Leave Room for God

When it pleased God…  GALATIANS 1:15

As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him— to give God “elbow room.” We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never expected Him to come? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly—God meets our life “…when it pleased God….”
your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides. From My Utmost for His
Keep Highest Updated Edition

Bible in One Year: Exodus 12-13; Matthew 16

WISDOM FROM OSWALD CHAMBERS

Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.

from The Moral Foundations of Life, 721 R

PRAYERBOF TEARS

     

The Laboratory of Tears 

If ten days ago I knew what I am about to share here with you, I would not have had the regret that has haunted me since after then, and the inexplicable lingering burden from which I could not weave free. It is with sorrow therefore that I sit to learn from the Lord and share with you this message on the prayer of tears. I shall tell the rest of the story in later lines.

Sometime ago, I got puzzled by something I read in the Psalms, to the effect that God has bottles in which He stores the tears of His people. I wondered to myself, “What does God do with the tears in His bottles? Is there was a laboratory in heaven, with our tears in beakers and cylinders?” It occurred to me that each teardrop was a microchip of the unspeakable emotions that generated the tear; that each teardrop was a coded material summation of the intangible and inarticulable turmoils that compelled it. Therefore, each time God picks up those bottles in His prayer laboratory, He reads the ripples of pain in them; He hears from them the echoes of those prayers, those pains, those aspirations that the crying person was unable to put into words. He decodes from them those requests and emotions expressible only in the language of tears, like to the prayer language of the Holy Spirit, according to Romans 8:26-27.

Bible scholars tell us that the metaphor of tears in a bottle derives from the ancient Eastern practice whereby mourners saved their tears in a bottle, in memory of the dead. At other times, if someone was sick, afflicted, or in great distress, their friends often visited them with a tear bottle, called a lachrymator. As the sufferer wept and the tears rolled down the cheeks, they were collected into the bottle and kept in memory of that tribulation. Each time one looked at that bottle, it became a reminder. Such ornate bottles decorated homes in Egypt and in Rome. 

Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? (Psalm 56:8). 

The Language of Tears 

Nobody can fully interpret tears, even as no one can perfectly translate any one language into another. The specialists tell us so. However, tears have a language of their own that is universal. Every human being speaks the language of tears. It does not matter the native language that somebody speaks, when they cry, we seem to understand the common language of pain or joy that their tears express.

I do not speak Japanese, but when I see the Japanese woman weeping for her 2-year old son crushed in an earthquake, I understand that she is not celebrating a lottery of a million yens that she has won. When I see the Korean grandfather weeping for a baby shot dead by a crazy gunman, I understand that he is not celebrating a birthday. He is speaking in a language too deep for words, a language best understood only by God, a language analogous to the prayer language of the Holy Spirit, according to Romans 8:26-27:

26 At the same time the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we don't know how to pray for whatwe need. But the Spirit intercedes along with our groans that cannot be expressed in words.

27 The one who searches our hearts knows what the Spirit has in mind. The Spirit intercedes for God's people the way God wants him to (Romans 8:26-27, GOD'S WORD).

The New American Standard Bible describes this prayer as “groanings too deep for words.”According to the New International Version, it is “groans that words cannot express.” I think it makes sense to me, otherwise tell me, What is the meaning of the repeated lament of “Ahhhh!” that comes from the young woman who has lost a husband after only six months of a pleasant marriage? How does one interpret the “Ooo! Mnnn! Ehhh!” that a pastor in the northern Nigeria city of Kano cries whose church has been burnt down by Muslims, with his wife and four children and fifty-four members in it? Only the Creator who puts our tears in His bottle can fully tell what such groans mean. Only in God’s lachrymal laboratory can those wordless wails and tears be fully analysed and interpreted.

Could this New Testament mystery of inexplicable groans be what the Old Testament Psalmist describes by the metaphor of tears in a bottle? Perhaps. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French writer, remarks knowingly in The Little Prince, “It is such a secret place, the land of tears.” 

The Logbook of Tears 

God not only has a bottle for tears, He also keeps a logbook for the tears, a logbook recording who wept what tears, when, why, on account of what or whom? “…My tears… are they not in thy book?” Malachi calls that logbook the “book of remembrance.” 

…the LORD listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was written before Him For those who fear the LORD And who meditate on His name (Malachi 3:16, NKJV).

Do tears mean so much to God, that He should take such pains to document and catalogue and preserve them? Yes. With God, there are no wasted tears. John Webster the English playwright says in the white Devil, “There’s nothing sooner dry,” Hannah’s tears did not. They gave her a son and still stand recorded in the greatest ever book, the Holy Bible.

Every tear is documented, in His book; and the day comes, probably not as soon as one expects, when He shall read the book and reply to the tears. (Luke 18:1-7; Esther 6:1-11). For example, after about 400 years of exile in Egypt, God appeared to Moses and said to him about the slaving Israelites, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry… And I am come down to deliver them” (Exodus 3:7-8).God was recalling tears.

The Weapon of Tears 

Not only does God save tears; not only does He hear them and read them. The next verse tells us something even more strange, that tears are a weapon:

When I cry unto thee, THEN shall mine enemies turn back: this I know; for God is for me (Psalm 56:9).

