A redeemer- the reason for Christmas

He has sent me…to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for all the prisoners (Isaiah 61:1)

I have been a little unwell for some time now and have been on medication for a while. I had tried visiting some private clinics but their prescribed medication did not help. So yesterday I decided to visit a bigger hospital and my choice was a government hospital. When I was waiting to see the doctor, some prisons police brought in some prisoners that were so unwell, some of whom could not walk well due to the magnitude of their illnesses. These prisoners had their hands bound together with each other which I believe was aimed to prevent them from running away. Despite their illnesses and being bound, I could not help but notice their rebellion. The police men who were with them had to keep on hitting them and shouting at them because the prisoners were not following the instructions they were being given.

Their state made my heart ache. They had been so unwell and not looking so nice. However, I could not understand why despite being imprisoned for rebelling against the law, they still continued being rebellious even with their current state. It was then that I realized how the same thing happens to us in life, especially spiritually. When we visit prisons or hear of prisoners, the first thing that comes to mind is people enclosed in a prison for going against the law of a country. However, in our spiritual lives, prisoners are those people who are held captive by the devil and his powers, which are living in sin that is, living against the laws and commands of God.

 Being a spiritual prisoner is worse than being a prisoner of any country’s law. A prisoner of sin is one in darkness.  When I talk of being in darkness it because I have been there and many of us has been. I had been a prisoner of sin in form of pride, lying, lust and I had many idols in my life. When sin binds you, you become its prisoner/slave. Despite the fact that it oppresses you and steals the good in you, you still remain under its submission. You want to stop sinning, say for example lying, but you can’t help it. You always find yourself lying to cover up for the past lies. Because of this, although you want not to lie, you live a life of lies, that is, you become a prisoner/slave of lies. This may lead you to lose many good things such as friendships, job opportunities and above all, it will affect your relationship with God. The only thing that can help you is if you realize that you are in prison/bound and you decide to get out of that prison/slavery. Getting out of that prison would require you to pay the price of your sin or have a redeemer who will help you out of the prison.

 The bible in Isaiah 60:2, explains about how the world is covered with darkness but only His glory is able to bring light to the world. Unless the glory of the Lord shines on you the prisoner of sin, you will remain in darkness, in captivity. However, the glory of God has come. God sent a redeemer who would be the light to our darkness, who would both be the redeemer to help us from the prison of sin and the price for our sins. Jesus Christ the son of God is the redeemer and the price. The celebration that we have just had is the remembrance of the birth of the redeemer in the form of flesh who came to pay the price and get out of prison.  However, we go about feasting and giving gifts to loved ones without considering Him who was freely given to set us free.

In Luke 4:18-19, Jesus himself repeats the words of Isaiah 61:1-2 and goes ahead to say that he is the fulfillment of these words. That he is the one setting prisoners free. Jesus still sets prisoners free, that is why we always celebrate Christmas. Although his birth into flesh happened just once, redemption is always available for us. We have the choice to accept it and be delivered from the prison of lying, doubt, lust, unforgiveness, adultery, idolatry, hatred and so many other sins or we can choose to ‘drive him out of town’ and fail to receive him. How I pray that we will receive him, go down on our knees in prayer and fasting and let him set us free completely from our captivity.

God bless you and keep growing in Him.

Patience, kindness, goodness and the rest of the fruit

I really love my job, although it’s a field that I never thought I would pursue, I have come to love it and I would always want to work in this field for the rest of my life. One of the reasons why I love my job is because every day I meet different people with different needs all looking for a solution or at least some guidance to get through some situation. I always try to help them out and although sometimes I never have a solution to their problems, I listen and direct them to someone or something that will help. It is a very nice job because I get to interact with many people, listen, smile, laugh and even encourage. It gives me so much joy and many times I leave work in the evening with a great feeling of satisfaction and never tired. 

However, it can be difficult sometime because I don’t always meet people with nice personalities. Sometimes I meet rude, mean or even abusive people. In these moments, it can be difficult because my job requires that I still remain nice. At times I want to get mad and even give a rude response but I have no choice but to be quiet, listen and try to empathize.  You see, being nice to those people who are nice to us is never a problem. However, being nice and kind to those people who are rude to us is very difficult. Sometimes I have found myself walking out on a person who gets rude or starts to quarrel because it is not in me to be quarrel. Not that I can’t be rude or quarrel, it’s just that I sound horrible when I get mad. However, because I have desired to be more like Christ, He has helped me to realize that I need not to be rude but be kind.

