Keys to Extraordinary Giving

And Moses gave commandment, and they caused it to be proclaimed throughout the camp, saying, Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the sanctuary. So the people were restrained from bringing. For the stuff they had was sufficient for all the work to make it, and too much. (Exodus 36: 6, 7)

Can you imagine work being stopped because the gifts had overrun the workstation? Can you imagine people being forcefully stopped from giving?

Yet this is what we see in this passage.

Why was it?

But I also want to point us to another passage.

And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me. And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron. And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. (Exodus 32: 2 – 4)

Imagine the amount of gold that was used to make the golden calf, considering it was one work of solid gold! Yet they possibly made that collection in one or two days.

Yet the gold came from earrings! How many people gave toward that calf?

And we know that it was a sizeable idol since with an altar it was visible to the entire congregation.

How could people give so much in so short a time?

Let me take us to something Christ said.

For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Luke 12:34)

Our heart directs our hands (pockets).

Israel gave above the requirements because God had through Moses demonstrated who He was to them. He had displayed His power and love in rescuing them from slavery and providing for them in the wilderness.

Giving was therefore almost automatic, if not instinctive. God just needed to say the word.

Seeing God, and of course knowing Him opens us to giving to anything He values because it opens the door to closer fellowship with Him. Fellowship and giving can never be separated.

In the second story, people wanted to run their affairs apart from God. They wanted to create a god after their image, a god they could control (or so they thought). They wanted a soft god without restraints.

And they gave generously to that.

What does this tell us?

We give sacrificially to what we value without realizing the sacrifice involved.

And there are more examples in the scriptures.

Do you realize that Peter and John with their brothers left the greatest harvest (catch) and the resulting stock of their lives to follow Jesus?

The disciples held a thanksgiving service after being beaten by the leadership. Paul and Silas were able to sing in pain after the beating they received and being bound in the stocks (ultimate discomfort). Stephen was able to ask forgiveness for the people who were stoning him to death. And many other incidences scattered all through the scriptures.

Like the three Hebrews being ready to die in the blazing furnace. Or with Daniel choosing pulse (vegetables) and water instead of the king’s dainties.

Knowing God means giving of everything we have, even ourselves, to Him. There simply is no sacrifice too big for someone who has seen and/ or knows God.

Remember David refusing to take the willing offering of a field and sacrificial implements and beasts to do what God had ordered him?

What does this tell us as ministers?

When we show people God, they will have no problems giving to Him. And as His ministers who are in His service we will not lack because then God will direct them to minister to us and the ministry He has called us to.

How do we do it?

We should strive to preach the Gospel and teach the scriptures as they are. Then the people under us will be able to clearly know God and understand His ways. Remember the apostles refusing to be drawn to the administration of the giving? That is what we should be like.

On the other side, giving or telling people what they want is guaranteed to bring in abundant giving as we saw with Israel. And many ministers know that.

Preaching and teaching what people love and pleasing them with what they desire  is sure to bring enough gifts, even expensive gifts, and sacrificially too.

Entertainment draws crowds. That is why comedians and musicians are filling pulpits nowadays.

I will not forget motivational speaking since many a pastor has been swallowed by that god thinking self-improvement is like the pursuit of holiness. And prosperity preaching falls in that category.

But I think the reasoning is more subtle. There is greater acceptance of motivation than the Gospel. More people are coming and giving when they motivate than when they preach what addresses the human nature and its need for God.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2Timothy 4: 3, 4)

Like with the calf, they will handsomely reward those teachers telling them what they want to hear. These teachers will end up having everything a person would need.

This however does not mean that the ones preaching God’s counsel will be starving. It only means that they will be in God’s season, enjoying everything God is giving them, be it prison or martyrdom because they are surrendered to God’s will. But they will also be amply provided for from God’s bounty. Only that it will be as God pleases.

Giving cannot therefore be used as a sign of a healthy church. Probably the sign of a focused church, without defining the focus.

One is grounding people on earth whereas the other is uprooting them from it by pointing at a Kingdom out of this world.

But both will produce exceptional giving.

