Curiosity vs Information

Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise (Deuteronomy 12:30)

I feel constrained to share on this topic at this time as I continue to see a lot of information being shared about the ‘other world’. There are DVDs on anything from the Illuminati to witchcraft to secret societies being made and sold all over, and that by ‘brethren’.

I remember in the 80s when a book was produced by a person who had defected from the other side sharing his experiences. At that time there was so much fear and suspicion in churches due to the leakage he gave about the tactics they used even to distract attention in the worship service.

 A crying toddler raised the antenna of every member as there had to be an agent who caused it. A visitor to church had to be screened secretly to ensure that he was not an agent.

I remember one day around that time leading a students’ Bible Study in church. As usual those BSs have visitors from the campuses. I don’t remember the topic but it was a hot one as it called on very passionate discussions. But as you know the Bible is very central there. Well, among the visitors was this young man who knew his Bible a little better than even some members of the study. As we discussed we would insist that any position one advocates must be supported by scripture. And this particular young man was good in that aspect.

After the study a member of the BS called me aside and ‘informed’ me that the young man was an agent. When I asked her to substantiate she used his knowledge of the Bible as the reason she was convinced so. But he did not use scripture wrongly and was even in tune with the study itself. Her problem was that he was supporting the side she was not in. I had to take her through the scriptures to show her that the Bible has the guidelines as to who represents the devil.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success (Joshua 1:8)

It is interesting that God never asks us to understand the other side. He never gave His people any allowance to even interact with people who even leaned to the other side. We are supposed to know God so much that we have no allowance to even be tempted to know anything on the other side. And that is why a witch was killed immediately. The same happened with the homosexual, the prostitute, the adulterer, the idol worshipper etc. He was not threatened to order such. He realized that we do not need to know anything about the other side to recognize them.

Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices. (2Corinthians 2:11)

Bankers do not study fake currency to recognize them. They are so exposed to the real that any slight touch of anything not real stands out so fast.

God knows that our curiosity many times will cause us to lean so close to the edge that sometimes we will tip over. Curiosity killed the cat, so we say. But when another cat was given that statement to stop him from being over inquisitive asked, ‘what did the cat want to know?’

There are people who have gone to prostitutes who finally become their customers. There are people who have gone to witness in bars who become drunkards. Understanding a prostitute or drunkard is not what will help you bring them to Christ. Christ changed prostitutes and extortionists simply by knowing and doing God’s will. It is His love that draws people to Him, not understanding them and we will be wise to remember that.

We are supposed to soak ourselves with the scriptures that any slight diversion will be evident without even peering. Jesus said that we will know them by their fruit, not by having an inquisition. Our search to know so much can make us to want to venture a little further than is useful and get sucked into the system itself. We are supposed to know God intimately to refute the wiles of the enemy, not know the wiles enough to able to reason with them.

We know the devil is happy when we fall into two errors; ignoring him altogether and being obsessed with him. Both of them will have the same effect on us. Ignoring him will give him a lot of leeway into our lives as we will deny the evidence of evil that we see. Being obsessed with him might be even more disastrous as we will stop everything to ‘deal’ with him, something he gets excited about as he will then lead us to a wild goose chase as he has many personalities and ‘agents’.

I always remember a wildlife documentary I saw when I was at KBC long ago. Lions were hunting and we were being shown several tactics they use. The one I remember as if I have just watched it is when a big male went and stood on a hill overlooking a herd of gazelles with the wind behind him. The gazelles smelt the lion then saw him at a distance. Of course they were terrified. But he was not very near. So they all cocked their ears and stopped everything to see his next move. The other lions just came and picked their game easily as they were all stuck to the one they could see and smell.

I believe this is what these materials may end up producing.

Do we know that there are rich men involved in devil worship? The Bible is plain. Otherwise why did Jesus say it is very hard for the rich to inherit eternal life? Why did James appear to speak so roughly about the rich?

We know there are pastors who use witchcraft to perform miracles, who use beer and drugs to ‘perform’ on the pulpit. Must we know them? I don’t think so. We are supposed to know Christ above all. We are supposed to investigate the scriptures like the Bereans of Acts 17.