Some enemies may never be turned back from us but by the prayer of tears.   Some enemies may never be overcome until we are at the place of tears. However, not every tear wins the war. The passage makes that clear. It speaks of tears “unto” God, not those shed in pity for ourselves or as a means of manipulating a husband or a mother or anybody. It says, “When I cry unto thee...”Some tears, though much, have failed, because they were not “unto” God (Hebrews 5:7; 1 Samuel 1:10). Learn to turn your tears to God, then wait and watch what He will do.

 As anointed a prophet as Jeremiah was, he learned to use the instrument of tears so much that it got into his title: The Weeping Prophet. His second book, Lamentations, says it both in the title and in the content.

Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver. is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people…(Lamentations 2:11). 

Jesus Himself also wept, publicly, at least on three recorded occasions: at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35), over the blind city of Jerusalem that, oblivious of its glorious season of divine visitation, was heading for imminent trouble (Luke 19:41-44), and probably in the Garden of Gethsemane, in His high priestly capacity, as told in Hebrews 5:6-8: 

6 As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec.

7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared;

8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered (Hebrews 5:6-8). 

Talking with a friend recently as we studied the book of Hebrews in preparation for a retreat, he read this passage to me, stressing that even Jesus the Son of God wept. It touched me deeply, especially (I told him) as it reminded me of my failure of tears only a few days before. (I shall tell the story in later lines.) He proceeded to show that even “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22), and added that such was also Paul’s prayer life: “My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19).

          Once upon a time, trouble was coming upon Jerusalem. The enemy had planned to litter the streets with the dead bodies of young people, which was going to make mothers to weep. God advised the Weeping Prophet himself on what do. He was to confront the coming plot with the weapon of tears, yet not his male prophetic tears but those of women who had to weep in prayers then, so as not to weep in the future for their slain children. 

17 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come:

18 And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears,and our eyelids gush out with waters.

19 For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled!...

20 Yet hear the word of the LORD, O ye women… teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.

21 For death is come up into our windows, and is entered into our palaces, to cut off the children from without, and the young men from the streets (Jeremiah 9:17-21).

In The Living Bible, we read,

The Lord Almighty says: "Send for the mourners! Quick! Begin your crying! Let the tears flow from your eyes (Jeremiah 9:17-18).

What is it about tears that even God has to recommend them here to the prophet Jeremiah, as a means of saving his land? Only He knows.   

The Force of Tears

Not only have feeble tears won battles, they have also wrought deliverance. In other words, they have not only defeated enemies, they have also broken chains of captivity. May we see from God’s point of view how the deliverance of the Israelites came about: 

7 And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows;

8 And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey….

9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.

10 Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt(Exodus 3:7-10).

Some salvation will come only through tears, for, according to psalm 145:19,”…He also will hear their cry and save them” (NKJV).Of Hannah the mother of the prophet Samuel, we read in 1 Samuel 1:6-19: 

6 And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the LORD had shut up her womb.

7… so she provoked her; thereforeshe wept, and did not eat.

8 Then said Elkanah her husband to her, Hannah, why weepest thou? …

10 And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, andwept sore.

As she spoke to God in that language of tears, expressing her pains too deep for words, Eli the high priest, not sufficiently familiar with all the ways of God, interrupted her, confronting her with the theological and denominational inappropriateness of her mode of tearful speechless prayers. Here was her reply,

15 …No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, buthave poured out my soul before the LORD.

Only then did Eli’s eyes open to say,

17 …Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.

What we read thereafter is her testimony: “and the LORD remembered her” (v.19) and “Hannah... bare a son, and called his name Samuel” (v.20). That was her last barren year; those were her last memorable tears. She broke through with her tears, even when her pastor could not understand. It also was the last we read anything of her adversary’s merciless provocations.

…When he cries to me, I will hear, for I am gracious (Exodus 22:27, NKJV). 

The Therapy of Tears

Besides their spiritual potentials, tears also have other natural therapeutic benefits. Even psychologists acknowledge that they heal their minds who let them flow. Alice Walker the American poet and writer, in Her Blue Body Everything We Know, Writes: “tears left unshed /tum to poison / in the ducts. “ As British Prime Minister, Margaret, Thatcher also confessed in an interview with Woman’s World (London), “there are a few times when I shed a few tears, silently, alone. “Even prime Ministers cry.

The Empty Bottle of Tears

Now my story. Fifteen days ago, I was scheduled to speak at an annual national women’s convention. I had had a session with them the previous day. While I prepared to leave for the meeting that day, I visited an office briefly, and met “breaking news” on the TV screen. It said that the United Nations office in Abuja, Nigeria, had been suicide bombed. I froze. “Islamic Jihad again,” I moaned within myself. I left for the meeting sad, burdened by the several vicious Islamic attempts at taking Nigeria and the many other nations that they have often terrorised.

