Of A Nation And God

For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh, but by love serve one another. Gal. 5:13

There is no such thing as freedom of the flesh, where men are free to do whatever they feel like doing. Such freedom throws out the mandate of God to

“use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh”.

Liberty being an occasion to the flesh ultimately leads to greater and greater wickedness against God. True Godly freedom can only be found in the cross of Jesus Christ, as the Apostle Paul says in Galatians 5:23-24:

“… against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.”

And this goes all the way down to our worldly governments. A while back, a powerful CNN commentator called Christian Amanpour was interviewing the Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta on TV. She asked him about Kenya’s position on gay rights. The question seemed to trouble the Kenyan president and I could see the pain on his face as he struggled to find the right words. Finally, he replied, “That is not an agenda with this country. It is not in the interests of Kenyans, whom I represent, to even consider such a subject.”

The lady replied, “You are getting yourself into trouble.” She did not elaborate who the Kenyan president was getting into trouble with. But her allusion was clear. He was getting himself into trouble with the people that matter in this world.

All of a sudden, I saw this lady in a new light and, even before the president could reply, the rejoinder leaped in my mind, “Lady, it is you who is getting yourself into trouble. You are getting into trouble with God.”

At about the same time I read the story of a man in the U.S., a homosexual whose partner had just died. In the article, the writer very sympathetically reported that the man was mourning the death of his husband. Maybe you think you didn’t read that right. Yes, the article said exactly that: his husband. Of course there is no such phrase in normal language; but there it was, courtesy of the liberal media.

But this is exactly the problem with this particular group: They do not want to acknowledge God, nor His righteousness. There are so many similar stories from these ’emancipated’ minds. This group reminds me of the story of Nabal and David in the Bible. You can read the story in 1 Samuel chapter 25. The truly interesting thing here is the question that Nabal asked the young men whom David sent to ask him to give “whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David.” (v.8)

Mind you, David had graciously looked over Nabal’s flocks and herdsmen in the wilderness, allowing no harm to come to them. But when the young men reached Nabal and delivered David’s request, he asked,

“Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse?” (v.10)

Wow! What a question for the man to ask David! But that is the liberal agenda. They ask, Who is God? They have no idea who He is and they find no reason why they should obey His laws.

I hate the liberal agenda; and the American version is especially revolting. It goes along the lines that, basically, man is free to do whatever he wishes, without God. You have no idea where such a blind idea can lead to. When you think you are free to reject God, you have just opened a hornets’ nest right in your bedroom.

America, and the free world in general, was founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs. That is what makes America and any other free nation truly free. In other words, the fear and worship of God. The founders feared God and sought to establish His righteousness in the land. The Word of God says in John 17:3:

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent.”

The liberal movement seeks to uproot that foundation. They do not want to acknowledge God nor His Son Jesus. They are for freedom; but freedom without God. Eventually, America’s undoing will be a result of its rebellion against the Judeo-Christian God and His values. I was shocked to learn recently that there are Muslim members in the American Congress now, complete with hijab! I cannot imagine where America is headed with that kind of ‘freedom’. We all know that Islam is absolutely against the Judeo-Christian faith.

No good can come out of a nation that seeks to forsake the sound foundation of the Judeo-Christian faith on which it began.

The Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and the president of the United States, Donald Trump may not be perfect men. But their unwavering stand support for the Judeo-Christian principles will make them to find grace in the sight of God. And may they and their countrymen find even more grace in the eyes of God.

[Just expressing my undying love for the old Hillsong songs. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a clearer video on the internet]

God’s ‘Mechanism’ Of Love In Church

15 Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. 16 But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. 17 And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Mat. 18:15-17

There are many stories of heroic rescue missions where the entire mission involved rescuing just one person. My pick for this post is the rescue of U.S. Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady. During the Bosnian war in 1995, against tremendous odds and against a formidable foe, the United States Army sent a team of servicemen to rescue Captain Scott O’Grady who had been shot down behind enemy lines. Although hunted down day and night by the enemy, O’Grady had managed to elude his pursuers for six days. Through unrelenting searching via radio, and operating just beyond the enemy’s reach, finally, the U.S. Army located their downed colleague.

