteen years old.

But the promise that Abraham walked with required him to gift Ishmael and send him away so that Isaac could be the heir of Abraham’s call and revelation.

It is inconceivable that he could trash a revelation so easily. And Rebecca could have quickly reminded him.

The easiest conclusion is that Rebecca received the revelation and harbored it in her heart as she may have forgotten it since she did not share it with the other concerned party.

It is when she heard Isaac asking to bless Esau that the revelation boiled over since she then realised she had to do something. Yet it was also instinctive since she had probably forgotten the revelation. Only her system resonated with the revelation since it was over forty years since she had heard it.

That is why she resorted to create situations and look for other solutions when the situation boiled over.

And even then, she did not share the revelation with Isaac.

Are you getting something?

All that animosity between Edom and Israel could have been avoided had Rebecca shared God’s revelation with Isaac as soon as she had received it.

I guess she thought it was not very serious or urgent. What of the pressures of a first pregnancy full of complications? Then the joys of motherhood, especially after that much delay and prayer? Then raising two completely different children.

Then she forgot, first the revelation becoming an increasingly vague message before becoming completely irrelevant to the way life was taking her.

But that revelation had affected her. That is why she loved Jacob despite all his ‘laziness’ and character flaws. Incidentally, that was the only positive thing she got from the revelation.

What am I aiming at?

Revelation must be shared as soon as is practically possible. Unless of course God specifically orders otherwise which is very rare even in scripture. And even then, God will ask you to write it down.

Why is that so?

We are very forgetful.

Research has shown that at the end of Sunday someone will have forgotten over 90% of the sermon though I do not remember who did it.

Yet a simple way to confirm that is ask someone immediately after the sermon the specifics of the sermon. I guarantee you that you will be shocked, especially if the sermon was very exciting.

There simply is no hope for remembering a revelation a year down the line unless there is a way of recording it properly since our memory is hopelessly inadequate.

As someone who writes messages, I can confirm to you that no message, however powerful, lasts beyond a few days.

In fact, I read some of my posts of yore and wonder whether I am the one who wrote them. I suspect I could have had really appreciated the same if someone had just copy pasted the message on their blog.

If I can forget a message that impacted me so much before I posted it, what makes you think that I will remember one that was given in my distress?

Yet that was Rebecca’s reality.

Is this a message for today?

I am convinced so. And I think it is even more urgent.

What with all the flashy avalanche of information wherever we look? What of our even lower attention span due to that?

One day might therefore be too long to remember something.

In fact, I know from experience that if I decided, or was forced by circumstances, to wait for an opportune time to write, or complete writing a revelation, I most likely will have forgotten the main parts of the same.

In fact, I have in the computer innumerable messages that I had started writing but delayed after writing some bit. But now I have no way to complete the message since I have no way of knowing how to continue writing it.

Revelation is timely. That is why we talk of rhema moments.

It therefore means that if its time passes, there is very little chance of it being resurrected, however much we tried.

And that is why I always battle preachers who strive to live on their past glories by preaching their past powerful sermons.

They are giving their flock stale food when God always has the freshest of food for them if the shepherd is listening.

Revelation outside its time could be poison.

I simply want us to appreciate the fact that a revelation MUST be timely for it to serve its purpose.

Hoarding a message for whatever reason is not only sin but can eventually cause more damage than it was intended to avert.

And it is sin because it could abort God’s purpose or season.

Suppose Joseph had refused to share his dreams?

Do you think God’s process could have started?

But I need to say something else that many will call a threat.

God will overlook you and look for somebody else, somebody who is obedient since it really is impossible to abort God’s purposes.

Saul the king was God’s person for the season Israel wanted a king. But his disobedience created the room for somebody else to be chosen and him completely bypassed and overlooked.

Now imagine seeing and hearing somebody saying and doing something God had asked you to do and you delayed because of many becauses! Imagine hearing somebody sharing a message God gave you, word for word because you thought the time was not right for it!

Yet God always does that

Even being made a replacement for a rebellious servant is not enough guarantee because God’s obedience quotient doesn’t change.

Jeroboam was annihilated, yet he had replaced the rebellion in Solomon. And the one sent to annihilate him was also annihilated because he followed his own ways.

But we are talking about a message in its time whose dangers of delay go farther than individual disobedience because they affect more than the disobedient siren.

Why siren?

Imagine a house catches fire and you are the one next to the siren switch. And you delay activating it.

Like Ezekiel was told, you will be liable for all the lives that get lost due to that delay.

That is the simple message in this post.

But ensure that you hear the message clearly.

A false prophet is not false because he gives a false message. An inaccurate message, a vague message, an out of time message all fall under the title false prophecy.