As I sat and waited,the women made their elaborate introduction about the great man of God that had come again to bless them, then they called me out to preach. I trudged out slowly to the lectern without my Bible, and announced that I was sad. Their faces suddenly took up an expression as if to say, “What have we done to make this man of God sad?” I told them that I was not going to stand to preach, but was going to sit on the floor in my lamentation. More surprised, and meaning to be polite, they quickly offered me a chair, which I also politely refused, and proceeded to sit on the floor, and began to tell them of the “breaking news,” in the context of the current Islamic agenda to take the country. The house broke out into sudden lamentation. I broke down in tears. For the next hour and more, I could not preach their topic to them. We simply all sat on the floor and wept to God, having moved all the chairs and stacked them by the walls, as we felt urged by the Spirit of God. It was a solemn atmosphere. Mothers, daughters, rich and poor, old and young, rural and city women, we were all on the floor in tears to God.

Five days later, which was ten days ago, I was at another great prayer function of over a thousand women who had come from different churches. I shared with them my burden, telling what had happened five days earlier, then I broke down again in tears, but this time I resisted the tears. I put my head down on the lectern, put the microphone away from my mouth, and wept silently and controllably. The atmosphere suddenly had become electric with the power and presence of God. A few women had dropped to the floor at the burdens that I had shared, and were already lamenting, but I managed to cut it short after a few minutes and wiped my eyes, so I could go on with my preaching. A few more times during the preaching, I nearly broke down again in tears, but I kept managing my emotions.

During the meeting and after, I had the uncomfortable feeling that I had not done right by restraining the spontaneous move into a prayer of tears, simply because I meant to go ahead with my preaching. The meeting went well, and everyone thought that it was a great visitation, but I carried a burden and a guilt I could not explain. It has followed me for days. Only now have I begun to realise that I denied that great convention the opportunity of an inspired prayer of tears, and God may have gone back with an empty bottle.   Perhaps the angels had come down with the tear bottles from heaven. Perhaps God had already opened His logbook to record the tears and pains of His people. Perhaps there were enemies that He was about to turn back that day from us as individuals and as a nation; but my male and intellectual head got in the way of the Spirit’s visible move. Perhaps some tear bottles now stand empty in God’s prayer lab, on account of my failure that day. I regret it. I wish I knew these truths before that day, perhaps we would have raised strategic lamentations that could have added to the missiles for dealing with the encroachments of Islamic darkness that now top the prayer concern of the Church of our age.

Yesterday at a prayer retreat, I made my confession of this failure. I told them I wished I knew better, ten days ago. We went on to pray. Today, as we worshipped at that retreat, I saw a girl, lost in His presence with the tears streaming down her cheeks. I wondered that the angels might be taking her tears into God’s bottle. A pastor wrote back to say, “It has been sometime now since I shed tears in prayers. Thank you for inviting me.” 

From The Preacher’s diary.

4 Temptations That Leaders Face

4 Temptations That Leaders Face

I’m troubled each time I see a gifted and talented leader give up a lifetime of ministry for a moment of temptation. We all face temptation, and saying no is not always easy. None of us as leaders will escape this challenge. But how you handle your temptation will determine, to a great degree, the effectiveness and longevity of your ministry.

James 4:7-8 helps us know what to do.

"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you."

Let’s begin with three important questions:

What is your greatest temptation?

If you know it, you can fight against it.

Do you have a safe friend or two with whom you can be honest?

Confession is good for the soul and accountability helps keep you honest.

Do you know that God is on your side?

God does not condemn you or me for our struggles, but He does want us to fight to live a holy life.

I will admit that I’m not sure all temptation is from the devil. I’m not convinced it’s all spiritual warfare. I think some of this is part of being human and imperfect, and we can take credit for it ourselves. I don’t need to start a theological debate. If you prefer to make temptation a wholly spiritual issue by asserting that we are spiritual beings, I’m good with that. If you choose to make it fully a spiritual thing by taking it back to Genesis chapter 3, I can handle that too. My purpose here is to offer practical helps.

Temptation seems to be naturally grouped into four categories for church leaders. If you know the potential temptation, you are more likely to see it coming and proactively resist what tempts you. That’s the goal here. Let’s name the temptations, own what is ours, and intentionally resist.

1. Pressure Temptations

As your ministry grows, gains complexity and the demands increase, pressure rises. When pressure rises and your margin decreases, you can be an easy target for pressure temptations. Here are three common examples. Are any of these danger zones for you?

Loss of integrity. For example, you can be tempted to over-exaggerate something in a message you teach. Or perhaps you might bend under financial pressure to use monies designated for one thing for a completely different purpose.Cut corners. Time pressures, for example, might cause you to knock out a sermon on Saturday night and show up on Sunday morning sounding unprepared.Inappropriate anger.Pressure in your life can cause leaders to be impatient, harsh or even angry with others with no legitimate reason.

2. Power Temptations

I’m happy to say that this temptation seems to be less common in the local church than perhaps twenty years ago. That’s a good thing, but it still lurks about and is a real possibility for any of us. Here are three common examples. Are any of these traps for you?