But the enemy had also located O’Grady’s position, and they were waiting for the rescue team when it came.

But the team that went to rescue O’Grady was no ordinary team. The United States Army did not send a couple of guys over with the weak instructions to “Go see what you can do. See whether it is even possible to bring him out. If not, crawl safely back, we will just read his obituary.”

No, the Army did not do that. The Army intended to bring O’Grady back, alive. So what did they do? They sent in two navy helicopters carrying 43 Marines, together with two gunships, and four Harrier fighter jets. Forty heavily armed aircraft backed up the rescue team. All these were sent to rescue just one man. Yes, the United States commanders risked the lives of all these men, and their own positions, to rescue just one man. Fortunately, God was on the Army’s side and they overcame the enemy’s resistance and succeeded in bringing Captain Scott home – alive and well. The mission was a national success story.

So how does this story relate to our scripture above?

Far from it being a dead religious guideline on how to handle disputes in church, this scripture is talking of something entirely different, something far much grander. (At any rate, God is not religious in the myopic way we view religion. On the contrary, God is up close to each one of us, and unfathomably personal.)

This scripture is talking of the great worth that Christ attaches to every individual believer. We probably will never know while here on earth how much value, how much love God attaches to each one of His children.

Notice the progression of events here. If your brother trespasses against you, the first thing you are to do is to try and patch things up, just the two of you. If he hearkens to you, glory to God! you have gotten back your brother. Nothing more needs to be said and nobody else needs to know about what transpired.

If the brother does not hearken to you, still do not rush to the newspapers. Instead, the Bible says call one or two brethren and ask them to intervene. They must be spiritually sound, of course, otherwise things could turn out a whole lot differently. If the brother agrees to reconcile, it is a beautiful ending and you can both look forward to serving God better in the future.

If the man still does not relent, still, no problem. The Bible says to bring the matter up in church. The Bible does not tell us to bring the matter to the intelligent-looking or the moneyed, or our friends in church; no, it says simply the church. That is very important. The Bible, of course, assumes that the church is a spiritually mature and sound place where the Holy Spirit has full reign. Such a church has the power and authority to arbitrate between you and your brother. (The Bible categorically refuses us permission to take our cases to a worldly court of law. The church has the sole responsibility to arbitrate between Christian believers.)

If the brother refuses to listen to the church, then he has cut himself from the fellowship of the church, and from God. He in effect becomes a heathen, together with anyone who befriends him. There are always people in church who will try to show these kinds of people how much they have been wronged, etc. But God respects the church as much as He does His Son Jesus, and if someone will not respect the church, God has no choice but to leave or dump him.

But look! Notice how protective God is towards the erring brother. In every step of the way, great restraint is used. It is clear, right from the start, that God has no intention whatsoever of exposing one of his children’s faults. On the contrary, through the spiritual mechanism that He has set forth, God embraces the wronging brother! Because of the great love that God has for us, He has set up in church this mechanism to ensure that each of His children’s privacy is protected, so to speak. But God goes beyond there. Every step of this mechanism is geared towards bringing healing to the erring brother. How? By allowing him to reach the point where he can repent of his wrongdoing. Repentance is the sole bridge between God and man.

For a brother to get to the stage where he does not hearken to all these elements of the church, therefore, it means he is a son of Belial. Long before he gets there, God has given him chance after chance to repent and repair his ways.

What about us? What happens when we are not walking in the Spirit? We have no brakes. Even worldly nations have levels of everything, including terror levels. But what about us? When in the flesh, we will find ourselves jumping to the highest level of dealing with the erring brother. With no restraint whatsoever, we will want to first tell other people about what has happened. Sometimes we want to tell the whole world! Right away the brother who has wronged us becomes a mortal enemy! There are even brethren who write in newspapers about how they have been wronged. And some will even ‘prophesy’ in church. People will use any means to get back at the person who has wronged them.