What will you preach?

That has a direct relationship with the eternal destination of you and the ones you are preaching to.

Being content with making people comfortable with earthly ambition and fulfilment, though it will bring immense resources to ministry will at the end be building a great palace using stubble. That imposing structure (ministry, church) will not last. Worse still, it will not take people to heaven.

Like I like saying, I would rather walk one person to heaven than fly millions to hell, however rewarding it is on this earth.

I will ask again, what will you preach?

Solo Worship

Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18: 19, 20)

 I have been thinking about Christian songs over the decades.

Having been involved in choirs for a long time playing different roles, from instrumentalist to different voices to forming and leading choirs, I want to let us into some observations.

Have you realized that songs by choirs last longer than songs by solo artistes? Do you also realize that they touch and get deeper in the spirit (call it subjective) than those by solo artistes?

Now that is the general observation of many people.

Of course there are exceptions.

I want us to go to reasons for this, knowing that there are people who will throw me many stones for this observation and interpretation.

By choir what I mean is that there are people who are united in singing together. They therefore are uniting their voices together to make beautiful music. To them, the collective is always preferred to individual mastery.

It therefore means that they do not have a star singer behind whom the others unite. Even in songs with a soloist, it is the soloist that must fit in with the group. Nobody is more important than the other as they make one complete unit, together.

The first reason is that the need for the team creates a spirit of submission and interdependence in each member. It also creates the attitude of being useful but also ‘disposable’. What I mean by this is that one realizes that though no one can play your part, the choir will still function whether you are there or not.

Then of course the fact that to sing well, the whole choir must blend into one unit in all ways. Those with loud and sharp voices train to make them soft and smooth. Those with shrill voices round them and those with soft voices must hike them some. As such nobody in the choir practices alone. One can train alone but must practice with the choir. It is only under the most special circumstances that someone comes to sing (or record) with the choir after practicing elsewhere. And even then they must have some practice session before the actual performance.

But I think the strongest reason is that in a choir it is very difficult to develop pride outside the choir. You can be proud of the choir as a unit but not your part in it since you can’t single out your contribution.

Another strong point for choirs is that a choir takes in everybody willing to sing as opposed to groups (called worship teams nowadays) who will look for what you are bringing to the unit.

Many groups will hold auditions to get the best members according to their strengths. There is so much frustration on many who were refused the opportunity to sing for the Lord when they sought to join a group they admired because according to the group they did not have what it takes.

But a choir will simply take a willing heart and build it to produce praise to God.

It means that one joins a choir in humility and surrender whereas they join a singing group as a pro since they are good in something. One offered and the other qualified.

That is why a singer will insist on being paid for singing. You see he is worth something, something that must be appreciated. But a worshipper will be grasping at the opportunity that opens for them to serve God as they praise Him. Again there are exceptions.

Now take that to the spiritual realm.

One thousand shall flee at the rebuke of one; at the rebuke of five shall ye flee: till ye be left as a beacon upon the top of a mountain, and as an ensign on an hill. (Isaiah 30:17)

The choir amplifies the power of agreement.

But it does more.

Have you ever realized that a choir has its distinct style whoever in the team composes the song?

Let me get us to the Bible.

We know that David is the composer of very many psalms.

Yet have you realized that many other psalmists were involved and that it is almost impossible to distinguish between the king and Asaph and Jeduthun and Korah without looking at the title? And you would not even know whose son of whom composed which song.

David built a worship institution in Israel? And it was a unit composed of very many families, not just people. And their songs were similar in most ways because they were growing together, from the singers to instrumentalists.

Is it any wonder that their songs continue ministering to us millennia later?

That is the power of a choir.

And as someone who has also been involved in small group discipleship I can confirm from another front that growing together amplifies the focus and impact of each member.

Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend. (Proverbs 27:17)

No wonder there is very little heresy in choral songs even when Bibles were few.

Yet a songster easily releases songs of dubious scriptural and theological content, especially when they become famous as they then fly off accountability and rebuke.

We need to return to collective growth in our singing, from congregational to groups. We need to return to church choral music and move from the star driven singing.

