The Change We Need

Throughout history, influencers of society have discovered that the power they wield lies in their ability to communicate their values and concepts to the people effectively. Once people can grasp the concepts and ideals they are passing across, then it becomes easy to change their behavioral patterns and habits. No matter how powerful an idea, concept or value is, if it is not properly communicated, then there's no change. Those who attempted to present their message in such a way that it produced change had to understand the framework of the society i.e. the culture that they lived in. To be more effective communicators, they had to understand the cultural framework of the time in which they lived. Martin Luther, the 17^th Century reformer said this with regards to the translation of poetry

Whoever would speak German must not use Hebrew style. Rather he must see to it-once he understands the Hebrew author-that he concentrates on the sense of the text, asking himself, "Pray tell, what do the Germans say in such a situation?" Once he has the German words to serve his purpose, let him drop the Hebrew words and express the meaning freely in the best German he knows

It is this same principle that some translators of the bible follow, when creating new versions and I believe this same principle is what individual Christians and any local body of Christ should adopt in bringing the change into our societies.

The Gates Of Hell

In recent times I have been asking myself a lot of questions and a certain burden for the Church (the Body of Christ) particularly in my native country Nigeria. One story that I heard, which sparked some of these questions, was about a young Christian lady, who was in an office where some money had been stolen and no one knew who the thief was. A member of staff suggested that all the staff would be subjected to a test, by a juju man, assuring the owner of the company that this fail-safe method would reveal the thief. This Christian lady followed the other members of staff to the place and allowed herself to go through all the rituals the man said were necessary. I asked myself a simple question, how come this tongue-talking, Spirit-filled, church worker couldn't provide any solutions to the problem at hand but instead submitted herself to such base things? Couldn't she have “activated” a gift of the Spirit? That is what leads me to the reason for this post.

Recently I heard a prophetic teacher say something about a very popular scripture. What caught my attention is that I had never considered in this light he was bring before. Matthew 16:18, 19 says:

“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

I have always seen that scripture as the Church trying to defend itself against an onslaught of the kingdom of darkness. However when you consider that the keys of the kingdom of heaven has been given to the Church, to bind and loose God’s desires on the earth, then it gives you another outlook. In fact Jesus describes the church as advancing (keywords: BUILD MY CHURCH), which is obvious that we are the ones attacking and not defending. At the time Jesus spoke these words, the gates signified the group of people who determined the course of a society (its language, way of life, education, etc). In fact it was the Romans who invented this ekklesia, which was their way to change the culture of a people, to resemble Rome, without using force but by infiltration.

Secondly, notice the word used here is gates (plural) which means that the forces are not singular. Over the years, what we as God’s people have focused on is trying to bring the influence of God into our society by taking the religious mountain. We conclude that if people can attend church, we can easily penetrate our culture. If we do more prayer and fasting, hold more worship concerts and revival meetings, then our society would be aglow for Jesus. What we are not aware of is the fact that the things that influence behavior (and culture) are more than these Christian activities. I’m sure we may have heard about the 7 mountains or culture shapers namely, Education, Government, Media, Arts & Entertainment, Family, Religion and Economy.

Over the years our strategy, in my own observation, has been to get Christians heavily involved in the church community and environment, hoping that this would prepare them to take over in the other places of influence. What we have seen, from experience, is that our guys enter into the Arts & Entertainment Mountain and get swallowed up completely leading to choir directors coming out to say that they are now inspirational singers and not gospel singers anymore. People from the church enter politics and are swallowed up by the corruption in that mountain and you wonder if this guy, who ran for senatorial seat in Abuja and was an active worker in the church you both attended, is still a believer in Jesus and His ways of doing things.

What our spiritual warfare, in the form of prayers, worship, fastings, etc do is actually put angels in operation to disallow satanic powers from taking up the ruling power at the gates (where the outcomes of the mountains are decided). At such a time in our nation Nigeria, what the church should be doing is raising men and women who are like David; their spirituality not only delivers access into the divine but also the taking over of territories and the ousting of the oppressors of the people, Philistia. What the church needs to do is to ensure that men and women of maturity and wisdom get to the tops of these mountains of influence and bring God’s kingdom to bear on the earth or else perversion will sweep the nations and eat up the people of God. The devil’s agenda in the last days is simple, take over the earth by putting people he can control in places of leadership and influence. If he does this, then he can easily legislate and legalize evil and find people who will help him express the lawlessness he wants to proliferate.

How to react when Bible Movies miss the mark.

In recent times there have been lots of releases of bible movies by Hollywood (and there will still be more I believe). Majority of these movies have diverted from the original bible accounts that we have read. Most of them are not accurate and some even out-rightly blasphemous. I've been thinking a lot about our reactions to these movies (and even some other ones) mainly because of their strong influence on culture. I stumbled on a post by Phil Cooke, who is a respected media influence in christian circles (he's the brain behind Joyce Meyer's and Lakewood Church social and regular media campaigns).

Here's the link http://philcooke.com/when-bible-movies-miss-the-mark/    What do you think?

21st Century Lot

One of the greatest impressions in my heart in recent times has been how today's believer is so much like Lot and how different Abraham was from Lot. On the top of the list is the fact that Lot was clearly a believer who lived in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Where Lot lived, people called evil good and good was laughed at. Immorality was the normal and perversion was the sanity of that clime. It was so bad that God wanted to wipe out that entire city from the geographical landscape!

