The Eminence Of The Cross – Part 2

Firstly, in 1 Cor. 1:17-18, Paul states,

“17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. 18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”

Notice what verse 18 is telling us. It is making a difference between being saved and taking up your cross and following Christ. These are two completely different things. In other words, you could be saved but not be under “the preaching of the cross”. You could be a believer who panders to his or her carnal lusts. One who is not fulfilling the righteousness of God in their lives. But the Bible declares that to those who have accepted salvation, the cross is “the power of God”!

In other words, when we are allowing the cross to work in us, the power of God is revealed in us! The power to do what? To defeat sin and to work the righteousness of God in our lives.

The Apostle Paul feared lest the cross of Christ should be made of “none effect” in the lives of believers.

Wow! What a mighty revelation!! But Paul goes even further and writes similar words in Philippians 1:29:

“For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake”.

The believer has two mandates. Actually, one – salvation – is not our mandate. The work of salvation has been wrought by God Himself; we were dead in sin, and God resurrected us in Christ Jesus. A dead person cannot resurrect himself, so we were not involved in any way in our salvation. Salvation is all of God’s grace (Eph. 2:5).

The singular mandate that we have been given is to crucify our flesh. God calls us, by the Holy Spirit that He has given to us, to crucify our fleshly lusts and desires. Galatians 5:24 puts it thus:

“And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”

Again, this is of grace. According to His great mercies and love, God has decided to make us co-workers with Him. He makes us co-workers with Him in His fight against His enemies. And, pray, how do we fight God’s enemies?

It is not by screaming at the devil, as most believers have been taught. Nor is the believer’s victory in the thousand and one “steps” that fill most charismatic teachings.

On the contrary, there is only one way to defeat the enemy. It is by crucifying the flesh! God gives us His Holy Spirit for the express purpose of crucifying the flesh. Once we have crucified the flesh, we are done. Done, I said. That is what it says in Ephesians 6:10-20. Here, it is well documented how our spiritual warfare is waged solely on the battleground of the flesh. Just look at our armor (vss 14-18).

Truth. Righteousness. Peace. Faith. Salvation. The Word of God. Prayer. All these things require a denial of self.

It is all about crucifying the flesh! Once we crucify the flesh, the devil has nothing in us (Jn. 14:30). The devil fears a dead Christian! But when he meets a ‘live’ believer (i.e., one who is living for himself), the devil has a powerful weapon. We do the devil’s work when we fulfill the desires of the flesh.

Hence the cross. This mandate that we have from God – to crucify our flesh – was the reason the Apostle Paul held the cross in such esteem. You can see in his epistles that the singular thing that the Apostle Paul defended was the cross. Unlike many preachers in his time (but more so today), Paul did not boast in the great works that were done through him; nor in visions and heavenly visitations, all of which he had in abundance. On the contrary, Paul boasted

“in mine infirmities” (2 Cor. 12:5)

What does Paul mean by “infirmities”?

We shall see that in the next chapter of this series.

An Unforgettable ‘Safari’

… And he went round about the villages, teaching. Mk. 6:6

I know I have stated this elsewhere in this blog; but I cannot say it often enough. One of the greatest blessings that I count in my life is God placing me in the Tanzanian hinterland. I live in the big of the Tanzanian interior where the towns are small – and the bush land expansive. Here, just a few miles outside of town, one dives immediately into the villages, and into the bush. And for me, the bush is second only to heaven – an infinitely far second, I hurry to admit; but a second, nonetheless. If you took me from the African bush to a place, say, like central New York, NY, it would be a waste of air fare. I would just have to find a way of coming back to the place I love with all my heart. For me, living in the Tanzanian hinterland is an inexpressibly big and enduring adventure.

So it was with much excitement that on Saturday afternoon, me and my fellow pastor friend, Mwendo, took a bus – the old rugged type – to journey to a village some 30 or 40 kilometers outside of town, to preach the gospel of the cross. My heart beat with excitement as we plunged into the countryside, I hungrily taking in all the sights outside; and savoring the smells and voices of the village people inside the bus. Being inside the bus was like being in a large outdoor market; everyone knew everyone else and people gathered together in groups, some opting to stand rather than sit, in order to join and share in the camaraderie. My friend Mwendo, a local Turu man, was seated next to an engaging lady and they talked throughout the two hours it took us to arrive at our destination. (The bus stopped nearly every hundred metres or so!)