But we must listen to God to know what it is He requires of each of us. Then together we will grow in impact as together we serve our King.

Corona and God’s Season

I want us to look at God’s ways versus the enemy’s schemes.

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1Corinthians 2: 7, 8)

I have been thinking about God’s doing over the ages and becoming more convinced that the harassment the corona narrative has been causing on the people of faith could be the greatest catalyst for the greatest awakening and revival in history.

Why do I say so?

All other persecutions and trials were for the most part localized. All past revivals were prominent in particular places.

As an example, the ‘Tukutendereza’ revival, of which I am a ‘descendant’, came to Kenya through Uganda. That is why one of the most thrilling moments in my life came as I heard the song being sang in a Kampala church by the Buganda. It was an experience though it was almost two generations later.

That is why each revival movement brought its own traditions depending on the source.

But look at this so called pandemic.

The church is the clear target, whether of the virus or the narrative. The church is the only institution that is continuously called the super spreader. Of course it is global.

It is interesting that people can be clamped in a pressurized canister called an airplane for hours yet cannot be trusted to congregate in a church with enough ventilation for an hour or so. It is surprising that markets are crowded yet have never been targeted yet a church that meets once a week must be closed to contain the virus.

What has the enemy seen?

I am sure he has seen some movement in heaven indicating a great move of God is imminent and is thus trying his best to stop it like he has been doing over the ages.

That is what he was fighting when he tried to kill all the boys in Egypt and Bethlehem.

But did he win?

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. (Psalm 2: 4, 5)

God takes the devil’s intervention in consideration when He orchestrates things.

That is how Moses went to the palace and Jesus to Egypt.

What am I saying?

God is about to do something great with His people. He is about to break out in probably the greatest way in history.

But we will be surprised because as usual it will break out from the ‘wrong’ places.

You see, God has His surprise in store for the enemy and everybody aligned with him.

Like was with Herod, the devil is looking for the spiritual hierarchy for the great revival when it will break out in the fields and hovels of the broken world.

That is why he has bankrolled and blackmailed many in the clergy into chanting the corona chorus. They are more activist than the powers that are driving the narrative. Many have given it more prominence than the Gospel. He thinks that by doing that he has succeeded in stopping the move of God.

That is why those of us who long to see Christ having a say in the affairs of men are not afraid of poking holes on the nonsensical narrative, however irritating we appear. We know that there is a bigger picture in both camps but that Christ’s camp has the conclusion. And that whether they do away with us like they have done with those who coherently question their narrative.

Corona is a clear call for revival because it has from the start challenged faith.

For example, why do we not have bishops calling for a day to pray for God to conclusively deal with this virus as the Bible instructs? Why has their main job become reminding us to comply with the narrative as if heaven stopped acting in the affairs of men? Why do we demean someone who chooses to trust God for healing instead of punishing his people with impractical restrictions to the point of gloating over his death that is conveniently attributed to the virus?

The virus has for many believers nullified the power of God. We are almost ashamed of calling God our healer, especially walking in line with that confession.

That is why revival must break out. We can never go on like this and still confess the Lordship of Christ.

We can’t be run by a virus and continue calling ourselves the people of faith.

The Nazareths and Bethlehems of the globe are about to produce the end time revival so that by the time the powers that have continued using the virus to block it know what is happening they will become ashamed, nay overwhelmed and swept aside  and crushed. Many could like Herod be eaten by ‘worms’ as they are standing, shouting their narrative.

Where will you be?

Where are you now?

Are both together or does one need to move toward the other?

God bless you

Pain and Pleasure Negotiations

I avoid politics and corona as much as possible because many people look at them only using their lenses and so will be outrightly biased toward their side. In short their minds stop thinking beyond what they want to believe or even consider anything the ‘enemy’ is saying.

But at times I am forced to give God’s message in this mad context and today is one of those days.

Two things.

A leader is qualified by having followers. It thus means that if a leader has nobody following him he has stopped being a leader.

Let me give my observation.