I would be a liar if I said that this process has been easy. However, I am grateful to God and His word. I have learnt that He requires of us to be kind because it is the right thing to do. He requires us to be filled with goodness and be patience because this way we are able to win many people to Him. Galatians 5:22 says that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,  goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. God expects us to live by the spirit which means that we have to have this fruit.  It can be hard to be all these when the world around us is the opposite. When customers are rude, colleagues are plotting evil; the bosses do not want to listen, friends take advantage of our kindness and many other challenges.

I have read books talking about how love must be tough and how love and respect must be two way but God has been teaching me that we don’t just love only those who can love us. The bible talks of following the example of Jesus who was oppressed and afflicted yet he did not open his mouth, he was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth (Isaiah 53:7), to love; which requires of us to be patient even with those who are unkind. To forgiving those who walk over us or even take advantage of us and so many other mean acts.

Patience, kindness, goodness and the above are not easy. However, I have been learning that to be patience it requires us to do nothing. If you want to walk in patience you just do nothing even when you are hurt, don’t even talk about the person who hurts you with others, that can turn into gossip. Instead, you should take time and pray. To be kind requires us that instead of being rude or mean when someone is mean, we should take this opportunity to do good to them. That is, to overcome evil with good. Goodness requires us to just be nice at all times. This is where gentleness and self control comes in. we ought to have self control at all times because at times, our flesh will want to repay evil with evil. Only self control will help us overcome the flesh and that way we will be gentle and kind. When we do this, joy will never depart from our hearts. However, let’s remember that we can’t achieve this on our own. We can only achieve it through having a constant walk with God, that is like having an intimate relationship with God which requires us to take time to be with Him, listen to him, read his word, worship him and pray.

God bless you and keep growing in Him.

Learning from Christ

I love learning new things and especially those that concern life. I can say that the people I hold close to my heart are those from whom I have learnt things or those that have taken time to teach me new things. One of these people is my daddy. I have acquired so much knowledge and life skills from him. One of the things I have learnt from him is how to plan, budget and make small notes. I remember while growing up, we used to do so much budgeting and planning together. Furthermore, my dad always had a notebook and a pen with him and he would always note down everything. Having spent so much of my life with him while growing up, I realized that I acquired all these from him. I have always found myself budgeting, planning and writing down everything about me. I can’t tell you how many notes books I have because they are so many and my phone adds up to the list too.

Talking about learning, I am reminded about Christ and his disciples. The bible tells us that Jesus chose twelve disciples that he walked with in his physical life on earth. Among these disciple however, there were three of them that you would always find him with. Simon Peter, who was one of them was always with him and always desired to be with him, that he at one point in life decided to walk on water just to be where Jesus was. Because of this continued spending time with Jesus, Simon Peter learnt who Jesus really was and also gained a lot from him.

The bible says in Acts that on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down on all of them, Peter had the boldness to speak on behalf of the disciples. However, he did not just speak to defend the apostles but also spoke about Jesus. There is no way he would have spoken about Christ if he had never known him. Peter was fully aware of whom Jesus was and no one would change his mind about Christ. That is why despite of the arrest and much suffering that he went through after Jesus had gone to heaven, he never denied Jesus at any point.

My brief story, the story of Peter and many other stories including mentor-mentee relationships that we all go through, are all signs that most of the things we learn in  life only happen when we spend time with those we are learning from. Sometimes we do it unconsciously while other times we deliberately decide to take time and be with them to learn.

 In our Christian life, we always desire to be like Christ. We desire to love like him, forgive like him and even be holy like him. However, many of us fail to realize that the same theory of spending time with the person we want to be like applies in our relationship with Jesus Christ. It requires of us to take time (set aside some time) and be with him to learn from him. Spending time with him requires us to deliberately set aside all other things and just be with him. Being with him only occurs when we go in His presence in worship, praise/thanksgiving and studying His word to hear from Him. In these moments, we get to hear him through His word and even directly through His still small voice. In these moments, he reveals to us our diseases of the heart and helps us to deal with them. He reveals to us who he really his and shows us how we can be like him. These are the times that he makes us sensitive to all things that we are able to know what is right and stick to it and what is wrong that we may avoid it. 

Some things can never be learnt or transformed in us unless we choose to spend intimate moments with Christ for Him to change them. This therefore calls for us to deliberately set time to be with God.  I encourage you to take time and learn from Christ. I can promise you that, it is best to set aside time from your daily schedules to be with Him because once you get used to doing that, you never want to be away from him.

God bless you and keep growing in Him.