But that ought not to be so in church. God is love. Through Jesus Christ we, too, have been moulded into the image of God, and His love and compassion ought to fill up our lives. We ought to love our brothers as God loves us. Trumpeting our brothers’ faults abroad is certainly not love, and such an approach scatters instead of gathering together. But if there is a chance that reconciliation can be reached just between the two of us, nothing more needs to be done. Or said.

But when we have crucified our flesh, we will do things just as God does them.

[The church is a place of love and acceptance]

Fear God!

I agree completely with Pastor Jennings that America is in the condition she is in because she has ceased to fear God and has embraced things like homosexuality, lesbianism, etc.

307 mass shootings in 312 days. Wow! Who wants to go to America in 2018? It doesn’t require a medicineman to tell you there is something seriously wrong with such a country.

The solution for this country is not gun control. The solution is to return to God.

“And the Lord shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be intreated of them, and shall heal them.” (Is. 19:22)

Judging Righteously

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. Jn. 7:24

Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man. Jn. 8:15

These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Jews of His day.

The Bible tells us that Moses had an Ethiopian woman.

“And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.” (Num. 12:1)

She must have been a black woman because Ethiopians are black. But, of course, scholars might have found evidence to the contrary. Scholars are wonderful people, they discover great things. I have not had the time to find out whether they have something to say about the skin color of this woman. For the sake of the possibility of someone out there having discovered something different, I will not press the point that she was black. Suffice it to say that she was not a Jew. She was different; and this fact came to the notice of Miriam and Aaron.

Do you know who Miriam and Aaron were? The Bible states that  Miriam was a prophetess (Ex. 15:20). Miriam also is she whose song is written in the Bible (Ex. 15:21). Do you know what it means for one’s words (let alone an entire song) to be written in the Bible?

As for Aaron, he was the greatest of God’s high priests who ever lived. The Bible is simply smitten with him and his ministry.

Miriam and Aaron are among the greatest people that ever graced the Bible. They were great people with God.

And yet… these two rose up against the servant of God, Moses, on account of his wife. I wonder how these two arrived at having a problem with this woman (you will find the answer below).

But, pray, how often do you think such things happen today? At my age I have met many people of different races, and I can attest to the fact that many light-skinned people (Caucasians, Chinese, Arabs, Indians) have a problem with black people. Some simply cannot accept black people. They consider a black man to be beneath them.

I had always wondered at the stories that I had heard about racism… until I visited a certain country which is not black. One day, as I was walking across a school courtyard in that country, I saw students pointing and exclaiming loudly, “Africain, Africain!” I could feel their gaze on me.

It was not that I was the only African in that country. But I was different. I had just arrived in from darkest Africa, and this fact was clearly noticeable.

This was my first – and only – experience of direct racism; and it was strangely surreal.

Indirectly, though, racism is as prevalent as the sun. You can feel it in many subtle – and not-so-subtle – forms.

But to be racist does not mean only looking down on people. Even looking up to people is racism. It means we are differentiating.  To the extent that we are capable of making differences among us, therefore, each one of us is racist.

Scientists, however, have proven that we cannot blame Miriam, Aaron, nor ourselves for this undesirable situation. They have discovered that deep within us there are certain genetic factors at play that we simply cannot control. In fact, these factors control us. The genetic pull within us is just too strong. This is what causes us to judge people as we do.

It is God who created these genes. But then sin came and distorted everything. But thank God He is greater than sin! Through His death on the cross, Jesus vanquished sin and all its works, including distorted genes. And now, God demands that, once we accept Jesus into our lives, we are to cast off these kinds of genetic attitudes, for we are no longer under genetic control, but we are under the rulership of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the ruler of all creation.

For this reason, therefore, we are not to judge

“according to the appearance”.

Nor

“after the flesh”.

But, by the power of the Holy Spirit in us, we can judge differently. We can judge

“righteous judgment”.

What does it mean to judge righteous judgment?

It means you do not judge by what you see on the outside. On the contrary, you judge according to someone’s heart. You judge people by their hearts.

And what, moreover, does it mean to judge people by their hearts?

The heart of man is where sin lives. Here, therefore, Jesus was saying simply, “Judge a man by whether he has sinned or not.” Simple and clear. That ought to be the way we, as the Church, judge people. We are not to judge people in any other way.