During the first lockdown, people followed rules. Only very few broke them, and even then for really pressing and genuine needs which were not considered essential by the law. Even the protocols were observed religiously in homes.

People believed what leaders were telling them.

But look at today.

It appears as if nobody cares. People are crossing those barricades and borders as if no laws exist. Even the police manning them do not seem to mind. They just need something small (sometimes very small) to allow you to break those rules.

I have been in matatus so packed with unmasked passengers and a policeman comes and greets them and waves the driver to drive on. In town you walk around an upcountry stage and you are bound to be approached by conductors asking you whether you are going to Kisumu or Mombasa or Narok or anywhere else the government has closed to vehicles and people. In short people are traversing the country as if no lockdown exists. Only the fares have been increased to make the policemen smile at the law breaking.

And of course the recent event when hordes of drivers were stopped for breaking the curfew that even emergency services couldn’t move because the ‘lawless’ were too many that they blocked major highways.

This is heightened by the fact that tourists are able to access any part of the country, parts that are locked to the citizens, as if the virus can differentiate the locals from outsiders. Yet it was the same outsiders that exported the virus to us.

What am I saying?

The government has completely lost its leadership. And I repeat completely.

You might cite me for sedition but I will still say that the president has lost his position as our leader. Because, who listens to him? In fact you will hear people on the street asking when next we will lose our temper to mean when the president addresses the nation.

And why?

Corona has demonstrated that our leaders are extremely greedy. We were introduced to Covid billionaires who were to be caught and punished in two weeks yet nothing has been done a year later. And of course the fact that the curve has always depended on the kind of money being looked for and coming to the point that the average Kenyan can tell you how the figures will come out depending on the funding on the way.

In short, the normal Kenyan knows that the government and her leaders care NOTHING for the person on the street and so run their lives with that understanding.

The leaders are therefore leading themselves and grabbing as much as they can in the process. And that is what defines and guides their leadership.

The second observation flows from the first.

They need to legitimize their greed and base it in the laws, especially because those positions will not last forever. They must therefore protect their loot against leaders who will replace them.

Two things have a capacity of making someone very unreasonable. In fact they make them to stop using reason altogether. They are pain and pleasure.

The desire for pleasure can make someone forget everything they know to achieve it. It is called throwing caution to the wind.

Or do you not wonder why all those dangers, from pregnancy, to STDs and HIV are unable to make people put a stop to sexual sin? That the consequences of adultery, from divorce to death when caught, are unable to make one faithful in marriage?

Those few moments of pleasure cloud and obliterate all the facts and evidence against sin. Of course sex is not the only pleasure that produces that though it ranks very high.

Pleasure is what many women use to bargain. Even corruption is fed by the pursuit of the same.

The other day we were on a matatu and my son asked me.

What was that girl doing in a matatu?

I wondered why.

Her phone, whose value is close to a hundred grand really does not fit in public transport, and the place she alighted.

Can someone buy a phone whose value is equivalent to a few year’s rent?

Of course that could be the price of pleasure to somebody else, just speculating.

Of course we know about torture.

Pain has a way of focusing all our effort, all our being to look for a way to alleviate it.

Its positive is discipline, especially to children. That cane (others use the belt or switch) literally chases away the devil.

In pain we are unable to see anything else apart from pain and think of nothing but a means of eradicating it. That is why it is used to get confessions (some fabricated) to close criminal cases.

Our leaders are using pain to blind us to their schemes to literally sell off or buy our country from us.

As we painfully fend for our families under the circumstances they have set, we will be unable to see them changing our laws to buy us off our heritage since there is pretty much little we can do as we have no time beyond time for looking for food.

And that is what corona has done for them. It has given them a blank cheque to do what they want by simply varying the narrative to give them time to do what they want with our country.

They have killed parastatals so that they can then buy them for a song among other evils. And parliament is busy changing the laws to facilitate those schemes, either because they are part of it or they have been bought like the MCAs with cars were to pass the BBI.

Waendelee tu.

But I will fail my duty if I do not introduce the God dynamic.