And the judgment for the false prophet is dire as we see in Jeremiah.

Will we clearly hear, and clearly and on time share the messages God gives to us to share?

Pride’s Sore Thumb

Have you ever wondered what makes pride so offensive to God?

Pride is a form of worship; self-worship.

That explains why it lets nothing stand in its way, however minute.

And it is so even when it is a supposedly man of God having it because it stands out even more.

Allow me to give us an illustration from the book of Esther.

Remember Haman?

Everybody was bowing before him and he enjoyed it, thoroughly.

He didn’t even notice somebody was not complying until it was brought to his attention.

Then his whole life changed.

That person, that insignificant person who defied his ‘divine’ status became the only person and thing in his sight.

Nothing else mattered to him than dealing with that single threat to his divinity.

Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate. (Esther 5:13)

Imagine that the opportunity of a lifetime mattered nothing to him.

It is difficult to imagine it but Mordecai refusing to bow to him now occupied and run his whole life.

Even revenge was not enough to give him peace.

Incidentally, that was the thing God used to bring him down.

I am saying that pride is the worship of self. And we know that worship and jealousy go hand in hand.

Does it surprise us then that God resists the proud?

And that is the reason Jesus was always at loggerheads with the Jewish spiritual leaders. They proclaimed God but lived in pride.

Sadly, many ministers fall into that pride, especially as their spiritual status rises.

Incidentally someone will many times be elevated for pride to really blossom. People will slowly bow to you for you to realise your divine status. Then you will slowly acknowledge it.

False humility is pride in a camouflage. And that is what men of God possess in abundance.

Sadly, it is the very discerning who are able to see it in others. Meaning that it requires greater discernment to see it in me. And by then it will have started becoming obnoxious to the spiritually attuned.

Pride prides itself in prominence and entitlement. Remember Haman?

So Haman came in. And the king said unto him, What shall be done unto the man whom the king delighteth to honour? Now Haman thought in his heart, To whom would the king delight to do honour more than to myself? (Esther 6:6)

Pride has no place for another. That is what makes it an abomination in God’s sight.

And that is why Christ came so that we can see first-hand what He loves.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2: 5 – 8)

That is the correct antidote to pride, living for causes outside of self.

Living for God is the ultimate in dealing with pride. And of course it is serving God according to His standards.

Powerful Word

People wonder why I never tire focusing on and speaking of the word.

For close to forty years, many people who know or have come across me found me dealing with the Bible one way or the other.

From giving out Bibles to challenging people to read them to starting reading clubs of sort, my ministry has always revolved around the Bible and its study.

The first reason is that the Bible sorted me out COMPLETELY.

As I have written elsewhere, when I got saved at nine, I happened to have many questions (probably too many), questions that the people who brought me to faith in Christ were unable or unwilling to answer or show me how to get answers for myself.

Due to that, and of course with a combination of other factors, I rebelled as a teenager.

However, for me, God’s hand continued being upon me as there are things that I can’t explain why didn’t do, like drugs when all my friends did them.

At eighteen I rededicated my life to Christ. It was the same time I heard His call, the call I am walking in to date.

God created in me a great craving for His word that I was able to read the New Testament in a month. And there was no looking back after that.

The more I read, the more my questions were answered. I realised that some of the issues I had battled for years had disappeared and I did not even know when.

That is how I started prizing the Bible. I realised that it was the real answer to all life’s questions and issues.

Let me give a couple of other situations I have seen as I ministered the word to people.

When I was doing campus ministry, girls would come barely dressed as we all know.

Is it interesting that after studying the Bible with them for a short time the they would start to be dressed better yet we were not even studying dressing?

I am involved with some guys on the streets where my input is an Audio Bible and probably a physical one when they are available. There is little we talk about since it is about friendship.

One day I arrive and they tell me they want to go to church.

In a short while one who had dreadlocks has shaved them.

When I asked him why he had shaved, he said that it just felt wrong.

Listening to the Bible was enough power to destroy long held values and lifestyle choices.

So far some have left that life on the streets.

Many years ago, I was asked to start a Bible study in my house by some neighbours

A refugee group joined the study.

One day one of the guys who had challenged me to start the BS approached me requesting that I ask one of the refugees to stop ashaming the BS by smoking openly.

I responded that I was not the Holy Spirit and so will continue doing only what God had called me to.

He left in a huff, saying that he has no space for hypocrites.

Well, a few weeks later, this refugee asks us to pray for him to stop smoking. And he stopped.

He later intimated to me that he had battled smoking for over twenty-five years.

He is a pastor today.

I was told that the guy who left in protest married a second wife.