When we were young children, I used to overhear the father of one of my friends say, “The white man is the child of God.”

That stuck with me. But I have come to discover that, in spite of all his conquests in the natural, when it comes to matters of the heart the white man is as culpable to sin as the next man.

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God…” (Rom. 3:23)

We judge people by so many things. But God judges us in only one regard: whether we have sinned or not. God’s enemy is sin, not a man’s skin color. Or his level of education.

The Apostle Paul asks,

“For who maketh thee to differ from another?” (1 Cor. 4:7)

As the Church of Jesus Christ, would we be willing to judge people according to the Word of God? Or are we going to look at people’s skin color, their education levels, their cars and houses and money…

But we are to live according to God’s Word. We are to tell people who sin, “Hey, God doesn’t like that.”

And we are to encourage those who are running the race well, regardless of how different they may be from us in the natural.

[Whom shall I fear?]

The Greatest Gift Of All

The greatest gift that God can give you is a humble and contrite heart. A heart that repents easily, with no questions asked. That is the greatest gift that any man can have from the Lord. Notice, of all people, the person that God is willing to dwell with in His heavenly abode.

“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” (Is. 57:15)

In the world, the high and mighty consort with the equally well-heeled. But with God it is different. His dearest friend and closest companion is the man who can preserve a humble and repentant heart. God’s singular friend is the man who is lowly in heart.

In Isaiah 66:1-2 God we read also:

“1 Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? 2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.”

Lest we misunderstand God when He says “poor” He is not talking about financial or material lack. He is not talking about that kind of poverty. God has never headed that way. You could be poor as a church mouse all your life, and it wouldn’t bother God in the least. You wouldn’t be the first one. In fact, we read of people in the Bible who were rich, but who joyfully allowed themselves to be robbed of their material riches on account of the gospel (Heb. 10:34).

What troubles God is when our hearts are not right. As long as you are okay in your spirit, God is satisfied with that.

On the contrary, when God says “poor” He is talking about a heart condition. He is talking about the person who does not count himself righteous before Him. He is talking about the person who can say from the bottom of his heart,

“God be merciful to me a sinner” (Lk. 18:13)

Such a man/woman makes God exceedingly glad.

I have heard it said that man’s best friend is the dog. Well, coming from Africa, I don’t know much about that. That idea comes from the white man, but we Africans might have closer friends than dogs.

But it sure is nice to know who God’s best friend is. God’s best friend is the man who can humble himself. It is the man who can say simply, “Forgive me. I have sinned.” He can say that to God, and to his fellow man.

Man’s (and God’s) worst enemy is prideful self. From these scriptures we can see clearly that God hates pride. God cannot sit with a proud man. And by proud I mean someone who cannot humble themselves. Someone who does not carry a repentant heart.

What is a repentant heart?

Probably the best illustration in this regard are the two famous kings of Israel, King Saul and King David. They both sinned before God. David took Uriah’s wife and then had the man killed so he could keep her.

Saul disobeyed God by not killing all the Amalekites as God through Samuel had commanded him to (You can read the entire account in 1 Samuel chapter 15). In retrospect, Saul’s was a far greater sin than the one David committed! It is called the sin of rebellion.

But, anyways, both sinned. Whether big or small sin, both sinned.

The truly interesting thing was that God gave them both a chance to repent. I mean, He could have chosen to kill them both instantly the minute they sinned without even sending someone to confront them. It being the Old Covenant times, such a thing was not unthinkable with God. Anyways, God gave them both a chance to repent.

But Saul would not repent. Instead, he dived straight into self-justification. And He wanted more. He wanted to come out of the whole saga with his pride intact. And so, therefore, after unloading a ton of excuses, he told the Prophet Samuel:

“I have sinned: yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again with me, that I may worship the Lord thy God.” (1 Sam. 15:30)

Can you imagine that? How can the two go together:

“I have sinned: yet honour me now”?

There was absolutely no repentance there. This was what killed Saul. The man would not bend.

These are the kinds of attitudes that God absolutely cannot stand. God cannot stand a prideful and rebellious heart.