I, being the kind of guy who can never make conversation and unable to communicate in the local dialect, sat quietly alone but, unknown to anyone else inside the bus, tremendously enjoying myself.

And then, finally, we arrived at our destination, the village of Lighwa. Here we found our host, Peter, with some of his elders, awaiting us. He warmly welcomed us to his home and it was a joy to meet his lovely wife and younger children. Some of the older ones are married and live elsewhere.

At night we sat outside and watched the stars. For the first time, I had a real audience for my favorite subject, space. I showed them the ‘clouds’ of stars. I told them, “Those are not the clouds from which we receive rain. They are layers upon layers of stars. And each one of those stars are millions, probably billions, of miles apart.”

My listeners were unaware of such information and they sat there deeply entranced by what I had to say about space. They were seeing the starry night all anew.

I noticed that in Pastor Peter’s large compound there was no sign of a dog. This appeared unusual to me, so I asked him where the dogs were. He told me, “I had very fierce dogs, but the hyenas carried them all off.”

Hyenas have an insatiable taste for dog meat and, when they come to a homestead, they will hunt the dogs rather than the goats or sheep. I asked Peter how he guarded his large herd of cattle and goats. He showed me his incredibly tall ‘Trump wall’ built out of trees and huge branches and said, “Hyenas can’t climb over that.”

I asked him, “Are there no lions about?”

“No”, he said. That was a great relief for me. I have absolutely no fear of hyenas; but with lions it’s a completely different story, because I happen to know what they are capable of. Lions are not to be tangled with.

Anyways… The next morning, Sunday, we attended church. This was the climax of our visit to Lighwa. The church is a small mud building which seats about 40 people. A fellow pastor, Antony, had joined with his small congregation also.

Once the service started, we were treated to the usual run of entertainment – a gutsy choir and very loud pre-recorded music. Mwendo and I weathered it all patiently.

Finally, it was time for the preaching of God’s Word. Pastor Peter took the podium and read from Acts 16:9:

“And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.”

He turned to Mwendo and I and said, “Brethren, you have crossed many villages to come here. It is because we need your help. Please, welcome, and do help us.”

Mwendo was the first to go. Extremely fiery, as usual. One hour later, I stood up to preach. We preached to them

“Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23).

We’ve been to many churches but I have to say that the church in Lighwa excelled them all in their acceptance of the gospel. The response was spontaneous, and extremely fulfilling. After we had done preaching and praying, the pastor stood up and let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. He told us of how they had been robbed blind by preachers and how when they first invited us, they did so with much trepidation and many misgivings. But now, he could see no way forward for the church except for the gospel they had just heard, the gospel of the cross. The church’s response – and ours – was worth a million dollars!

Very late in the evening, we commandeered a lone motorbike to take us back home since there are no buses on Sunday… and we had to be back in town that very evening because I had an important appointment. Mwendo sat behind the driver and I sat behind Mwendo. The driver then took off at a very high speed and I quickly had to decide whether to ask him to slow down or I start praying. Considering the distance we had to travel, I opted for the latter. I prayed silently, but with my eyes open; somehow I could not bring myself to close them. In the fading light of the evening, trees and bushes flashed by, and the adrenaline pumped in my blood as I realized that at the speed at which we were going, if anything happened, the next day they would be singing funeral songs at my house. But this was a risk we had decided to take.

But the man was a pro. He had years of experience on these roads. Finally, at 8 p.m. I arrived home, exhausted but unharmed. And there, in warmth of the kitchen lights and fire, I found my ‘appointment’ waiting for me. It was my wife, who had dashed from her station in a distant village where she had been for the last one week, to come and visit. She would be leaving early Monday morning.

[Our bus arrives at Lighwa]

[Pastors Peter and Antony welcome us]

[An indefatigable man of God, Pastor Peter]

[The church and congregation]

[Pastor Antony expressing himself with unbounded joy]

 

[Pastor Peter’s ‘Trump Wall’]

[My Sunday evening ‘appointment’]

The Need For Sound Doctrine – Part 2

Sometimes the problem is not the mega-church and all it entails. Paul also told Timothy:

“1 Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.” (1 Tim. 4:1-3)

Sometimes the problem is “seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils”. Imagine… God’s people literally being led by demonic forces! And when you hear the devil, don’t expect to see him in horns. Oh, no. What you will see is a priest or pastor or preacher who has probably even been to Bible school. And, actually, when you read this particular scripture, you will realize that the Bible is talking about mainstream denominations!