2 Peter 2:6-8 says Lot was vexed constantly by the things he saw and heard every day. It seems that same predicament is what many believers today face. I daresay that there are 4 kinds of individuals who lived in those days. The first I would mention are those who have sold themselves to depravity with no sense of restrain. To this group belong the people of Sodom & Gomorrah. They were so vile (and spiritually dead) that the men wanted to sleep with angels even when they were offered young girls to quench their sexual lust.

Those in the second set are Lot's children and his wife. His two daughters, who if they were living in our times, would be children born into Christian homes, attending the church youth church, etc had boyfriends who were unbelievers! I have heard of christians who are engaged to unbelievers and they don't see anything fundamentally wrong with it! Lot's daughters represent Christians who dine with the devil all week and "date" Jesus on Sundays.

The third category of people are like Lot's wife. Externally Lot's wife was the ideal believer. She stayed away from things publicly recognized as ungodly and did a good work at keeping up appearances. She went to church regularly and never missed midweek fellowship. She read her bible and prayed everyday and was an active person in the church she belonged to. Everyone knew her as Lot, the righteous man's wife. But then her heart was not longing for God but the good things of Sodom. It became evident when they were rushed out of the city by the angels and given a clear instruction not to look back into Sodom. The truth is that many believers are like this today. We must be careful and check our hearts. Are we not in love with the world? Do we have a form of godliness that is completely void of any living active relationship with God?

Then there was Lot. Lot was obviously tired of the state of the place he lived in. Lot was influential and powerful. This is evidenced in the fact that the angels met him at the gate of the city. In those days only the decision makers of a city sat perpetually at the gate/entrance of a city. Lot was also wealthy. He had material wealth at his disposal alongside servants too. Above all Lot was a righteous/holy man. But in the midst of all this, Lot suffered in silence. His influence and affluence did not translate to any impact on the environment he lived in. It was so bad that when God wanted someone to intercede for the city, He didn't even ask Lot, who was meant to be God's emissary in the place. Isn't this the same situation believers find themselves today? With all our big churches and large offerings, how much influence have we been able to exert in the political or even media environment. Just like Lot, most of us believers, on the individual level keep mute. Gradually these immoralities have crept into our so-called guarded spaces. Now we are bombarded, on our own TVs, with the lewd lyrics and soft porn in the name of music videos and all most of us can say is "This is not good oh. When I was your age, we never used to have things like this shown on national television."

The truth is Lot was meant to be responsible for Sodom and Gomorrah. He was so weakened by HIS SILENCE and the consistent onslaught of immorality that he couldn't even raise his influence to impact 10 people in the whole of Sodom and Gomorrah! And that was why God destroyed the twin cities.

The final type of believer in those days is typified by Abraham. (Yes I know I mentioned 4 earlier. Just add him to the list and make it five ok?). I'll be discussing the Abrahamic kind of believer in my next post. Right now, I want to get under some warm sheets. It's really cold. Ta ta!

Jesus Was Not A Politically Correct Wimp

I read this post from Charisma Magazine this morning and I know it will enrich you as a believer. Read on and let's have your comments, ok?

Christians: The "softer, kinder, gentler" approach ain't working.

One of the perpetual myths well-intentioned Christians indulge in is that if we are just nice enough, winsome enough and persuasive enough, everybody will love us and eventually agree with us.

This is a pernicious and fatuous lie. It is a deception forged by the father of lies to induce Christians to be passive, meek and timid instead of bold clarions of truth and true justice.

By believing this lie, we have neutered ourselves in the public arena. Rather than winning others to our side, we have earned only their dismissive contempt. Rather than respecting us, they now feel free to punish us by shutting us up and shutting us down, and sending us off to re-education camps if we won't cooperate.

It's been tragic to watch as one pro-family leader and organization after another has lost its nerve and gone to ground rather than going to the mat. Organizations that once stood as beacons of light for the entire nation are now largely forgotten and ignored. They no longer have a message that the world fears. They have been domesticated.

But we do not serve a domesticated king. We serve the Lion of Judah, who is not, any more than Aslan was, a tame lion.

It's time to be done with the "nicer than Jesus" mentality. It never has worked, and it never will work. It only fools us into thinking we are being Christ-like when in reality we are only being wimps.

The odd thing is that Christians who have lost their spine and have become silent and soft are often harshly critical of those Christians who do stand publicly and without apology for the time-honored truths of Scripture. This is especially the case when it comes to things such as declaring that homosexuality is not a benign alternative to heterosexuality but a form of sexually deviant behavior.

Jesus wasn't crucified for being nice. He was crucified for being bold and confrontational. Don't misunderstand: He was the kindest man who ever lived. But he wasn't a sap. He knew when kindness was called for, and he knew when it was time to get up in somebody's grill and challenge them with the truth.

Jesus had no hesitation about speaking truth to political power. The Pharisees and the Sadducees were the politicians of Jesus' day. They passed laws that controlled the details of the ordinary, daily lives of everyone who lived in Israel. They could arrest people for violating those laws, detain them, put them on trial, flog them, and even persuade the Romans to put them to death.

Thoroughly unintimidated by their police powers, Jesus rebuked them publicly and directly and even knew when to call them "a brood of vipers" (Matt. 23:33, ESV) and the spawn of Satan: "You are of your father the devil" John 8:44).

So let's not hear any more of that nonsense about how Jesus was not involved in politics. He was involved in politics, and in the end it cost Him His life.

Bottom line: God has not called us to be nice. He has called us to be good. Nice people never confront evil and error, but good people do. It is the truth that sets men free, and genuine love will drive us to declare the truth no matter the cost. It's time to put on the full armor of God, unsheathe the sword of the Spirit, and go to war.

Here's the link to read it here.