Saul was irredeemable, and this was how things ended for him:

“34 Then Samuel went to Ramah; and Saul went up to his house to Gibeah of Saul. 35 And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death: nevertheless Samuel mourned for Saul: and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel.” (1 Sam. 15:34-35)

As we see with King Saul here, if you are a man or woman with an extremely hard heart, God can reach a point of no return with you and leave you. The condition of our heart is something to constantly watch over. God left Saul and the outcome was very bad for Saul. He reached to the point that he went to consult with the very witches that he had ordered killed when he had a zeal for God!

In contrast to King Saul, let us see King David, who also sinned. After David was informed of his sin by the Prophet Nathan, notice how short the interaction was:

“And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.”

It is not that we cannot sin. But it is the repentant heart that God is looking for. God will perfect the man with a repentant heart.

[The meek shall inherit the earth – Mat. 5:5]

Your Heart! – Part 1

17 And when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him concerning the parable.

18 And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him;

19 Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?

20 And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man.

21 For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders,

22 Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride foolishness:

23 All these evil things come from within, and defile the man. Mk. 7:17-23

In the Swahili Bible, something is added at the end of verse 19, an addition which is not there in the King James Version of the Bible. This addition reads,

“In saying this, He purified all foods.”

A modern version of this sentence would read,

“In saying this, He permitted all foods.”

Yes, that scripture is in the Bible. Firmly so. It is there, from the Lord Himself.

Many years ago , a small child caught a live cockroach in our church yard and, before anyone could get to him, he put it in his mouth and swallowed it. There were shrieks and screams of horror from all around and by the time people got to him, the bug had been safely tucked away inside the little guy’s stomach and there was little anyone could do.

Everyone was horrified; and his mother went into a sort of spasm. But, although these were church people, apparently they didn’t know the Bible much. They were unaware that inside the Bible they read every day, it is written that the little guy had every right to eat pretty much anything he wanted. The guy could eat a rat if he wanted to. He had every kind of permission and certification that he needed to do this, and he had it from the highest Authority possible – Jesus Himself. Jesus has permitted us to eat all foods.

Actually, the little guy ate this ‘forbidden’ (forbidden by we humans, of course) in the most proper place possible – on the church grounds. It is right and proper to do in the church compound something that Jesus has allowed. Like singing praises to the Lord and eating live cockroaches at the same time.

Today, that small guy is a twenty-something young man, and he is serving God beautifully in the church. Apparently, eating a cockroach did not harm him in his spirit. And nutritionists will tell you that the cockroach is rich in fat, which this growing child badly needed.

There are ‘Christian’ denominations today which are built on the belief that you cannot eat some foods. But here (in the Swahili Bible) we read that Jesus allowed all foods. All.

You can eat virtually anything that your guts can allow. In fact, this freedom to eat anything is so boundless that the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 14:1-3,

“1 Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. 2 For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs.

The Apostle Paul calls the one who eats only herbs “weak in faith”. What does that tell you. That single sentence is telling us a profound spiritual truth. It is telling us what our faith can do. It is telling us about the incredible freedom that we have in Christ under the New Covenant. We are no longer under law! Actually – and here I am getting ahead of myself, but it does not matter anymore – anyone who is bound by any law is “weak in faith”. God’s deepest desire for every child of His is to walk in freedom. Not the freedom of the flesh, but the freedom of the Spirit. As far as anything is not sin, you are free to do it.

You are free to do pretty much what you like as long as it is not sin. But we ought to note that to stumble, offend or grieve your brother is sin also (Rom. 15-21). If you do something which you think is part of the freedom that you have in Christ but you are doing any of the above things against your brother or sister-in-Christ, you have moved from the freedom of the Spirit to the freedom of the flesh.

But as long as we are not doing any of these things, we ought to celebrate the freedom we have in Christ. When it comes to foods, for one, the bold in the Spirit eat anything their teeth can crack. The truly interesting thing is that, in this matter of foods, the meats that are prohibited under the Old Testament are especially appetizing. In the region where I live, donkey meat is a rare delicacy. And yet in the Bible eating donkey meat was forbidden under the Old Testament because the donkey’s hoof is not cleaved (Deut. 14:7). Swine meat (pork) is one of the most delicious meat in the world. But under the Old Covenant, in Deuteronomy 14:8, it was expressly forbidden.