Take, for example, a ‘church’ that forbids people to marry, or one that forbids people to eat certain foods. The Bible here states that both these doctrines are doctrines of devils. And yet… false denominations and cults use these same teachings to deceive their members.

The Bible calls these doctrines of devils because they aim to found people’s faith on something else other than the sound doctrine of Jesus Christ.

The second thing – which is the subject of the second part of this series – is that you would think, as I had always thought, that the culprits in these modern-day charades are the greedy, worldly (and sometimes demon-possessed) preachers. We love talking about how these preachers are ripping off God’s people and how they are leading them into error. But lo and behold… the Bible has news for us! According to 2 Timothy 4:3-4, the real culprits are not these preachers. The real culprits are the people themselves, who have given these preachers the platform to deceive them. That is what the Bible says right here:

“…after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers”.

The whodunnit in this crime are the believers who attend churches where the cross of Christ has been stripped of its power (1 Cor. 1:17)!

False preachers’ tentacles reach far and wide. I have a brother right here whom I one day found letters in his office from a famous American preacher directing the brother to send to that preacher’s ministry a large sum of money in exchange for an upgrading of his status in the ministry’s roll of honor. He was told he would be sent a gold-edged certificate.

The letters had come in thick and fast. With each succeeding letter the demands got more strident. The last letter was an actual threat. Luckily, our man got to hear the gospel of the grace of God just in time, and he and his family were saved from an impending catastrophe.

Countless other people have not been so lucky.

Now, when we see or hear of these people being deceived and fleeced by these mega-preachers and other demon-possessed cultists, we are prone to sympathise with them. But God’s outlook is radically different. God’s outlook is that a blind man who accepts to be led by another blind man will fall into the same pit that his blind leader fell into. In other words, they shall both perish. It is not a matter of God pitying them or not. God has given them the freedom to choose the path they wish to follow.

And when you come to look at it in light of scripture, there is really no excuse for a person who has been born again by the Word of God to be deceived. God’s Word has the power to hold and to keep! We get deceived when we reject the truth of the cross.

That is why Paul charges Timothy to:

“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”

There is nothing ‘good’ about God’s Word. Notice the words Paul uses here:

“reprove, rebuke, exhort…”

The word “exhort” here means “warn”. There is nothing good about being reproved, rebuked or warned. They are all hard, difficult things to bear. But these are the things that constitute the sound doctrine of Jesus Christ. That is exactly what the cross comes to do in our lives!

When you accept to listen to a different gospel than this, it means you have changed course and you have begun chasing after other things. When you hear a gospel that does not lead you to deny yourself and to take up your cross and follow Christ, you are being deceived and you ought to ask yourself how you arrived there in the first place.

[In a homestead deep in central Tanzania, dinner is served!]

The Need For Sound Doctrine – Part 1

1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;

2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

3 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;

4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. 2 Tim. 4:1-5

What a charge Timothy had! And yet it is today, more than ever, that this charge needs to be carried out to the maximum, despite the dangers that accompany its execution. Dangers, yes, for Paul here tells Timothy that, once he set out to implement this charge he would “…endure afflictions”.

There was a time when I used to wonder at the present-day phenomenon of the mega-church. These are single churches with mass congregations of ten, twenty, or thirty thousand people. It is in most of these churches that the “pop” gospels of prosperity and other doctrines made up by man are preached. In these churches also is where you find a form of hype and sensationalism which would turn the world green with envy.

I used to wonder about these things, just as King David also wondered at how God could allow evil men to prosper (Ps. 73:16).

I used to wonder… until I read 2 Timothy 4:3-4:

“3 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; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.”

Mark the “they” in this scripture. “They” are God’s people and with this particular group of people lies the whole problem of the church. Not all, certainly, but the majority. With God’s people lies the problem of the church. That’s incongruous, to say the least.

Notice there is “sound doctrine”, or “truth”; and there are “fables”. A time would come, Paul told Timothy, when God’s people would not endure sound doctrine. You don’t endure good things; you endure bad or difficult situations. Apparently, therefore, sound doctrine is not good for the flesh. Paul’s reference to sound doctrine here is to the gospel of the cross. He was saying a time would come when people would not endure pain. They would not endure the hard choices that the cross offers. Instead, they would choose the broad and easy road of the flesh.