Manipulate people. Using authority or position to control or take advantage of people rather than serve them.Live under different standards. Rising “above the law” so that the leader lives by a different set of rules than others are held accountable to.Become a controlling person. All leaders exercise control for the good of the organization. This is very different than a leader becoming a controlling leader and holding people down or even getting dangerously close to oppressing the people.

3. Purity Temptations

It’s difficult to escape the dominant presence of the internet and all the temptations that lie within. Nearly anything is available with the ease of a click. This is a huge temptation. But not all purity temptations are online. The following are three common examples.

Thought life not in check.Temptation begins in the mind. Scripture says to take every thought captive, but we know that is not always easy. Philippians 4:8 says: . . . whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.Marital faithfulness in question. We all know stories of friends who have lost their marriages and in many cases lost their ministry too. It’s heartbreaking and can happen to anyone. This temptation is never worth it!“Innocent” flirting. A wise counselor once said to a group of us pastors, “Young men, beware of innocent flirting, for there is no such thing.” How true! What starts innocently, even while working together in ministry, can end in disaster.

4. People Temptations

This last category is not often included within the topic of temptation. It is therefore overlooked, even though it is likely among the most common of temptations that a church leader will face. We work with and serve people everyday, and these common temptations are always with us. Here are three common examples:

People pleasing. This often finds its origin in a genuine heart to serve others. But sometimes that can slowly slip into behavior that is less than genuine, and a performance-orientation can begin to take over, instead of being purpose driven.Critical spirit. Even the most loving of pastors and volunteer church leaders can lose perspective under all the demands of ministry. Then instead of loving the heart becomes critical.Lack of forgiveness.Leaders get hurt too. When hurt enough the heart can become hardened and forgiveness is hard to find.

The good news in all this is that we can resist! Though difficult, we can say no to temptation. We can get wisdom and encouragement from a friend. And we can rest knowing that when we slip, our Father in heaven is for us! Each day is a new day and a fresh start.

“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Matt 26:41

Sincerely,

About the Author: Dan Reiland

Dr. Dan Reiland serves as Executive Pastor at 12Stone Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia. He previously partnered with John Maxwell for 20 years, first as Executive Pastor at Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego, then as Vice President of Leadership and Church Development at INJOY. He and Dr. Maxwell still enjoy partnering on a number of church related projects together.

Dan is best known as a leader with a pastor's heart, but is often described as one of the nation's most innovative church thinkers. His passion is developing leaders for the local church so that the Great Commission is advanced.

As a communicator, Dan has a down-to-earth style that combines humor and strategic thinking. Each year he "coaches" many pastors and speaks to several thousand people, impacting lives and strengthening the local church.

GUILT-TRIP PREACHING

Guilt-Trip Preaching

Zac Poonen

 

"God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it" (John 3:17 -Living)

When we preach God's Word, we must NOT preach it in such a way that we make God's people feel guilty and condemned.

The Bible tells us to "ENCOURAGE one another" - and to do it "DAILY", if we want to save God's people from"being HARDENED through the DECEITFULNESS of sin" (Heb.3:13). That means that EVERY day, in EVERYmessage we preach we mustENCOURAGE the believers we preach to. Only thus will we be able to save them from sin. But Satan deceives us into thinking that we can make believers more holy and more devoted to God by making them feel guilty through our preaching. That is a lie.

The Holy Spirit does indeed convictGod's children through the preaching of the Word. But He encourages them at the same time too. As we just read, God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but tosave the world. And God did not send His Spirit into the church to condemnbelievers but to encourage them. God is a God of encouragement. He always lifts up our spirits and gives us HOPE (See Rom.15:5; and2 Cor.1:3,4). A ministry of condemnation is"an old covenant ministry" that will only lead people to spiritual death (See 2 Cor.3:7-9).The new covenant ministry however is a ministry of life that will lead them to godliness.

It is easy to fall into the trap of exposing sin in such a way in our preaching, that believers feel condemned and guilty. Then we have FAILED in our ministry and sent people on a "guilt trip".Such man-induced guilt can become a prison from which people will find it very difficult to extricate themselves.

It is a common technique among preachers (especially when they are young, inexperienced and insecure, or when they feel inferior and want to impress people) that they preach a high, unrealistic standard of holiness and thus make everyone (except themselves!!) feel guilty. The level of life they preach will be something that is impossible to achieve. It will be a level that even Jesus and the apostles did not preach or ask others to live by. These preachers themselves do not live by the standards they preach. But weak-minded believers hear their sermons and feel condemned and guilty - and get discouraged.

Most of the challenges given to believers in Christian circles, to enter into "full-time" Christian service or missionary work are based on this"guilt-trip" method. The need in various parts of the world is stressed by the preacher to such an extent that the listeners feel guilty and some of them end up quitting their jobs in order to go out as missionaries. But Jesus and the apostles never used such techniques to send anyone into the harvest field of the world. Jesus told His apostles to go to every nation in the world and to make disciples. But He did not send them out by making them feel guilty by comparing their comfortable life in Israel with the poverty in other parts of the world. It is because of such “guilt-trip"methods adopted by preachers that there is so much of shallowness among most Christian workers today. Most of them went forth to serve the Lord� because they felt guilty about remaining in their secular jobs, after hearing a missionary challenge. God had never called them to His service. But they went forth, propelled by feelings of guilt. Full-time Christian work is such a sacred task that we have no right to engage in it, if God Himself did not call us to it.