Stories abound. Stories just like these.

They confirm that the intake of God’s word has so much power, power that transforms anyone who ingests it.

It is not a waste of money to buy and make Audio Bibles to give freely. It is no waste of money to print and give reading plans. It is no waste of money to buy and give out Bibles.

The Bible has enough power to transform.

When I see a worship leader (whatever that means) dressed like a harlot, it becomes enough evidence that they do not spend time in God’s word.

When I see a pastor refusing to minister because he has not been paid or because what he is offered is below his class, it is also adequate evidence that the word does not feature prominently in his life.

When you see a minister who has issues loving his wife and defending her, it is easy to know that the word they know does not go beyond their minds.

In short, the word rightly consumed offers a spiritual balanced diet, diet that will produce everything God intended when He created you.

The word is God’s agent of formation and transformation.

We love quoting that God’s word released causes healing.

We forget that healing is a small element of God’s creative power. Though it appears big in our eyes, it really is one small chapter of God’s magnificence.

Remember the question Jesus asked, which is bigger, healing or forgiveness of sin’?

Forgiveness causes healing. Forgiveness is therefore a more complete healing than the physical one.

Sin is the sickness that causes other sicknesses.

Sin is a spiritual sickness that touches and infects all other parts of life.

And that is where the word comes in.

The word is the one that can penetrate life at that level, the only one.

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. (John 17:17)

Our generation loves to talk about anointing and the power anointing carries

The word has more potent power than anointing, especially because it is the proper source of the anointing.

We MUST therefore devote more of our time to the proper intake of God’s word as the cause of our spiritual power.

  

Selective Interpretations

Have you ever wondered why we choose favourite verses, sometimes deciding that the complete verse is not good enough?

Let me ruffle feathers by throwing a stone at the Pentecostal/ charismatic movement and characters. And I will hasten to add that they are where I come from.

What is their foundational doctrine?

I believe in the filling of the Holy Spirit according to Acts 2:4.

Do you realise that speaking in tongues was just one of the signs occurring in the upper room?

Why do we want to overlook those many other signs?

And why don’t we care to state that our tongues are different from those spoken at Pentecost?

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:1 - 4)

Were the disciples in charge of the signs or were they not just the recipients of the same? Could they have chosen the signs they wanted?

If we believe our practice and experience is according to the scriptures, should we pick what to manifest? And is it of God if we are the ones doing the picking?

Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? (Acts 2:6 – 8)

How intelligible are our tongues? Who understands them?

How then can we take a verse that says something so different from our practice yet claim it to explain our experience?

Is it a wonder when we find many spurious doctrines are pivoted on the Pentecostal movement?

We have the replacement of scriptural hymnody with chanting in the name of praise and worship, an avalanche of motivational preaching, the prosperity ‘gospel’, the ‘’Gospel’ entrepreneurship and many, many others.

But let me close with this other one.

Bring all the tithe and test Me in this is also their offshoot.

I have written extensively on the tithe. There are many posts on my blog on the same.

Just assuming that it is not an Old Testament dctrine that it is, let me give us the complete passage.

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. (Malachi 3:10)

Why do we remove the purpose of the tithe?

The tithe was given so that there was food in God’s house. Food for the Levite, the widow, the orphan and the refugee.

It therefore means that without food, the tithe serves no purpose.

And do you realise that was the reason deacons were chosen in Acts?

Will we allow the Bible to speak to us without clipping out the parts we do not fancy?

ALL scripture is inspired, not the parts we love.

Allow me to stop here for now

Whose Sewage?

As I was walking to church, I was reminded of a dream I had a long time ago.

In it, I was flying over a meadow.

Below me was the most beautiful and green piece of land I had ever seen. So lush and inviting it was that the pull toward lying in the grass and walking over all that beauty was irresistible.

Until I came down and received the shock of my life.

Below that foliage was sewage, raw, untreated and putrid.

Below all that beauty was the most offensive smell one could encounter, even forgetting the other dangers that overflowing sewage posed.

Talk about skin deep!

Then I thought about beauty.

Ever realized that most people who are strikingly beautiful rarely have anything of worth beneath all that beauty?

They are showpieces, but very few want anything else with them beyond that.

No wonder very few beauties land worthy or long-term husbands.

But have you ever realized that we are not much different? Or haven’t you read this verse?

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: … (Romans 7:18a)

We are not much different from that meadow.

But do you also know that the same sewage can be turned into a very fertile and productive land?

Once you treat and release it to processes, it can be used in the king’s farm as fertilizer.

The same sewage. One is an eyesore (or is it nose sore?) and the other is an asset.

One is released to the market as is while the other is taken through the master of sewage.