That’s hardly surprising today, with the feel-good gospels that are being preached in most churches today. That is why people are flocking to these churches. The sad fact, however, is that the people who go to church to hear feel-good sermons are not spiritual people; they are worldly-minded people.

If there was one person who should have had a mega-church here on earth, it was our Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that He had such a large following that, at one time he fed five thousand men, apart from the women and children. That means that the number of people who followed Jesus were in the tens of thousands. But these people were not the church.

On the day that Jesus decided to start His church, He turned to these same people and to spoke them these words:

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.” (Jn. 6:53)

At this, His followers scattered like flies. They could not endure His hard words. Only 12 remained – the apostles. And they, too, hang on by a thread! (v. 67)

So, when Jesus was here on earth He had 12 members in His church! And we know that one of them was a devil. That left only eleven.

If things were so difficult in Jesus’ time, how can we possibly think that things are any different – or easier – today? The Bible expressly says that in the last days, the noose will get tighter. How can a man possibly claim to be breathing easier when the noose is getting tighter?

Today, we are living in times like the nation of Israel’s during Elijah’s time. At that time, the nation of Israel had forsaken God and they were worshipping pagan gods.

The nation of Israel is a type of the church. Now, we don’t want to make Elijah’s mistake and declare that there is no church in the world today. Even at the worst of times, God always has a remnant. And so it is even today. God has, within today’s apostate church,

“seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” (1 Ki. 19:18)

And yet, you realize, seven thousand in a nation as big as Israel was is a very small number. The number was so small that Elijah had no idea these people existed!

Now, more than ever, true ministers of God ought to heed Paul’s exhortation to Timothy:

“1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; 2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine…

5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.”

[Children play in a drain. They have absolutely no idea the danger they are in if flood waters came crashing through]

Itching Ears vs God’s Word – Part 1

1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;

2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

3 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;

4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 2 Tim. 4:1-4

[Before saying anything, let me express my heartfelt condolences and empathy to the victims and relatives of all who who were killed or injured during the Bastille Day terrorist attack this Thursday in France. Mine are not mere words, but my heart is torn apart by the violence that we are witnessing in every corner of the world on an almost daily basis. France has been hit particularly hard by terrorists, and my heart goes out to this lovely nation. May God bless and comfort you all.

All said and done, it is time for everyone to turn to God through believing the gospel of His Son Jesus Christ. Amen.]

Now, to the main article…

The Apostle Paul wrote many warnings and many “charges”, or commandments, to his spiritual son Timothy. This was because Paul, being an apostle and a prophet, saw in the Spirit things that would happen in the future, and what he saw troubled him greatly. He saw a time of great apostasy within the church, when God’s people would shun the truth and hanker after doctrines that would cater to the flesh. And it was revealed to him that there would be no shortage of preachers to lead God’s people down that road.

The Apostle Paul told Timothy there would come “perilous” times (1 Tim. 3:1), and that these times would occur on Timothy’s watch. “Perilous” means dangerous. Dangerous times for the church would come in Timothy’s time.

And so here we see Paul charging Timothy, and that before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to… “Preach the word”. Then he adds something else there: preach “sound doctrine”.

What is “the word”? The Word of God is scripture. In our case, it is the Bible. The Bible is the reference point of everything we say or do. This was the same Book that was there in the early church’s time, even if not in its entirety. Jesus Himself stuck to scripture.

Here Paul was therefore telling Timothy: “You must be a stickler to the holy scriptures”.

I love that with all my heart. Sticking to the Bible seems to be a problematic thing with believers in our day. People read out the Bible all right, but they cannot seem to align their words (and actions) to what the Word says. More so, sound doctrine is lacking in an even greater extent in today’s church. People prefer to hear things that tickle them. But, if we are to believe Paul’s words here (which we should), sound doctrine has been lacking in the church for a long, long time. Two thousand years, to be exact.

Do you believe that Timothy met with the state of affairs that Paul describes in his two letters to him? I believe he did.

And so, therefore, Paul commands Timothy to “preach the Word”. God’s Word would be the answer to the coming apostasy.

It is incredible how the Word of God has been compromised today. I once attended a burial service in our town and the preacher who was to deliver the sermon, a man whom I knew well, read a scripture from the Book of Philippians. There was a huge crowd there that day and when it came to hearing the Word of God, there was dead silence. In our country, people respect the Word of God. They may not necessarily believe it, but they have a primitive fear of God.