Most of the teaching on tithing and giving in Christendom today also follows this guilt-trip method. Believers are made to feel terribly guilty for not giving money for "God's work". Thus they end up giving thousands of rupees of their hard-earned savings to covetous preachers for their "ministry". This is one of the worst evils being perpetrated by preachers today, on poor believers - and it is all being done "in the Name of Christ". We never find Jesus using such high-pressure methods at any time. His word was, "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15).He told Peter, "If you love Me more than everything else, then take care of my sheep and feed them" (John 21:15-17). God loves only those who obey Him cheerfully (2 Cor.9:7).

This is God's way in the new covenant - the way of free, voluntary, joyful service, without any soulish pressure being applied by any preacher. We must learn to distinguish between the soulish pressure that clever preachers put upon us and the gentle leading of the Holy Spirit. When demons possess people they take away their freedom of choice and control them totally. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, never possesses people. He fills them. The difference is that He never takes away their freedom of choice but gives them total freedom, even after He has filled them. The Holy Spirit will never take away our free will, nor will He pressurize us - as Satan and many preachers seek to do.

We must discern "guilt-trip"sermons immediately - and reject them in our minds at once, if we want to walk in the freedom of the Spirit.

In my younger days, when I did not understand what it was to be a new-covenant servant, I too did a lot of legalistic, "guilt-trip" preaching. But I repented of it and gave it up long ago."When I was a child, I thought like a child and spoke like a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things" (1 Cor.13:11). The "guilt-trip" method of preaching will only bring people into bondage - whereas Jesus and the Holy Spirit have come to set people free.

Every preacher who adopts the guilt-trip method of preaching is a legalist. But he does not know this. The worst legalists are those who preach from the New Testament Scriptures, in the spirit of the old covenant. They imagine that they are preaching the new covenant, but they have been deceived by Satan to preach the letter of the new covenant without entering into the spirit of the new covenant. The new covenant is not a gospel of the letter but of the spirit. The words that Jesus spoke were "spirit and life" (John 6:63). The ministry of the Spirit is never one of compulsion or condemnation, but always one of encouragement and hope. God is the "lifter of our heads" (Psa.3:3), NOT the "lowerer of our heads". He never tries to shame us into obeying Him. School-teachers may try to shame their students into obedience. But loving fathers will never do that. They get their children to obey them cheerfully, byencouraging them (See 1 Cor.4:14,15).It is by our attitude to our flock in this area that we can discover whether we are teachers or fathers. Our churches do not need teachers. We need more fathers.

We need to distinguish between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the condemnation of the Law. Guilt-trip preaching leads people to be discouraged and to condemn themselves. Therefore, they cannot come into a life of freedom in the Spirit and become overcomers.

Whenever a preacher adopts this guilt-trip method, it indicates that he does not really know the Lord, or the ways of the Holy Spirit. It proves that his knowledge of the Bible is poor. And he is also dishonest - for he cannot possibly be living by the standards he preaches. Jesus DID first and THEN taught (Acts 1:1). But these preachers, like the Pharisees of old,"load you with impossible demands that they themselves don't even try to keep" (Matt.23:3,4-Living).

It is impossible to have genuine fellowship with a guilt-trip preacher, for he is not poor in spirit. "The poor in spirit' are defined in the Amplified Bible as "those who rate themselves as insignificant" (Matt.5:3). I have met very few preachers in my life who would consider themselves as insignificant. The airs with which most preachers preach proclaims to everyone that they rate themselves as "very, very important people" compared to the ordinary believers in their congregations!! I always switch off inwardly, when listening to such men, for I know that I cannot receive anything of eternal value from such proud people. Such preachers are infected by the spirit of the Accuser and that is why their "guilt-trip"preaching consists mainly of accusing others of not measuring up to God's standards. They imagine themselves to be "prophets", but they lack the compassion of genuine prophets. Such arrogant preachers cannot possess the kingdom of heaven(Matt.5:3). And so they cannot lead others into the freedom of the Spirit (that characterises the kingdom of heaven). Such preachers will never be able to build a brotherhood or a local expression of the Body of Christ anywhere. They will only be able to build congregations of their own"admirers". May God save us all from such a calamity.

I have noticed that it is usually young men who indulge in "guilt-trip preaching". But I have also seen that if such young men do not judge themselves and seek to grow in grace, they will remain unchanged even when they are old men and become elders of churches.

Let us therefore ensure that we NEVER use the "guilt-trip" method in our preaching to try and convict others of their failure to obey God. Let us never allow any preacher to send us on a guilt trip, through his preaching. Let us repent of being legalistic teachers and seek to be fathers instead. The glory of our Lord was seen in the fullness of GRACE and TRUTH that was manifested in His life and in His words - throughout His earthly days (John 1:14). May that glory be manifested through us too. Amen and Amen.

-----------------------------------------

For more information write to: wftw@cfcindia.com

SUDDEN DESTRUCTION

SUDDEN DESTRUCTION

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.