One is confident and content with who he is while the other knows that he is hopelessly and irredeemably useless but for the hands of the master.

The fruit above the ground might appear luscious but it is poison since it is feeding on poison.

Yet we can be sure that after the process it is as healthy as health itself.

We love organic produce because we are scared of all the chemicals synthetic inputs expose us to.

Yet do we realise that organic farming requires excrement? Only that it is waste that has gone through some processes requiring time.

Organic fertilizer is fertilizer that is produced from natural faecal matter, what is many times simply called dung.

What am I driving at?

Apart from Christ, we are not any different from that meadow.

Second, though we may be in Christ, we will not be much different if we do not allow Him to complete His work in us.

It is His work in us that makes us useful. And the more released we are to His work, the sweeter and better and useful to the world around us.

I want us to look at the trending topic on the media, probably all over about a pastor who killed his singer wife with this in context.

Over the years I have been posting and teaching on the need to take the Bible seriously as we make people our leaders.

And my reason is simple, sewage process progression.

You release sewage before the process is completed and you are faced with poisonous fertility hence production.

The giftedness of sewage is nothing if it has not been treated.

Sadly, many in our generation think that all someone needs to minister or lead is a gift, and the more prominent the better. Or don’t we even see children being ordained as pastors and in other serious positions?

And we will later protest their depravity when push comes to shove. Because their sewage nature was not allowed to be processed before being released to produce results.

I am very sure that that pastor was given the position before growing enough to handle the responsibilities inherent in that position. He was released at the beginning of the process and so was totally inadequate to handle the pressures of marriage combined with the pressures of pastoring.

He can be equated to a saloon car being loaded with five tons to ferry.

Or have we forgotten that recently we were fighting over a bishop that was being defended by other bishops for getting a child out of wedlock?

Giving a child adult responsibility may mature them if they are supervised properly.

Giving a child adult authority destroys them.

Sadly, that is what we have been doing by using giftedness as the yardstick to use when looking for spiritual leaders.

You see, we all are sewage. But some have gone through the process more and so are more useful to God’s kingdom.

And I do not mean God does not use new believers or sewage that has just joined the process.

The master of the process knows where and how to use them too.

Having responded to God’s call close to forty years ago I can confidently affirm that God uses anyone and everyone who has released himself into His hands. And I am evidence of that.

But I also know that there are responsibilities God gives me now that I couldn’t have handled in my youth due to His continued work in my life and the ministry He has called me to.

The sewage that I was when He called me has gone through some process.

There are unflinching positions I held that I have flinched on as there are some things I would have let go that I am now unflinching toward, again because of the process

The simple process I know is discipleship, what we call The Great Commission. And I will place it here for us to understand.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen. (Matthew 28: 19, 20)

And it happens because it gives responsibilities to different groups. Again let me put some other verses.

I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. (1John 2: 12 – 14)

Giving a spiritual child or youth a father’s role (which is what a pastor many times is) will compromise their maturity because a child does not have adequate assurance and the youth is always at war.

The spiritual child pastor will always be looking for affirmation and assurance. He will therefore be serving as a means to get that affirmation and assurance.

The pastor who is a spiritual youth will be looking for war and anything they do will be treated from a conquest dimension. He will therefore be looking for enemies from all directions. A small disagreement and you will be treated as an enemy worth vanquishing.

A father, however, is someone who is content with their relationship with God and the children God brings to him to raise. He will therefore be content with his flock and fine with all the other flocks his shepherd has since his end game is pleasing the One who called him.

A child is raw sewage that flows all over without caring for boundaries. A youth is thicker but still fluid enough to flow as per gravity. Both could very easily fertilize an enemy’s farm as their boundaries are not set. A father is solid fertilizer and will therefore be available only where the master needs him and will be content to be in that one position as long as the master directs.

What kind of sewage are you? Whose sewage? At what stage are you in the master’s process?

The process produces spiritual maturity that is the tree bearing spiritual fruit.

Love is not an anointing. Patience does not come from the laying on of hands. Peace is not the product of prolonged times of prayer.

Spiritual fruit is the product of a person who has successfully gone through the Master’s process and has thus transformed from raw sewage to useable fertilizer.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. (Galatians 5: 22 – 24)

Where are you in the process? Are you content?

You see, gifts come from outside while fruit is the product of what is inside.

Gifts do not depend on who I am but fruit is as a result of my makeup.

The Master of the process therefore works on transforming my makeup so that like a mango I do not produce a lemon or any other fruit.

He changes my makeup from sewage to fertilizer; from dangerous and poisonous and putrid to useful and necessary and desirable.