God hates oppression. God hates it when someone lords over somebody else for evil and selfish purposes. And God will fight for the weak and oppressed.

They will pay. And we will see it.

In a very short while God will reverse, underline reverse, all their schemes, to their pain.

Just look at their generations.

Prophecy and the Human Element

Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. (Amos 3:7)

How absolute is prophecy? How much does it depend on human effort?

I ask this because there have been many arguments concerning prophecy and its accuracy, especially when it appears like the prophet got it all wrong.

But let me repeat something I have always said. If prophecy is even 99 percent accurate, it is false simply because God has all the facts and eternity in His hands when He proclaims it. He is therefore not dependent on anything outside Himself to keep His word.

You see, meteorologists depend on the accuracy of their instruments to be accurate. A spell checker depends on the width and depth of its dictionary for accuracy. That is why almost all who use spell checkers remember a situation where they had egg on their face when it put a very wrong word in a message without their knowledge (of course because they trusted the spell checker especially on a smartphone). God depends on Himself to keep His word.

But today I want us to look at another dimension of prophecy.

What determines true prophecy? Is prophecy absolute? Does it depend on people to be fulfilled?

Was Samuel a false prophet because he prophesied that Saul was the anointed of God when he proclaimed his rejection and the anointing of another?

Was Ahijah the Shilonite a false prophet when he prophesied that Jeroboam will be king yet later prophesied the annihilation of his whole seed?

Was Jonah a false prophet when he prophesied that Nineveh would be destroyed in forty days?

As opposed to what many peddlers of prophecy teach, prophecy is actually God’s call to action. And that is the reason Jonah fled the scene of his mission. He was simply not ready to face the consequences of his prophecy. He knew his prophecy had the capacity to rally the whole city to repentance, a repentance that would then ‘nullify’ his prophecy.

Human element is what determines how the prophecy turns out. Look at these verses.

Wherefore the LORD God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me for ever: but now the LORD saith, Be it far from me; for them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed. (1Samuel 2:30)

And Samuel said to Saul, Thou hast done foolishly: thou hast not kept the commandment of the LORD thy God, which he commanded thee: for now would the LORD have established thy kingdom upon Israel for ever. But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the LORD hath sought him a man after his own heart, and the LORD hath commanded him to be captain over his people, because thou hast not kept that which the LORD commanded thee. (1Samuel 13: 13, 14)

Like I like to say, IF is a constant element of all these promises we love claiming.

Let me give us one prophecy that will make this clearer.

Jeremiah prophesied the seventy year captivity in Babylon. Then look what happens.

Daniel connects to the prophecy and starts praying. Incidentally, he could not have gone back.

As a eunuch he would have been an outcast, then he was very old. Assuming he was in his teens when captured he would be in his late eighties when the captivity ended, or probably in his nineties if he was older. And of course the kings needed him around to sort those tough issues that required someone with the spirit of the holy gods.

Yet he prayed for the actualization of the prophecy.

Then we have Nehemiah, another eunuch who receives the burden of building the walls of Jerusalem and establishing administrative structures.

God does what He promised He would do to raise the heathen king Cyrus to issue the decree for the return of the exiles.

We then have Ezra who had taken his Levitical duties to captivity and was thus ready to instruct the returnees and set up the spiritual foundations.

Then we have Haggai and Zechariah, prophets who gave God’s encouragement to the returnees.

The bulk of the Jews had all but forgotten that the prophecy required their input and had messed it big time, some to the point of defiling the holy seed and others by being collaborators with the enemy.

The prophecy was definite. But it required the human element to come to pass.

Let me repeat; prophecy is not just God’s proclamation, though it is. Prophecy is God’s call to action.

Let us also look at Jesus’ time on earth.

It is interesting that the people who were best placed to receive Him failed. Remember they even knew where He was to be born? Yet for the most part they became His adversaries.

The people who were ready to connect with that season were the commoners, the undesirables, the rejects. They were the ones that reaped the most from that prophesied event and Person.

You will see the same when you read stories of the revivals of the past.

For example, John Wesley did not organize a revival. He did not plan to hold outdoor meetings.