I know brought DVDs about the connection between hip hop and demons (The Truth behind Hip Hop DVDs). Many people credit me with that. But I want to stress that I more or less stumbled on them on a mission to Uganda and felt that the church needs to know that some of the things they are doing and some of the dances and songs they are allowing have demonic links. But if that drove someone from reading and studying the Bible, I would be the first one to repent. That was and still is information. The pastor making them and the materials clearly point to Christ.

The inquisitions were the result of being so fixated on the devil that we stopped living the Christian life as we hounded the devil from one corner to another, a thing the devil doesn’t mind. In fact he encourages as it leads us to fight him using carnal weapons, eventually turning it around to fight those who are living right as the will not follow us into our exclusive witch hunts.

I get a lot of information. As a minister I need to know quite a bit. But I know that if the information I am looking for is taking me away from the word of God it is not useful information as it is diverting my attention from knowing and worshipping God. My primary purpose as a minister is knowing God and making Him known.

Let us not e ensnared by the devil by looking to know what he or his servants are doing.

May we be fixated only by Christ and His word

For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified (1Corinthians 2:2)

Varsity on the Hill

The Launch Pad for Missionaries

And he said unto them, Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece. (Luke 9:3)

God is challenging Christian leaders to prepare those He has called to take the Gospel to the nations so that they become not only the sound of hope to the nation they are ministering to but also that they be excitedly content doing so. We will do this not by just teaching them the right doctrine and evangelistic methods but by also showing them how they should live wherever and whenever God sends them. And all this without a backward glance or regret.

The main thrust for this school is equipping people who have been called to missions with life skills that would enable them to live within the means not only of the sending team (Antioch) but also the mission field itself. This will enable them to be not just willing but ready to go to the mission field at even no notice with just the clothes they are wearing.

We will seek to prepare the missionary to be able to live contentedly amidst deprivation as most call it by making use of the easily available and affordable materials to make everything he will need.

For example; instead of carrying chairs and tables, beds and mattresses someone will be taught to make the same or similar using available materials and learn to use the same. Among the things they will be taught will be;-

·         Learn to make a stool using processed timber, then using sticks of various sizes, with or without glue and nails

·         Learn to make a table and bed using the same materials

·         Learn to make a mattress using straw, grass and other materials

·         Learn to make a fire, preferably without using matches

·         Learn to cook using wood, straw, dung etc

·         Learn to cook on the open fire, using stones etc.

·         Learn to make energy saving stoves using available materials

·         Learn to make clay implements and utensils where possible

·         Explore ways to produce electricity affordably

·         Lean language skills to enable one to learn new languages quickly

One of the greatest problems we have had is our perception of what a missionary is due to our experience with the foreign missionaries. Most of them will import not only their culture and introduce it as Christianity but also import their houses. Someone will come to the mission field with his four bedroom’s store of goods and provisions, thus disconnecting to his mission field because people will see him as different from them and not one of them because they cannot understand him. Even the ones who will be close to him will be so either out of curiosity or to get something from him. And no wonder that we get many products of missionaries getting into scandals and fighting for positions because they followed what the missionaries offered instead of the Christ they preached. They just learnt to use Christ to their advantage.

Paul was a missionary as we are envisioning. He did not move around carrying boxes of provisions as he went preaching. He did not even carry materials to make tents. It was his skill that opened doors for him. In those times tents were made from animal skins and hair. He was therefore able to fit in very ably wherever he was sent because that was an honorable trade. We stress the commercial aspect of the same but I think the most important was that he easily fit in wherever God sent him because of that trade. The main reason for this might simply because we do not want to support people God has called to leave all for His ministry. He did not open a shop or business of selling tents; he simply fit in with other tentmakers as he added value to their lives. They therefore appreciated his worth, not the money he brought with him as from his letters we do not see any trace of the same. Otherwise why talk of learning to live in need or plenty? It is simply because he easily fit in with the circumstances of the people surrounding him. If I join a farmer as he farms it will not be possible for him to deny me food or board. In fact he will very happily fund my trip to other places because he will find me a very useful member of his household. We may use tent making to ease our consciences because we are simply not willing to give any support. I will also hasten that churches supported Paul in ministry as we can see in his epistles.