Many years ago, some young people in our school went on an official tour in the country of France and when they came back they told us they had eaten some things which I won’t write down here. The whole school had been assembled together in the school assembly hall to hear these guys speak, and when they broke this news, pandemonium broke out as the entire hall went gurgling with revulsion. None of us could not take it.

But the good news is… People all over the world are allowed to eat anything they can get their hands on, and this does not make them sinners in the eyes of God. Who has allowed them to eat everything?

God has. The people under the old covenant paid a heavy price. On judgment day we Christian believers will be judged twice as severely on account of the freedom that we have been given under the New Covenant.

[Church: the most exciting place to be]

The Antiochians – Again! (Part 1)

25 Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus, for to seek Saul:

26 And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. Acts 11:25-26

Let us read that last line once again.

“And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”

Now, please don’t tell me, “Oh, Mwita, you just wrote on this a few days ago.”

Actually, I am surprised we do not talk much on this particular scripture. No. On the contrary, this scripture needs to be turned into a mantra that every believer should be chanting every minute of their lives.

The disciples were called Christians. Oh. I cannot imagine the price that these believers in Antioch paid to be called so. When I see the defeat in the church today, I just cannot imagine what kind of people these believers were. Once again, I salute them.

Today, Christianity is, to a large degree, just a label, for there is everything in church except victory over sin and over the flesh. There is very little victory in church over these things. But there is so much of everything else: knowledge, signs and wonders, high class sermons, music. The church today is very much like the Corinthian church was in Paul’s day, for Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:4-7 writes them:

“4 I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; 5 That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; 6 Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: 7 So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ…”

The Corinthians had all the wonderful things listed here but they lacked the singular thing that would make then Christians. They lacked the cross in their lives. They had lost the revelation to deny themselves and living a life of daily crucifying their flesh. And therefore the Apostle Paul told them pointblank,

“1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ… 3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” (1 Cor. 3:1-3)

You could not possibly call such people Christians, for a Christian is one who reflects the character of Christ in their lives.

But, in Peter 2:21-23 we read of the example that Christ left us.

“21 For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: 22 Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: 23 Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously”

What exactly is verse 23 trying to tell us?

It is telling us that Jesus did not do anything to defend Himself. On the contrary, He allowed His flesh to be crucified.

The word “reviled” means “insulted”. When people insult us, it hurts. Our gut reaction therefore is to insult back; or, at the very least, answer back. We want to hit back!

But Jesus stood still and let the wave of insults ride out its full strength on Him. He did the same with all the other sufferings that were meted out on Him.

And the Bible says that this was the example that He left us. This is one of the most difficult things for us to do, our religious exterior notwithstanding.

The believers at Antioch portrayed this same resilience in the face of the opposition against their faith.

But they did more than that. They lived the life of Christ to the full. Verse 22 says of Jesus:

“Who did no sin”.

This means that Jesus lived a perfectly holy life. He did not give in to the unclean lusts of the flesh but, on the contrary, He crucified them.

The believers at Antioch depicted this same sacrificial character of Christ in their lives. They saw the believers sacrificing their bodies. And all who saw them saw Christ revealed in them. And they said of them, “There are of Christ. These be Christians.”

In our second part we shall see what it was that the Antiochian believers proved to be such a testimony of the life of Christ in them.

[“And be ye kind one to another…” Eph. 4:32]

The Gospel vs The Flesh

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers… 1 Pet. 1:18

The story goes that an Englishman, a Frenchman and a Ghanaian were flying on a plane and they were required to jump out when they arrived in their respective countries. When the Englishman saw the Wembley Stadium, he jumped out. When the Frenchman saw the Eiffel Tower or the Seine River (can’t remember which), he also strapped himself and jumped out.

The plane crossed the Mediterranean Sea and, upon sighting land, the Ghanaian put out his hand. A short while later, he announced to the pilot that he had reached his country. The pilot asked him what he had seen.