    1 Thessalonians 5:3.

 Wrong Weather Forecasts

          Some destruction gives a warning; it is already being expected even before it has touched down. Some other destruction, however, gives no notice, choosing the most unlikely times and places. Of such a destruction does the apostle here warn, which rushes upon a people in a very “sudden” manner, and that at a very unsuspecting time when all the headlines scream, “PEACE AT LAST; SAFE TO SLEEP!” Mark the manner and the timing of such sightless voices.

        Mark that season “WHEN they shall say….” You might never be able to tell the specific calendar date when “they” would start the sedative propaganda of peace, but that such a season comes, the prophet says we should not be unaware.   And you need not bother who “they” will be that would publish such sayings in such a season; “they” that have the means of the media and the power to reach majority ears and therefore scorn the distressing minority-vision of the seeing prophet whose commissioned voice warns of a destruction to which “they” and everyone else seems so blinded. Mark that season when the headlines begin to sing songs of “peace and safety.” The suddenness of the destruction that such seasons bring is usually a type that“they shall not escape”– not even the smartest and prayermost of them. 

        The sponsored appearance of peace is sometimes a tactical and murderous deception. The deafening proclamation of peace to drown the sounds of an approaching storm is sometimes a strategy of war against those upon whom the storm comes…suddenly.

 Same Stones, Different Sights

        Everybody doesn’t see the same thing when everybody looks at the same thing. That we are all looking in the same direction does not mean we see the same thing. At a climactic season in His life and in the history of humanity, while Jesus with His disciples was walking through Jerusalem, they paused at the magnificent temple and all took a look. All the disciples – which means the majority observers at that time and in that place – saw the breathtaking stonework of that architectural masterpiece, and all began to force His attention to what they were seeing. Strangely, even though they were all looking at the same temple, He was seeing something other than they were seeing; something that had nothing to do with their here and now; something opposite to magnificence; something sad and very bloody. Their natural eyes saw beautiful set stones, His prophetic eyes saw broken and prostrate stones. Their networked ears picked the happy sounds of their mutual voices reporting the pleasant sight; the Prophet’s ears were restless with the lamentations of mothers as their infants were seized from care and smashed against those silent stonewalls.

          Those disciples were sincere, which did not right their error; they were also men of God, which did not mean that they saw better. They saw beauty, He saw destruction; they heard “peace and safety,” He heard wails; yet they were all focused on the same thing. Read the account for yourself in Luke 21:5-6, Mark 13:1-4, and Matthew 24:1-3.

           I wonder if none of them cursed Him secretly in their righteous hearts for His minority vision. I wonder if none of them got vexed with that good Man suddenly turned a false prophet, for daring to see what none of them saw, and for so unpopularly announcing a future of pains when they were unanimous in celebrating the present beauty in the house of the Lord. 

           What he saw, or what we Saw?

           The prophet Isaiah had a remarkable experience. By prophetic directive, following divine instructions, a watchman was recruited at a very distressing season in the land, and given the following clear terms of reference: “Let him declare WHAT he seeth” (Isaiah 21:6). The instruction was clear: “Announce what you see.” As he watched from his tower elevated by virtue of his office – thanks to his far sight as a result of that privileged altitude, he saw the serialised approach of some harmless domestic animals. However, he would not take those appearances on their face value, so he subjected them to further prophetic scrutiny;“he hearkened diligently with much heed”(v.7), and this was the shocking alarm he raise, “A lion!” They were different forms of the same beast; they were different external disguises of the same devourer, a lion.

           What the watchman announced was not what he had seen, which we also saw. What we saw with him were horses and donkeys and camels; yet what he announced and warned about was the approach of a wild predatory animal – a lion. Who was wrong? The watchman or we? Who was wrong? The minority watchman or the majority lookers and sleepers? Who was wrong, the one who“hearkened diligently” to the signals he was getting, or we who took things for what we thought we saw? Need we call a prophet mad because he sees what somebody else does not? Need we proceed to take the baton from those of whom it is lamented, “Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars…” (Romans 11:3)?

   They have Killed Thy Prophets

           I pray that in centuries to come, if not a few tens of year from now, the Church in Nigeria would not have to apologise to one of her own prophets whom she stoned to silence; a prophet that did not go by the title (as not all prophets bear the title); the prophet Pastor Bosun Emmanuel. By no criteria is the one-chapter book of Obadiah less the word of God than the 66-chapter book of Isaiah; it did not take less inspiration to breath the one-chapter epistle of Jude than it took to birth the 22 chapters of Revelation or the 24 chapters of St Luke’s gospel. John the Baptist was not a prophet merely because of the publicity he had and the size of the multitudes that thronged him from high and low, from the political and ecclesiastical classes. He was a prophet in spite of the size of his fans and the occasional unpopularity of his voice. Not upon us, O Lord, the tag of those “Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets” (1 Thessalonians 2:15); not upon us, O Lord. Below are my prayer points.