The Master of the process is also the Master of transformation.

Will you allow Him to start His process in you?

Talk to me about discipleship and spiritual maturity

God bless you

God Hates Divorce. Or does He?

I wonder why we become emotional over what God has plainly said.

People all over are battering that verse (and of course God who gave it) as a result of a pastor who killed his singer wife, though much of what we are hearing is hearsay as nobody apart from the ‘killer’ witnessed it.

But let’s go with the story anyway.

Do people care to know why God hates divorce? Do they even care to read the few verses before that famous quote or even the complete verse?

I will tire you with the context of our quote

Judah hath dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah hath profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loved, and hath married the daughter of a strange god. The LORD will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that offereth an offering unto the LORD of hosts. And this have ye done again, covering the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping, and with crying out, insomuch that he regardeth not the offering any more, or receiveth it with good will at your hand. Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant. And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. For the LORD, the God of Israel, saith that he hateth putting away: for one covereth violence with his garment, saith the LORD of hosts: therefore take heed to your spirit, that ye deal not treacherously. (Malachi 2: 11 – 16)

What does God mean when He says that He hates divorce?

You see, the context of divorce is marriage done His way. Divorce is therefore a corruption of His will in someone’s life.

God hates divorce because He values marriage, the institution He created.

And to Him, marriage is not just the coupling of two people of opposite gender. It is not just two people living in the same house. And it is not two people partnering to produce offspring.

Marriage is a spiritual covenant before God of two people (starting in their youth) deciding to please God by living according to His revelation.

Pairing of spiritually discordant people will therefore be a strain on any marriage. Pairing of economically or socially viable people (as happens to Christian ministers and artistes and business titans) will make the marriage struggle, especially because such goals will always shift with time. Meaning that the purpose of the marriage will shift with the shifting of goalposts.

What I want to say is that God doesn’t just hate divorce. He values a good marriage. That is the context of His hating divorce.

When we hate divorce for a different reason that God’s, we very easily open ourselves to be used of the devil to destroy the marriage institution.

Another reason God hates divorce is because divorce is never a solution and never has been. It many times creates more problems than the ones it seeks to solve.

It is like cutting off a leg instead of treating a wound. Like we have read it floods the Lord’s altar with tears; tears of the divorced, tears of their children, tears of the families involved, etc.

I wish we devoted more effort on revitalizing the marriage institution than we are doing pushing for divorce because of this or the other abuse.

We know that the abuser is many times as wounded as the one they wound.

Divorce will many times transfer the wound and its protest to someone else since rarely will someone remain single after a divorce. In fact, it is much easier for the widowed to remain unmarried all their life than the divorced however short their marriage was like Anna of the Bible.

As with other commandments, we are wont to choose between positive and negative interpretations. Negative when we think God is after denying us something we need, or something of great pleasure. Positive when we believe God is taking from us something that would otherwise be destructive to us.

In the negative we will fight back as Eve did in Eden. In the positive we will seek greater light to help us remain within the bounds.

If we spent more time making marriage work than we do advising them to run away from abusive relationships, I believe we will raise a healthier generation.

I hope you will be a person who believes God’s word as you handle abuse and battery in marriage.

This is because handling it any other way displeases God. In fact, it is a sin in the eyes of God.

This is because God hates divorce. And He loves it when marriages are stable, happy and fulfilled.

The joy of a thriving marriage is the reason God hates divorce.

Will you agree with Him?

The Son and The Worker 2

We looked at work in the context of the son and the worker.

Both are working but their reasons for doing so are different.

Today I want us to look at the motivations of both.

Relationship with the father is the distinction.

One is positional while the other is relational.

A son’s position does not depend on his performance as a worker.

Relationship is the defining aspect for them.

And the relationship guides their motivation.

You see, a son does not seek to please his father to establish or develop a relationship. A worker must.

The assurance of the son’s position is what guides his work ethic. He works because he is a son and not to become one.

A worker must work because it is his work that links him to the father. The dare not rest because it could very easily compromise his position.

That is the difference.

A son is secure because his position is permanent. A worker must perform to remain connected.

Incidentally, that distinction becomes very prominent as we continue ministering to God.

A son does not need to display his affection or performance to anyone because he does not need anyone’s approval to become or remain a son. A worker must display his affection and loyalty because any slight slip in the father’s perception of the same can very easily compromise his position.

A worker needs constant motivation, either by perks or talks because he needs constant remainder that he does not permanently belong.

Many times, he may need to be deceived that he could eventually become a son as a reward for his work so that he may work even harder and better. Remember house slaves?

However, a son does not need any such because his motivation is the fact that he belongs and that he is working on his enterprise.