A man's gift maketh room for him, and bringeth him before great men. (Proverbs 18:16)

It is your skill that opens doors for you on the mission field because it will make you a valuable asset to the community. One positive aspect of the western missionaries was health. Dealing with incurable ailments easily opened doors for them because they reversed the train of death. Even their enemies had to concede due to that. Another one was literacy.

In most places where the Gospel is resisted you will find that even people who will fight your evangelism will come to your workshop and bring their children to your school because they know you excel.

Another aspect this school will teach the missionary is farming, and for the same reasons. A missionary who imports all his provisions may never fit in with his mission field as he many times will be eating ‘strange fair’. Farming will not only connect you to them but to the soil they come from and that they either value or despise. As they see you getting food from ‘their’ soil, they will connect much more easily with you than even when you are buying your food from them.

Again you will discover that most mission fields are impoverished yet have a lot of available land. Even growing a patch of vegetables using your dirty water in places that are dry may make a great impact yet may only cost you a few minutes daily.

Our aim is to give basic training on crop and animal farming as we believe any society has its own peculiarities as concerns farming. It is only someone God has sent who might be able to impact that society positively. But this will come about because they have first endeared themselves to the society by identifying with them. I cannot be challenged to change by someone I do not identify with.

This is the beginning of the vision as I see it. I know there are a few people out there who can identify with it. I know there are a few people who have the same with even greater clarity. But I am posting what God has showed me.

I am calling on all the people God has spoken to or prompted this vision in their spirit so that we can raise a team. Maybe you are not so clear but as you read this your heart is being stirred as you are connecting to the vision.

What are some of things we will require? We will need a big house, preferably one that has some extra space to do some farming even in small scale. We may need a farmland or some pieces of land that we will be putting to practice whatever farming we will be learning. We will need some workshops where the skills will be learnt. The same will have a diversity of tools. All this could be sufficed for if we got a large farmhouse with the land.

What about the people we will need? We will first need people who connect to this vision and have a passion for the nations. But we will need some people with technical skills that they can pass on to the missionaries we are preparing. We will need agricultural and horticultural experts who will train on small and large scale farming, including green house technology. We will need language experts.

This is a prayer item. Please pray and plug in as God leads.

The post is still under construction

The Old Prophetic Curiosities

He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him. (1Kings 13:18)

What will be your feeling when you find someone who has been sent to do what you had delayed or refused to do for a long time? How will you feel when you see someone performing a task you had been assigned but thought impossible? How would you feel when you found out that the job you had been procrastinating is being done by somebody else?

When you read the passage this verse comes from (1 Kings 13), it appears like the scenario we are dealing with. There is an old prophet, we can say a retired prophet; otherwise why was he not around when the message was being delivered? He also appears not to be surprised by the message judging from his reaction to the death of the young prophet.

What had happened to him? Why was he not on hand to receive the young prophet instead leading him to his death? How come he was so zealous to get to this young prophet and even bury him in his tomb and order to be buried next to him? What was so special in this young prophet to him?

I dare say that this young chap aroused in him all the potential that he had buried when he backslid. This young man aroused in him all the regret he had buried in his heart. This obedient chap was a rebuke sharper than a slap on the face. And this chap showed him how useless he had become when he decided that his calling was secondary to living a life whose comfort quotient was positive.

But why then did he lead him to his death? I think the primary reason is that he thought he had to see someone who had dared to take the assignment he had thought impossible. Even the express conditions he had been issued with were a confirmation that it was a tough assignment. Do not eat or even take water there and do not even use the same route on your way back. But I also think he felt bad that God finally gave up on him which might be the reason for leading the young man to his death. He may have thought God was not fair to finally overstep him with the assignment. Regret is dangerous. But he may have thought that due to his long life of ‘reasonable’ disobedience there were no risks to this young ‘radical’. God could not simply do something to someone who had crossed borders to deliver the message that had been impossible to deliver due to his prevailing circumstances just because he had listened to the old prophet’s ‘innocent’ lie.