The Ghanaian replied that he had seen nothing; but his wristwatch had just disappeared from his hand.

Sadly, it is true that you can have your watch popped off your hand or your pocket picked at any minute in darkest Africa; and you should be thoroughly shocked.

In a related issue – to put the icing on that story –  the U.S. president, President Donald Trump, has directed that only 15% of aid will go to African countries because they don’t know how to manage resources.

Is he rrrrrrrrright on that one? Of course he is right. The African’s ingenuity in some arenas of life excels even himself.

These are not just stereotypes about the African; these are facts. Broad generalizations, given; but facts nonetheless. I know there are people who will burst a vein when they hear such things. But everything we are hearing from Trump & co. about the African is hardly news.

Notice that in our story there is nothing unbecoming written about the two white men. If you are thinking they are angels, you couldn’t be more wrong! I have never been outside Africa, but I do not need to travel beyond my house to know that the white man is as rotten as the African is. Indeed, in God’s eyes, every race under the sun is equally rotten. The Bible tells me so.

“For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

The only difference between the white man, the black man, the Chinese, the Indian, the Arab and any other race that might be on this earth is the diversity, or variety of rot. But it is all rot nonetheless. Whether they are white, black, brown or yellow, we all know what man is capable of. Since this is not a competition, I am not going to write down a list of the evils these other races excel in.  But, given the genetic factors that they possess, it is a given that, in their particular realms, some of these races are infinitely much more dangerous than the African.

These racial and tribal tendencies in men the Bible calls “vain conversation”. This “vain conversation” is who we are. And when the Bible says that we have received it by tradition from our fathers, it means that we have inherited them from our fathers’ gene pools.

Scripture makes it clear that each race/tribe has its own peculiar brand of rot. When the Apostle Paul left Titus in Crete, he warned him,

“12 One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretians are alway liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. 13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith” (Tit. 1:12-13).

The spiritual language for culture is flesh. Man is a product of the flesh. I see “vain conversation” all around me – in my own life, in the lives of my wife and children and in the lives of those who surround me.

Man in his intelligence has tried various methods to try and suppress his cultural tendencies and in most cases it appears as if he has won the battle. But “vain conversation” runs deep. Deep in our subterranean consciousnesses, the flesh reigns supreme.

But I love what the Bible says in Colossians 3:9-11:

“9 … seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.” (Col. 3:9-11)

That ought to suffice. There is only one weapon that can defeat the flesh: it is the cross. We cannot undo the flesh in us; only Jesus can, through the cross.

Through “Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23), the Bible says we have put off our old man and put on Christ. That means we have put on Christ’s character. That’s why it is not enough to say “I am saved”. We need to go ahead and realize the mystery of “Christ crucified” in our lives.

Putting on the character of Jesus is the greatest miracle that can happen to a man. May we (the church) humble ourselves under the cross of Christ and allow it to break us and to form Christ in us. That way, we will not exhibit the works of the flesh. Instead we will bear and show off in our lives the fruit of the Spirit.

“22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 meekness, temperance…” (Gal. 5:22-23)

[We reveal the character of Christ in us when we crucify the flesh]

Grasping The Eternal – Part 2

5 And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.

6 Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

7 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread.

8 Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread?

9 Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?

10 Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?

11 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?

12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Mat. 16:5-12

Jesus was always thinking and talking in the Spirit. At no one time did Jesus think to talk to His disciples (as a teaching) about earthly bread. But His disciples were on an altogether different algorithm. They thought, talked and acted in the flesh. Just like us. Ever noticed how worldly situations get us down so quickly? When we are short of something like money, food or clothing, we carry that long face. Bur these things are temporal.

But we are to walk in the Spirit! That is which is eternal. And herein we are going to see what the spiritual life is.

Verse 12 establishes that Jesus’s disciples finally caught on to what He was trying to tell them, thank God. He was warning them to beware of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees. Now, that word, “doctrine”, is central to Jesus’s teaching here. Was He talking of a teaching per se? A teaching without the Spirit produces form. Form is what we portray on the outside. Without the life of the Spirit in you, you appear holy, but you are not holy. In fact, you do everything on the outside to appear holy. But you are not so on the inside. You build spiritual castles in the air, so to speak. And many great Christian denominations in the world are that way. So, unfortunately, are the majority of Christian lives.