He and his message were locked out of every pulpit. Then God opened the hearts of people in markets and all those other places.

Whereas he had thought that the message God had given him was for the pulpits, like Paul said, the pulpits adjudged themselves to be unworthy of eternal life. And that opened the door for the Methodist revival, if we may call it that.

And it is not much different today.

God is doing a new thing. But the ‘right’ people are sunk into relevance to notice it. They are so fixated with the virus and its narrative that churches have become centres of excellence as far as the virus is concerned. There are pastors whose messages are more about the virus that about Christ. To the point that churches have been made vaccination centres!

Their submission to Caesar has gone way beyond the accepted that whereas he can order them to stop teaching their congregation he can ask them to call them to be vaccinated. They cannot use the church for fellowship but they can use it for vaccination. They have given what is God’s to Caesar. And they wonder why Caesar despises them!

Yet we will be surprised when God bypasses us and chooses another generation!

God’s agenda is unstoppable. But He doesn’t have to use me or you. He only uses the one who is ready for His season.

Sadly for many of us, He may have to bypass us when He realizes that we are swallowed up by the world and its systems that we become like ministers of Christ’s time or the Jews where Paul went preaching. He may already have bypassed us but like Saul and the priests we are too stuck with the instruments of power to notice it.

Where are you in God’s agenda for this generation? Are you in or just wondering why some offshoots seem to be killing their tens of thousands?

God must move. He is on the move. Am I aligned to His move?

Perversion in the Holy Place

The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. (Psalm 145:8)

We looked at the progression from sin to perversion the other day.

As is usual with me I leave open ended questions for the reader to consider so that they can benefit from further study and scripture application.

But I felt that the post left out a key fact, the minister, the man of God, the anointed of The Lord.

That is what I want us to look at today.

How does a person in ministry get to being abominable? What is his process like?

You have of late heard of pastors who left their wife of decades to marry a fellow man. Or an influential Christian writer confessing to be gay. Or even a worship leader confessing that he has his faith all mixed up.

How does it get to that point?

The progression for the minister is not much different though it has some unique characteristics. And they are driven by the fact that this person has had a ‘dealing’ relationship with God. He knows God beyond what he has heard since he has in the process of ministry encountered Him much more than the people he ministered to as he was many times the link.

Let us look at David.

As king, he did not need to cover up for anything as kings took whatever and whoever they wanted. Remember Abraham with Pharaoh and Abimelech? Remember Herod? Remember Saul took David’s wife and gave her to another man? In many kingdoms a man would feel very blessed if the king took his wife.

But as a man of God he knew adultery was wrong. That was the reason he tried to cover up, because it was sin. And he killed Uriah for the same reason, not because he could have done anything had he known that David had taken his wife anyway.

That is where our verse takes us.

Suppose David was not confronted by Nathan? Probably the right question is, suppose his heart had not been crushed by conviction when the prophet came?

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)

Chances are that his sin would have been completely covered up.

Next is that his propensity to sin could have increased due to that.

But he could have continued serving God, albeit not on God’s terms.

As with the rest, his theology would have faced a battering because the fact that God judges sin would appear not to apply to him.

This then introduces a virus worse than the worst, the feeling that God needs him so much that He must excuse his sin.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. (2Peter 3:9)

Now imagine imagining that God must have you in His service irrespective of your character?

The other verse I find as scary as Matthew 7: 21 – 23 is this.

For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. (Romans 11:29)

The devil then amplifies that rotten theology by giving the rebel ‘success’ in ‘ministry’ so that he can continue being his captive.

Sadly, very few will think to confront such a minister as his rebellion has brought the devil and his system in his ranks; meaning that his ‘ministry’ meets the bill of very successful in human and worldly terms. Chances are that his borders will be expanded due to the success rebellion brings because the devil is in his corner.

But it is also very hard, almost impossible, for someone with that mindset to receive a rebuke. Remember Joash and Amaziah?