I was told about this missionary who was sent to another continent and given an assignment that was impossible to him. Since he had also been sent by a mission’s agency, he overlooked God’s assignment and went on doing the mission’s assignments.

Forty years down the road a young man from his native land is sent by his home church to him for mentoring and assessment as he had shared what assignment God had for him. He had even resigned from a very good job to take it. When they got to know each other this young man told this old missionary that he had been given the assignment that this old missionary had refused to take forty years earlier. The latest I heard was that the old missionary had refused to recommend him. The young chap had to go back to his homeland and I am scared that the young man may be in the same danger that befell the young prophet.

Does that appear familiar? Is this not what happened to the young prophet?

Regret is a long and torturous journey. Disobedience is a painful experience. However logical it appears it can never ever come anything close to the joy obedience brings however painful it appears.

I know I am speaking to people God spoke to long ago. I am speaking to someone who thought the kind of obedience they were pursuing earlier was crude and needed to be smoothed a bit especially after success in ministry started bringing more ‘polished’ friends. How can you fast with your first dinner invitation to a five star hotel? How can you give your old cars to other ministers who need them when your ‘newest friend’ has five? How can you give that ‘blessing’ to a struggling brother when you haven’t installed a satellite dish in your home? How do you give your tithe to that hungry family when you must have the latest smart phone? How can you speak rebuke to the only ‘friend’ who was instrumental to your most enjoyable holiday? How can I take a bus to a speaking engagement when my church only needs me to sneeze and they would hire a private jet for me?

How do I feel when someone as radical as I was wants my counsel? How do I respond when he asks me for support? What wells out of my heart when I am seeing success from the ‘foolish exertions’ of the radicals who remind me of what I was long ago?

Could I be working in league with the retired prophet? Am I like him even though I am in the middle of ministry? Do I contribute to their death through my ‘revelations’?

As I say this I remember this young man I am mentoring. Recently, a ministry leader called him telling him that God had asked him to invite this young man to stay with him. Since he had earlier trained him, the young man dropped everything (even studies) to join his teacher in ministry. Not long after this the teacher informed him that he had to fend for himself, yet this was nowhere near anyone he knew and this teacher was not willing to help him even look for a casual job. It was painful being in a foreign land with no friends and no food, all because a ‘prophet’ had heard from God.

Why do you think that happened? Could it be that this ‘old prophet’ felt threatened by the radicalism of this young fella and was looking for a way to trim his radicalism? Could it be that he wanted that radicalism to seep into him initially but gave up when it started shouting rebuke at his complacent life?

Even as I write I remember this time at work when my salary was stopped for six months for refusing to go to a bar ‘even to take a soda’. The bosses gave me a long leave then wrote a letter to headquarters immediately reporting my desertion of duty. It was a huge battle but I am glad that God fought for me because the aim was that I lose my job by refusing to agree with sin and especially living with them but having convicting standards.

Does it excite or rile you when you hear someone planning a mission before knowing how the money will come in? How do you feel when someone asks you to help them decide how to give their only asset because God has spoken? What will you tell this person who insists that God is asking him to leave college or resign a job to join ministry?

How do you feel when someone much younger than you wants you to help them deal with God’s voice when you haven’t heard it in a long time? How will you give direction to someone who walks with God in a closer and clearer manner that you are?

It becomes very sad when you are from a past that showed clear direction from God. It becomes very painful when you realize that you lost it, even worse when you can’t pinpoint the point at which you stopped hearing from God. It is pure pain when you meet someone with the fire you had when you started ministry, who like you long ago has let go of all that is holding them back. You see he is almost identical to you, yet at this point that radicalism looks like sheer foolishness.

Why did the young prophet die? The old prophet wanted to connect to his past obedience without seeking to deal with the reasons for his stopping to hear from God. I am sure he may have thought that this young prophet had a message specifically to him. He wanted a miracle without paying the price. He wanted to hear without unplugging his ears. But he simply had to have the audience of the young prophet. It was so desperate that he resorted to lying in God’s name to convince this obedient chap to follow him.