So, was Jesus talking about a teaching? Hardly. On the contrary, Jesus was talking about a way of life. He was warning His disciples to beware of living an empty ‘Christian’ life. In fact, St. Luke put it more clearly in Luke 12:1-5:

“1 In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. 3 Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. 4 And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.”

Form is what we portray before men; reality is what we carry before God. And, with God, without reality is hypocrisy. But reality is repentance. And living a life of repentance is living a life where I am daily desiring and striving to put off the works of the flesh in my life. The Pharisees had the best form of worship, but they harbored every kind of evil in their hearts, including murder.

True repentance means living a life that fears God more than men. It does not really matter what form I worship God in. What counts with regard to eternal life is the heart life that I live before God.

Jesus said, “Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell”.

[“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” – 2 Chron. 7:14]

Grasping The Eternal – Part 1

5 And when his disciples were come to the other side, they had forgotten to take bread.

6 Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.

7 And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have taken no bread.

8 Which when Jesus perceived, he said unto them, O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread?

9 Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?

10 Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?

11 How is it that ye do not understand that I spake it not to you concerning bread, that ye should beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees?

12 Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Mat. 16:5-12

The disciples of Jesus (if they had any wits about them) must have thought that Jesus was about to start a cult – THE CULT OF UNLEAVENED BREAD, it would have been called. Yes, it appeared that was the direction Jesus was headed. Now, if it had turned out to be so – which, bless the Lord, it turned out not to be the case – that would have been an Old Testament cult. Unfortunately, today, in Christianity, there are so many such cults, cults that are embedded in the Old Testament. There are people today who will defend the old covenant to their death at the expense of the new covenant. Well-meaning men, but who have no idea of the work of grace that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished at the cross. Such men, such churches, are steeped in law.

I heard one ‘apostle’ from Philadelphia, in the U.S., claim he bars men in his church from sitting together with women in the pews for the sake of discipline. Yep, those were his very words. He doesn’t want the men in his church, he said, looking down strange women’s exposed cleavages, or have them dropping their pens every now and then in a desperate attempt to look at their female counterparts’ beautifully-formed ankles and leg calves!

The Old Testament law, under which many churches today are entrenched, is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. With the gospel of Jesus Christ, law works; but it works the exact opposite of Godliness. The Bible says in Hebrews 10:3:

“But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.”

All law does is to remind one of sin. Or, to put it more clearly, it makes you aware of sin. That is what it says also, very clearly, in Romans 7:7-11:

“7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 8 But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. 9 For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. 10 And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.”

It couldn’t be stated clearer than that.

I love this preacher from Philly, he is a well-meaning man, but he has got it all wrong. He does not have the revelation of the gospel of grace. By doing what he is doing, he is putting law on God’s people. And you cannot lead people into God’s righteousness by harnessing them under Old Testament law. By his own admission, all the men seated in his church are unrepentant sinners who need the law to keep them from committing sin! His ‘church’ therefore ceases to be the church, but a cult.

On the other hand, the gospel of “Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:23) – which the Apostle Paul preached, glory to God! – is solid gold. It is the power of God. God’s grace, that comes through the working of the cross, breaks the power of sin in our lives. If, say, a short-skirted woman were to sit next to me, a man, who is being ministered to under the new covenant (the true gospel of Jesus Christ, whereby I am crucifying my flesh daily) that short-skirted lady would not make the slightest difference to me in the natural. If she had the most visible cleavage, still it wouldn’t make any difference. The likely scenario is that I would yearn for her in a Godly manner. On the other hand, when you are under the ministry of law, in such a situation you would not be free. You would be under pressure. Your un-crucified flesh would give you problems. The very thought of looking at that woman would have you beginning to fret. That is the difference between law and grace. Grace sets people free; law binds them. Preachers are stunting and ultimately killing God’s people spiritually by preaching law instead of grace to them. The law cannot set anyone free from sin.

Anyways, back to Jesus and His disciples…

[To know Christ is to understand grace]