Ask and you will receive

 Most of us have the ‘I don’t wanna talk/think about it’ moments. These are those times when we are either going through bad times or are have issues in life that are really bothering us but talking or thinking about them causes us more pain. In most cases, they are things that we so much desire to have but never seem to receive or things that we go through that never seem to end. We may have prayed about them but the situations seem never to change so we result to either pushing them away from our minds or coming up with other things that keep us busy to try distract ourselves from the reality in our lives, yet deep inside we have great longing for them to be met.

Writing this, I am reminded of the Shunemite woman in 2 kings 4:8-37. The bible talks about her as being a well to do woman/a woman of a notable character. However, the bible says that this woman had no child of her own and she never seemed to need a child (verse 28). She had spent her life serving her husband and when the man of God came by, she extended a hand of service to him too. Her life had seemed complete although deep inside her, there was a great desire for her to have a child. I believe she must have given up on having children and thinking about it caused her so much pain. That is why when Elisha told her that she would have a son by the same time the following year; she thought that he was playing with her mind. Life must have seemed so disappointing and she must have given up on God.

The bible says that the following year, she gave birth to a son. However, the bible says that the son later died. At this point we see her great pain and frustration reaching its highest point after the death.  Like most of us, she put the ‘I don’t wanna talk about it attitude’ and could not even share what she was going through (the death of her son) with her husband; the father of her son.  It is this point we see her really pain and how she had tried to deal with her the pain of a desire, which was trying not to ask for it to be met. “Did I ask for a son from my Lord? Didn’t I tell you not to raise my hopes?” That was her question, full of bitterness and pain. It gives me joy however to see that although she did not want to share it with anyone, she finally realized that it was most appropriate to share it with the right person, the man of God. This was the person who had helped her achieve her desire. At this point, her son was brought to life and she took him with joy and I believe that she was finally happy to have her desire met. 

 I believe that maybe if this woman had decided not to kill her hopes and look to God to met her desire, she would not have thought that Elisha was playing with her mind when he gave her a promise/prophesy.  The same should be to us. We should not give up on God but should ask from Him all that we need. The bible in Psalms 2:7-8 says that we are His children and if we ask for anything, He will give us. I believe that the reason he puts desires (Godly desires) in us is so that He can test if we trust in His ability to meet them. It is therefore important that we don’t run away from them or try to push them away but to look to Him that He may meet them (Psalms 121). When we keep asking from Him and seeking Him, He will surely meet them.

God bless you and be encouraged to ask from Him. He is Jehovah Jireh.

The seed of sin, the power of grace

 Three days ago while doing my daily devotion from the book of Genesis 4, I read about the story of Cain and Abel. It wasn’t a new story because I have read it severally. However, while reading the story something caught my attention. The story here is about how two brothers, Cain and Abel, had gone to offer a burnt sacrifice to the Lord. The bible says that when the two brothers offered the sacrifice, only Abel’s sacrifice was acceptable to God. I have never quite understood why Cain’s sacrifice did not find favor with God (hoping to understand that one day), but my Christian Religious Education teacher used to tell us that Cain had offered low quality crops for sacrifice (not sure how true that is). The story continues that when God rejected Cain’s sacrifice, he become angry and this anger caused him to kill his brother. 

After reading this story, it hit me so hard that there had never occurred any other death or murder before Abel. This means therefore that Abel’s death was the first death. However, it had not been a natural death but had been the first murder. This left me wondering how Cain had learnt how to kill. This brought the realization that sin is and has always been in us. We were born sinners and have the seed of sin in us. It brought the thought of a few weeks old baby who in our own understanding, we believe that he/she is harmless. However, you may find this baby biting its mother’s breast while being breastfed and then smiles suspiciously while looking at its mother to see her reaction. This clearly indicates that the baby really understands what it has done and one may wonder therefore how the baby is able to know that what it has done is wrong.

From this illustration it is clear that we have sin in us and we also have the knowledge of right in us. The bible says that the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve ate was the fruit of knowledge of good and bad. Bad/ sin entered in us when they ate it. At the same time, the knowledge of good got in us. Furthermore, it is so clear that the power of wrong/sin is so strong in us and we cannot easily resist it. The only way we can resist it is through the power of Christ. The bible in the whole of Genesis shows us how after eating the fruit, man became so sinful that God regretted for  having created man that He resolved to destroy him but only spare Noah who had found favor with the Lord. However, even after the floods, man (by man I mean both male and female Gen 1:27) continued to sin. This resulted to emergence of the law which did not make things any better.