The air was absolutely clear and, as the man read the scripture, I could feel every word dropping into my heart. So much so that I could also feel the hairs on my body stand. The Word of God, when read under certain circumstances, is tremendously powerful. I am sure that God wanted to speak to the sea of people there that day, and that He gave the man that particular scripture to read. God loves His people, and He wanted to bless them.

But it was not to be. It is beyond belief what happened the minute the preacher began his sermon. The minute he closed his Bible and began preaching, the man of God shot off on a tangent and from the first sentence to the last, nothing he said had any connection with the powerful scripture he had just read.

Utterly deflated and shocked, I looked for some shade and sat down. But I was not entirely surprised. I had known for some time that many preachers today read the Word of God in church only as a formality, but what they speak afterwards is the fruit of their mind rather than obeying God’s command to “preach the word”.

Amongst the more progressive circles within the church today, motivational speaking takes the place of preaching the Word. Preachers say things which have no basis in the Word of God and they expand on them to invent doctrines. The Bible calls these things “fables”. Motivational speaking in church creates “fables”. And here we are talking of Pentecostal churches.

This was what Paul warned Timothy about. In other words, he commanded Timothy to stick to the Word. He instructed him not to give heed to fanciful ideas that might come from his head – and from a lustful heart.

Let me end by saying that if there was a way to force preachers to stick to the Word of God, many – very many – would drop from ministry. Probably out of every ten preachers only one would remain. The situation is that serious. This is because these preachers would find in the Word truths that they are currently not aware of, either due to a lack of revelation, or simply because they cannot “endure sound doctrine” and they deliberately ignore Biblical truth. They would find that there are many things that they cannot speak and do. They would find, for example, that the Word of God curtails the freedom that they exercise in formulating their own doctrines. They would find, too, that the church is not there to amass worldly wealth. The church is not to say, “We are blessed” simply because someone has purchased a new car or a new private jet.

In the early days of my salvation, in the 1990s, preachers were attracted to a Korean car called Musso Ssangyong. Urban-based preachers competed to own a Musso. That was the “blessing” in those years. Many years later I would meet with those same Mussos, now very old, spewing smoke on the road like furnaces, and dragging to one side.

Today’s “blessings” amongst preachers consist of private jets and private estates. They, too, will pass away.

True blessings, however, are of the Spirit. It says so in Ephesians 1:3:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ”.

You don’t see a private jet mentioned there, do you? That is the heart of God.

[This is one of my favorite songs. I hope you enjoy it]

Repentance – God’s Singular Command

… And they went out, and preached that men should repent. Mk. 6:12

Notice that the Bible does not say that the apostles went out and preached that men should become apostles or prophets or pastors. Nor did they preach that men (by “men” the Bible includes women) become prayer warriors. Nor that men should sing. The Bible says that the apostles preached that men should do just one thing: to repent.

I in no way intend to belittle the gifts and callings that God has given to men on behalf of the church. But the gospel today has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise and its ministers have become celebrities. Genuine ministries of the Holy Spirit have been turned into money-minting and ego-raising activities.  And God’s people are more concerned with these things in men of God than humility of spirit!

It is good and desirable for men to carry these ministries. But this is of little value to them and to the church if these men do not also do the singular thing that God directs men to do: to repent. As far as God is concerned, it is infinitely much better for one to carry a humble and repentant spirit than all these ministries.

A lifestyle of repentance involves a price that many of us would rather avoid. But I believe that one day, in heaven, impossible heroes will be revealed to us. Recently, a pastor friend of mine was telling me about an incident that occurred in his church. He told me that during testimony time, one of his members, a woman, stood up and went to the front. She would not look up and she spoke in the lowest of voices, so low that the pastor had to ask her to speak up.

She was saying, “One day pastor came to my house and I hid from him the sweet potatoes that I had cooked for my husband. I ask him to forgive me.”

And the woman stood there, utterly devastated by her own admission.

The pastor was stunned. The lady had hidden sweet potatoes from him!

But this lady’s heart had smitten her because of the sweet potatoes she had hidden and she made the decision to repent. (In Africa, most sins are committed out of poverty.)

The pastor said to me, “I called her up and I told her I had forgiven her, after which I prayed for her.”

I was so touched by this story. I realized this was a woman of incredible faith.

I told the pastor, “You must take me to this woman!”

And he said, “I will.”