This success further emboldens him to stretch the limits of his rebellion. And that is the devil’s interest. In fact, if he can be able to shift your theology before you sin, then the better because with you at the centre of your theology you have fallen way below where sin could take you because remorse and guilt would be in the periphery.

God needs me and must use me is the reasoning that takes a minister to perversion. I call it entitlement.

Another side of entitlement is when someone feels that they have done so much for God that they deserve a break. Surely God should cut them some slack in appreciation to all they have done for Him!

That is how Hezekiah and Uzziah fell.

And it is not only in ministry that this happens.

The Prosperity unGospel teaches that we deserve the best if we especially give right.

A giver can therefore very easily feel entitled to do some off things because they support ministry, getting into the poisoned rut that is entitlement that leads to abomination.

God is holy does not simply mean that He is sinless and without sin, though He is. It basically means that He is not like us. He does not think like us. He does not look at us like we do. He does not behave like we do. His outcomes are not like ours.

We will therefore get spiritually lost when we expect God to reason like us.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55: 8, 9)

That is why scripture intake is so important. It enables us to understand who God is, and His values.

Only then can we be able to relate with Him on His terms, or terms consistent with His revelation.

Do you feel entitled? Then watch out.

Kings are gods in Their Eyes

I saw a dream which made me afraid, and the thoughts upon my bed and the visions of my head troubled me. Therefore made I a decree to bring in all the wise men of Babylon before me, that they might make known unto me the interpretation of the dream. Then came in the magicians, the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers: and I told the dream before them; but they did not make known unto me the interpretation thereof. (Daniel 4: 5 – 7)

There is an uproar in many places of the world against leaders who have abandoned common sense and decided that they were bigger than the nations they led in the policies they pursue.

I then thought to consider the kings in scripture to be able to understand not only why they believe so but also know how the led can take back their nations. And it is not a pleasant pursuit.

Do you realize that very few kings, probably less than enough to count on the fingers of one hand, made seeking God a priority? And do you realize that some who started right ended up badly like Solomon, Hezekiah, Asa, Uzziah? Do you also realize that the others who sought God did so after all their options crumbled like Manasseh?

Simply speaking, a king will seek God when no other option remains. It means that he has tried all options and they have failed him terribly.

All kings have their magicians, wizards, etc. And they listen to them.

They will only stop listening to them when the same group acknowledge that they are stumped. And they do not do that easily. It is a war to death for some.

Remember Pharaoh? Nebuchadnezzar? Belshazzar? Ahab? Zedekiah?

But before we go on, why is that so?

People love being in charge. Wasn’t that the reason we fell in Eden? We do not enjoy oversight or control.

What happens then if people make you their lord? That desire shoots through the roof. You feel it is beneath you to be under anybody or anything else.

And that is where sorcerers come in. They are prophets of the earthly order ruled by the god of the world and so completely at home in everything that happens in the world. But it also means that they are opposed to God’s agenda.

A king will therefore look for spiritual counsel that agrees with him as opposed to that which comes from God. Remember Micaiah?

I repeat, the only time he will seek to know God’s will is when all his systems collapse and his prophets and counsellors confess they can do nothing about it. Otherwise he will still continue to spite God and His people in his actions and words since there is nothing anyone can do about it, in his eyes.

Incidentally you will realize that is how kings and kingdoms go down, Nebuchadnezzar being a prime example.

Let us stop pleading with our leaders to listen to reason because they will not. Let us not plead them to consider the vulnerable because they register nowhere in their radar. Let us not seek constitutional ways to speak sense to them because constitution be damned if it does not support them. They can even change it because they have the resources to do so as we have seen.

And spiritual logic is not only detested but feared to the point that they could kill the messenger. Remember Jeroboam and Herod and Asa?

We can only pray that he and his sorcerers are trampled on by the King of kings because then he will have nowhere else to run to. Then we pray that God will raise for us a leader connected to his agenda for our nation.

You see the only language an arrogant leader listen to is a power greater than his own. And no power is greater than God’s.

You are free to disagree with me. But this is what I strongly feel we need to do.

Only God can undo the mess the pride and selfishness our leadership has visited on us and our land.