It was clear to God that nothing could help do away with the seed of sin in us than a greater power being planted in us and that would be the seed of righteousness through grace that came from the death of Christ. The bible says that this power is so great that even where sin increased, grace increased the more (Romans 5:20). This is so evident in our lives every day. Many times I have found myself about to sin ‘terribly’ but in these moments is when the Spirit’s voice is so loud warning me against it and in such moments, I experience the grace that helps me to say no to such sins (Titus 2:11-12). In other times however, when I fall and the Holy Spirit brings me down on my knees in repentance, through this grace I find forgiveness and renewal. This grace always makes me new when I sin and keeps me from sinning.

With the seed of sin in us, there is always the temptation to fall into all kinds of evil. However, we can always receive this power of grace and keep from sinning. This however can be received through accepting Jesus Christ in your life (Romans 10:9) and allowing Him to be your Lord and the master (Adonai) of your life. When you receive Christ in your life, it does not end there. You will need to practice holiness by relying on this same grace and saying no to sin. It will not be easier than before receiving Christ but there will be a greater power in you that will cause you to want to choose good over evil. You will need to trust in it and say no. Else, you will be just talking of holiness and not living it. I pray that God will help us all to utelise the power of grace in us.

God bless you and keep growing in Him.

Get rid of your ignorance

I did not get the chance to watch ‘The Inside Story’ on KTN on Sunday November the second, neither have I found a chance to watch it on YouTube. However, from all the comments I have seen on social media, I can clearly tell what it was all about. The whole thing is not something to be proud of neither is its consequences. It is a pity to see what we have become and how easily we get caught up in such issues that are not so great to imagine. From this whole issue however, I have learnt that we have been so ignorant about so many things and there is need for us to seek knowledge and wisdom so that we may not fall into such problems.

Although the issues of false prophets, false miracles and false gospel are common areas of ignorance, I have realized there are so many other areas that we are so ignorant about. We have failed to understand many other areas such as sex, marriage, divorce, worship, leadership and authority, submission and many other important issues. We have chosen to do thing our own way or believe what others tell us instead of seeking knowledge from the author of it all. I am not trying to say that everyone who talks about these issues is wrong. I know that there are great men and women who have received the right knowledge on such issues and speak about them as it should. However, what I am saying is that we ought to seek personal knowledge on them so as to have the right information and avoid being misled.

When I write this, I am reminded of the Bereans in Acts 17:11 who when they received the message from Paul, they did not just believe it despite having heard of the works of Paul. Instead, they decided to go further and examine if what Paul had been speaking about was true. For this reason, the bible calls them wiser and of a nobler character than the Thessalonians. We ought to follow this example. We should not just hear from others and be in a hurry to do it but should take time to examine if what we hear is the truth. The bible in 1 John 4:1-3 calls for us to test the spirit. This therefore shows that not everyone or everything that is said or done is right. We are therefore required to equip ourselves with knowledge on all aspects of life to avoid being deceived.

‘Ignorance is no defense’, lawyers say and ‘my people perish for lack of knowledge’, the bible says. Therefore, this means that no one has any excuse to fail to do what is right because of lack of knowledge. Although God overlooks our days of ignorance, He expects us to seek knowledge and even repent of our ignorance and act in wisdom and knowledge. We cannot act in knowledge unless we seek it from the right source.

It is so clear-although so many have chosen not to admit it- that everything originated from God- He is the author of all things. Therefore, knowledge on all things can only come from Him. Furthermore, God has made it so easy for us to gain that knowledge by putting it all in one book, The Bible (by saying this, I know some people will disagree with me). It is a book with not as many pages as those we do or have done in class, yet it has become so difficult to find time to read/study it. We have some much time to spend on novels, chats, social media and all other ways but we can’t spare time for the word. We only have time for it on Sunday or Saturday when in church and even then, we let the pastors and the reverends read it for us/ to us and do the explaining depending on how they understand it. Because of these, we fail to know the truth, we believe what they tell us and for the ‘pastors’ who decide to be vessels of the enemy, they take advantage of our ignorance.

What I mean to say through all this is this, PLEASE LET US READ OUR BIBLES. It is the only way that we can know the truth and be free. The good thing about God is that He doesn’t require us to read the whole book in a day or even take 5 hours a day to read it. However, I am not saying that taking 5 hours in the word is wrong. What I mean to say is that God requires just a few minutes from the time that He has allowed us every day to seek to know the truth by studying His word. 15 minutes every day is not too much to ask. We spend hours on phone conversations with friends but never get tired, what is 15 minutes every day? Take the challenge and read your bible. That will help you understand all these issues of this life that bother people every day.

God bless you and read you bibles please.