In my discipleship and mentorship I have seen a common trend. Many times God directs me to a young person whose only positive is energy. I have even been warned against making friends with some of them because they had character issues. But God keeps me there. After a short while the discipleship starts showing and bearing fruit though the person is still very green in the process. I can’t recommend him to anyone because even though they show some progress I know how far they are to dependability.

Then an ‘old prophet’ who may have warned against my involvement notices what my ministry is doing. All of a sudden he will pick this person and start giving him responsibilities, even recognition that I have no capacity of giving to make sure he leaves me for them. He will so crowd this young person that he will have no room for me, yet he was so far from maturity. I have been rebuked by some of those people for my ‘whatever’ as concerns ministry which many times has been influenced by the ‘old prophet’.

I know that many disciple makers are always dealing with this distraction to their discipleship. The only problem is realizing that this disciple or mentee is half cooked and not yet ready for the kind of responsibilities they are being handed. Many times they will very soon ‘crash’ either through pride or sin and there is nothing the discipler or mentor can do because this ‘old prophet’ has completely shielded each from the other.

But Zedekiah the son of Chenaanah went near, and smote Micaiah on the cheek, and said, Which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak unto thee? (1Kings 22:24)

How close do you relate to the old prophet? How excited are you to see young prophets flourish? Is God’s voice limited to you and yours?

May we exhibit God’s character when we are dealing with these ‘offshoots’ whether we agree with their logic or not. And I am speaking specifically speaking to some of us who in our earlier years were really on fire for God. We were known for daring to break tradition because we were clear what God wanted. We left everything from job to studies to pursue God’s call. We were not scared of being called fools or mad people because only God and His call made sense to us.

May we repent of wanting to be relevant to the world at the expense of hearing from God. May we start hungering and thirsting for the touch and voice of God in our situation.

As an aside I remember in the 70s reading some magazines from some ‘radicals’ who dared dream of reaching the farthest reaches that they had a ministry that even produced a magazine sharing that vision. I was very young then and the magazines used to really excite my heart as I read that I knew all those visionaries by heart though I had never seen any of them though I could recognize them from the pictures in the magazine.

Years later I came to Nairobi which I thought was their base. But the script had changed. I guess that after their radical ministry started achieving success, demands were placed on them to start harnessing the harvest. Eventually each one of them became a bishop of their denomination and I stopped hearing the name of the ministry mentioned. I remember when I was seeking registration for Restore Hope Ministries being told to stop wasting time through the long process and pay one of them to give me cover to do ministry and I know many churches that operate under his cover.

Recently I went for a seminar and was taken to a church that bore the name of the ministry. Even the overseer is one of the ‘radicals’. But I did not see anything reminiscent of the ministry whose magazines I used to read.

Was the ministry a front to establish denominations or to take the Gospel to places that need it? What happened to the vision? Are these bishops obedient to the call they were putting very clearly to anyone who read their magazine? Or did God tell them that their magazines were the musings of some misguided young men?

Can you entrust yourself to them to get direction for ministry if you have the record I have? Are they like the old prophet? Can they really mentor people into the kind of radicalism they exhibited in their ministries then? The reason I am not talking about their lives or persons is because I was only able to interact with them through the magazine. By the time I was in a position to see them they were ministry executives and I lost the urge to interact with any of them as they had simply flown off their magazine.

The cry of God’s heart is that we kill the old prophet in us by seeking to reconnect to our past radical obedience. Only then will we be in a position to be of positive use to these young prophets God is raising for this generation.

Let us not begrudge God for refusing to bend to our hypocrisy, sin and rebellion. Let us not feel that God has been unfair to us when He raises prophets from afar (Judah) instead of using us to run schools of prophets because if truth be told we are more like these Christ addressed.

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. (Matthew 23:15)

May we use our positions and authority to rebuke complacency and comfort from our hearts. May we delight in seeing the young prophets not only living but becoming all that God has purposed them to be. Above all may we be so alive so that like Elijah and John the Baptist God will use us to raise our replacement at our peak and not as we are expiring.

Above all may we be so tuned to God that He is the one who will send us to search the young prophets so that we can help them maximize their ministry instead of killing it.

God bless you