This is the person I want to meet. This is a truly spiritual woman. In all honesty I would rather go and take a long, hard look at this woman than meet with someone who calls themselves bishop so-and-so. Being a bishop does not make one spiritual. But humbling oneself the way this lady did makes one a truly spiritual person, and a friend of God.

This lady was shamed here on earth by making her confession, but I am sure that in heaven her ratings shot to the very top. She is a hero.

But it is also clear that she paid an incredibly high price in doing what she did. She allowed her reputation and honor to be destroyed. There are many bishops, apostles and prophets who cannot confess their smallest failing in church. Their pride would not allow them to do such a thing. There are some who cannot even tell their wives, “I am sorry. Please forgive me.”

But this is the cost that we must pay to be spiritual. This is the cost that constitutes true repentance. Repentance is not the sinner’s prayer we made on the day we got saved. True repentance is something we do every time we miss it because we have in us the humble spirit that Jesus had.

[A man sells local hand-made wares at the city of Arusha]

The Revelation Of The Cross

There is something that we all as believers can safely agree on: that God wants us to grow spiritually; that He does not want us to remain babies forever. And in order for us to grow spiritually, we will need to feed on a proper diet. That means we will need to hear the right doctrine or teaching.

There are some congregations which are based on praise and worship, which is not a bad idea, except that the prescription for spiritual growth is in a teaching – a teaching of the right doctrine. Jesus spent much of His time in ministry teaching proper doctrine; so did the early apostles. The Apostle Paul says that “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (1 Cor. 1:21). When you read verse 25, you realize that the ‘foolishness’ he is talking of here is actually God’s wisdom. Foolishness to the carnal man, but wisdom and power to the spiritual.

And what, pray, is this right teaching that the Church needs to hear? When you look carefully at the teachings of Jesus, you notice that they are not so soft, after all. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus provides the Church with a blueprint for the kind of lifestyle it ought to live. It is a tough calling. When you realize what is expected of the Church, you also acknowledge that it can only be achieved through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And in Matthew 10:34-39 He says, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”

Jesus called Peter “Satan”. He called another lady a dog! You try that kind of ‘teaching’ with any of today’s rights-conscious Christians and you will end up in jail. Literally.

It is obvious that the charismatic gospel that the Church has been fed on for the last 2 decades or so cannot provide us with spiritual growth. It simply does not have the ingredients for bringing the Church to spiritual maturity. On the contrary, today God’s people are being taught to look out for No.1 (self); others are taught to live in self-pity.

The gospel that Jesus and the apostles preached is not a gospel you are likely to hear in our age, and for that reason the Church remains immature: it is fighting, envious and engaged in every kind of stuff that does not please God.

We need to hear the right gospel that will make us to rise and fight the good fight with joy and assurance of victory in our hearts.

In two instances in the Bible (1 Corinthians chapter 3 and Hebrews 5) we see Paul rebuking the churches for failing to grow spiritually. On both occasions, he says the reason for this lack of growth in their spiritual lives is because they have not been able to eat ‘strong meat’, instead loving to partake of only milk.

Mother’s milk is wholesome; but it will never bring baby to mature. Baby needs to reach a place where he can eat tough food!

The ‘strong meat’ that Paul is speaking of here is the gospel of the Cross. That is the revelation that he received from Jesus Christ; and that is why in all his teachings Paul echoes the words that Jesus spoke in the Gospels. Inherent in all of Paul’s teachings is a thread that never breaks: the importance of the Cross in a believer’s life in crucifying their flesh.

But it is equally true that the Church needs a revelation in the spirit to understand Paul’s doctrine concerning the Cross.

This is the gospel that Jesus had kept hidden throughout the ages, the gospel that He purposed would be preached to every creature to “present every man perfect in Christ Jesus” (Col.1:28). The preaching of this ‘tough’ gospel does not make us to question whether God loves us or not. A child who questions their parents’ love for them must have psychological problems on the side! We have no doubt that God loves us. But here, it is about growing up, becoming mature in our spirits. Which means we should not doubt God’s ways.

I am well aware that when you begin mentioning names in such a forum as this people are likely to think you are advancing cultic teachings. However, personally I am grateful for Brother Miki Hardy and the many elders of CTMI for the revelation that God has placed in their hearts for the restoration of the Church.

I would encourage anyone who reads this blog to check out CTMI’s website (www.ctmiworld.com) to see for themselves whether there is not something new and challenging for the Church.

I wish you all a lovely weekend.