 While I sat Waiting for a Flight

         A few weeks ago, I sat waiting for a flight in the privileged lounge in one of Nigeria’s principal airports. By me was a parliamentarian. As if he were unburdening his heart, he said to me that whereas it was generally feared that the mercifully concluded recent general elections were going to be the means by which the scheming international and diabolic powers would achieve their malicious prediction on the split of Nigeria in 2015, the threat is not yet past, and in fact, that now that no one looks anymore in that direction is when to watch out more carefully, because the hawks have not yet returned to their nests. He gave me his informed insights, and unveiled the alarming pointers some of which had been a loud pre-election theme. I will not here call names.

The Tares among the Wheat

        I am just returned from an evening prayer meeting where my legs literally lost strength at hearing sobering reports calling for urgent national prayers. I had to ask permission to sit, when I lost my legs; rumours of wars and of the malicious sabotaging of the efforts of the Nigerian military against Boko Haram jihadists.

       Days ago, a previous leader of the army under the former government of Dr Goodluck Jonathan was rubbished by the media (or by those that hired them) for confessing that their fight against Boko Haram jihadists was hampered by the activities of what he called “fifth columnists,” who worked for the enemy while they wore the uniforms of the nation’s military. Those were more committed to their religion and their pockets than to national interest. Dr Goodluck Jonathan himself had lamented that sympathisers with the divisive Boko Haram ideology were in his government as well as having infiltrated the intelligence agencies. In other words, not everyone had been wearing the military and paramilitary uniforms honestly.

        From rumours reaching us, the activities of these saboteurs have lately grown more brazenly pernicious, especially within the military. Report after report points to a clandestine plot where ‘superior officers’ that are jihadist themselves have consistently devised intrigues at drastically demobilising and diminishing the potential capabilities of officers from ‘the other side’ in religious and regional respects. In some cases, officers have been deceived to disarm because a ‘very senior officer’ was coming to see them out there in the wilderness of war, only for the ‘very senior officer’ to turn out to be Boko Haram fighters that mowed down the disarmed defenders of the nation’s integrity. Not once. It calls for prayers to cover those in the military who have put their lives on the line, sincerely committed to blotting out error and terror. 

A Tithe of the Truth

       If these ‘rumours’ be true which one has heard from recurrent independent sources, what is the ultimate agenda of the determined degrading of personnel from ‘the other side’? So that in the event of a war (for which ‘they’ have been earnest in preparing), there would be no helpers for those that would have to choose between their sword and their holy book? In one arm of the military, the latest scheme, we hear (and the schemes keep being revised as soon as they are discovered), is the allocation of a new type of their uniform. Those who get assigned the new uniform usually ultimately get posted to the war zone, and often do not return to shout Hallelujah. Sometimes those from ‘the other side’ constitute the essential battalions that go out, to be ambushed by the enemy. The papers do not often carry a tithe of the truth or of the pains we hear.

       From just before Nigeria’s last elections, based on signals from on high and thanks to the many voices of prayers, I breathed relief that at least I’d had a break from the insistent tremors of an approaching war. I thought at last it was time to set tables and face a ‘normal’ life, but the revelations of war have begun to pour in again, also from many other quarters, and my soul will not be quiet for what I see. I am thinking, Why would God thus persistently be calling attention to the matters of our future rest, after a brief post-elections pause?

“What seest Thou?”

        All watchmen do not see the same things; it depends on where each stands. Jonah was not the only prophet in the northern Kingdom of Israel at the time God sent him off to Nineveh. The others never heard about Nineveh what Jonah heard about Nineveh. It was not every prophet that God sent to Gomer when God sent the prophet Hosea to marry her. “What seest thou?” is a question God posed to respective prophets, and sometimes repeatedly to the same prophet. The answers were never the same (Jeremiah 1:11; Amos 7:8; Zechariah 4:2).   Even the best of prophets sees merely a “part,” the “part” that is committed to him – the other ‘parts’ having been committed to others. The final (and therefore authentic) prophetic picture would usually be a combination of all the prophetic part-pictures (1 Corinthians 13:10; 14:29-31). In the effort to blow my alarm for the things I see, to wake up mighty men unto prayers (Joel 3:9), I have been called some of the unkindest names, even by my brethren and friends; yet my voice is determined not to be muted. It is I who will answer to God for my trumpet unsounded (Ezekiel 3:17-18).

         I see a team of ‘wise men’ from the east, assembled in a place, to divine and advice the ruler on who and who should be given what place, who should sit at the gates and who should be kept far from where. The list you have been waiting for has not been seen and will not be seen until it will have passed through the diviners turbaned from the east, before it should be ‘presented’ for parliamentary rubberstamp. He needs the mystical clearance of those astrologers reading the stars to read the future. I see in another room, experts of the law assembled; they have also been there for the past few moons studying our law, to pick loopholes that could be exploited in days to come, and implemented phase by phase to fight their cause, Ishmael’s cause. These have not actually been silent months while we waited unduly so long to birth an exceptional child so difficult to find; they have been a season of retreat while the wise men of the law and the wise men of the stars consult and confer to advise and direct. May God Who makes diviners mad, who makes seeing eyes blind, blind the eyes of the astrologers, and smite the wise men with self-annihilating foolishness after the order of Ahithophel (2 Samuel 15:31; 17:23). Amen. 

That frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and maketh diviners mad; that turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish(Isaiah 44:25).

A Shopping Prayer List

        Not to bore you with a long epistle, I shall pause here, and continue the burdens in a subsequent post, with prayer points more disturbing than these, from the open pages of the newspaper. However, please, pray for Europe; she faces an invasion of pain and evil, and needs every prayer from every quarter, and America also. 

I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that make mention of the LORD, keep not silence(Isaiah 62:6).

         A call has gone out to the Church in Nigeria: a vigil holds across the land on Nigeria’s Independence eve on Wednesday, September 30, from 10.00pm or 11.00pm to at least 1.00 am or later on Thursday, October 1, 2015. Nigeria’s Independence Day in this season falls in the Hebrew New Year-month, in the Shemitah year, the Sabbatic Jubilee (or 50th) year, after 7 circles of 7 years (7x7=49+1=50 – Jubilee/Sabbath year of release and rest). If you are unaware of any of these vigils holding in your city, then kindly arrange one with your household and invite others in, otherwise use your church and let other churches come in to declare God’s New Year on Nigeria, then leave the rest to the Lord of Hosts. It shall be a Passover vigil concluding with a Communion. Amen.

RESIDENTIAL AND MIGRANT CURSE

RESIDENTIAL AND MIGRANT CURSES

And the city shall be accursed, even it, AND all that are therein, to the LORD: only Rahab the harlot shall live, she and all that are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers that we sent.

                                                                                              Joshua 6:17.

Residential Contaminants

That was Joshua speaking after Jericho had fallen. He said that the city of Jericho was accursed, as well as “ALL that are therein,”irrespective of age or status.   In other words, not only the physical location of Jericho but also the residents in that location, for being resident in that place at all, were accursed. If one lived there for a month, one carried a month-long curse; if one merely spent a business weekend in a five-star hotel there, one contracted a brief five-star curse camouflaged with air conditioners and manicured gardens. If one chose to plant a church there unsent by God, they would be inundated with endless and recurrent ‘deliverance’ sessions for the people and the place. For those who got born there, and lived there year in year out, it was a lifetime of curses within and without. To the extent that the primary curse was attached to the place, the only way to deal with it would be to check out, until there came an Elisha to deal with the matter wholesale with his double portion of Elijah’s anointing (2 Kings 2:19-22).

Blinded by Skyscrapers

Are there curses, like viruses, that are contracted merely by contacting the place where the curse is endemic? Yes, which means that one may not have to live in every place; and the trip planners with their commercial wonderland pictures of a place may not be spiritually reliable. Therefore, how comfortable a place looks, how many gardens it has, how tall its skyscrapers are, is not sufficient basis for deciding where one chooses to live. That was how Lot got fooled.

10 Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11 Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley… 12 …and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain. 13 But the people of this area wereextremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lord (Genesis 13:10-13, New Living Translation).

Sometimes we contract a curse, different types and categories of curses, merely by where we choose to live. All curses don’t live in huts, some live in mansions and skyscrapers; all curses do not turn a fruitful garden into a barren wilderness, some would leave it that way, to bait its victims, whom it kills slowly with poisoned apples and venomous cherries.

The Mysteries of Ephraim: Withering by the Riverside

There are not only cursed places, there are also “pleasant places” (but that is not the present focus). Of Ephraim, for instance, God said,

13 Ephraim… is planted in a pleasant place: but Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer.

14 Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts (Hosea 9:13-14).

This passage about Ephraim, however, raises fresh issues. When a tree withers by the riverside where every other tree flourishes, it is a puzzle whose answer should be sought in the tree. God was stating that even though Ephraim was planted in a pleasant place, his life carried a curse of untimely deaths, and the fine location was not going to make any difference to that curse: his wives would be barren (with dry breasts), or would miscarry, if they got pregnant at all; and if they managed to give birth, the children would be murdered. It had nothing to do with where they were but whom they were. Surprisingly, strangers would prosper there, but not Ephraimites, not the owners of the pleasant place. If such Ephraimites found themselves in a cursed Jericho, the worse for them: a cursed person in a cursed land. That was the lot of the people of Jericho. The land was cursed, AND the people were cursed.

Ephraim, “planted in a pleasant place: BUT…” One may escape a residential curse by checking out of the place, but we do not always solve a problem by relocating to a different ‘better’ place, if the curse is on the migrant. That is the problem of often seeing greener pastures that soon turn into a wilderness. In other words, there are both external and internal dimensions to the issue; both personal and environmental dimensions to curses. We may not always blame the place for our woes when the same symptoms have followed us about in different places. Too frequent and too many transplantings kill a plant. A diseased plant will die quicker on a diseased soil, yet even on a good soil, it will still die; slowly, slowly. If a tree keeps dying in every place, then we might need to check the tree; but when even good trees begin to die in a place, one may have entered into Jericho.

May God take from you the curses that follow you, and plant you this day in “a pleasant place.” Amen.

                                                                                                                       From The Preacher's diary.