Christian Life

 

I strongly resisted the love of God for 39 years before I eventually got born again. One of the forces that empowered my resistance was my knowledge of the type of godly life Jesus would expect of me, devoid of sexual sins, lying, fraud, occultism, hardness of heart, etc. I loved and enjoyed practising these vices and therefore determinately stayed clear of Christ until He overpowered me by His love one fine day in 1995...

But now, what I see around me makes me wonder what is really going on. Professing Christian wives "grind mills" under strange men while their husbands too, are lulled to the sleep of death on the laps of modern-day Delilahs. Sunday school-attending students are steeped in fornication and examination malpractices including the purchase of both JAMB results and university admissions, paid for by their deacon/deaconess parents. The pastors too, not willing to be left behind in this ugly race, struggle among themselves in patronising divination oracles and fraudulent raising of money. We even have a song which says, "In the presence of God, anything goes!" Christ!!!

Was this this the Christianity I was resisting due to its high demand of holy living? Definitely not! Neither is it the Christianity of the Bible. It is simply the taking of liberty as an opportunity for licence. Oh no, I am not talking about "righteousness" via obeying the law of Moses. Yes indeed, we have liberty and we shall guard it jealously against all those who want to take us back to the bondage of Mt. Sinai. But, this liberty can never be an excuse for a life of sin. Remember, he who sins is of the devil.

But you would ask, "What about falling into sin? Oh, of course. While still physically alive in the flesh, we would fall into sin once in a great while. And, how so very much we hate such occurrences! How deeply repentant we are on such occasions! How very appreciative are we then that we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, so that whenever we fall into such calamity, we are opportuned to confess to God, who is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

LIVING IN SIN IS ALWAYS WRONG
Today, the lives of most of us are often that of living in sin, by which I mean desiring it, planning it, diligently executing the plan and thereafter gleefully boasting about the enjoyment of pleasures of iniquity. This is the practice of sin. With this, can we still claim to be born again when sin so much now has dominion over us contrary to our position in Christ? The word of the Lord is, "In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God nor is he who does not love his brother. (1 John 3: 10)

Let us turn a new leaf while it is still "day". Therefore, to every brother and sister, I say, let's clean up the mess.

It may even be that we were really never saved in the first instance. Glory be to God that there is still time to get saved - and there is always enough room at the Cross of Christ for every new penitent sinner who would come back home. Would you now repent of your sins and trust Jesus as your Lord and Saviour to keep you thereafter?

God bless you.

 

(John 13: 3- 10)

This rather popular scripture has been a veritable pillar in teaching about Christian humility and service right from the very beginning of the Church. However, the beautiful text also serves to illustrate the profound doctrine of spiritual salvation and subsequent Christian walk, as we shall now consider:

The experience of spiritual salvation can be likened to a perfect spiritual bath whereby all the moral filthiness of the person is washed away as he/she is admitted into the kingdom of God. This initial bath is once and for all.

If the person commits any (new) sin after the bath, he/she needs only to have the feet washed and the total cleanness is restored. There is no need for a complete "bath" again. The washing of the feet is analogous of the continual forgiveness and cleansing that our Lord Jesus effects in the life of every believer who confesses and repents of any sin he/she may fall into even as a child of God. (1John 1: 9)

The importance of the subsequent continual "washing" is stressed by Jesus Christ Himself as He warned Peter, "If I do not wash you, you have no share in me." We need to remember that this event was AFTER Peter and the others, were already disciples and ministers. Hence, it was not a reference to the initial new-birth "bath" experience.

So today, brother/sister, do you find yourself polluted with the dirt of any easily-besetting sin? Do not despair! Solution has already been provided. Only do not neglect to avail yourself of it. Just wash and be clean.

It is well.

It is interesting to observe how believers (Christians), as individuals or as groups, take their position for or against certain doctrines and practices without any personal understanding of the things they profess. This phenomenon is a manifestation of the evil of religious parroting which has become quite rampart in the Church today.

By parroting, I refer to the mindless mouthing of words and/or performance of actions by copying the opinion of others without personal comprehension and conviction. The parrot is an uncritical repeater of words by rote.

Today, we witness many Christians talk boldly on issues eternal security, abortion rights, homosexual marriages, home-schooling, premeliniarism, etc, often taking very strong positions in forceful support or opposition. But the question is, how many of us have arrived at our position after careful expounding of divine precepts and submission to the dealings of the Lord on the issues? Is our so-called conviction a product of scriptural revelation or the result of mere repetition of the opinions of our favorite leaders in Church and/or society? Are we walking before God as He leads us or our "Christian" life is just a replication of the lifestyles of the leaders?

Many times, the lives of believers are dictated not directly by the demands of God through His word and by His Spirit but rather by the long-standing traditions of the denomination affiliated with. But are these traditions all scriptural?

One of my favorite quotations is from the Westminster Confession:
"Nothing contrary to Scripture can be true;
Nothing in addition to the Scripture can be binding;
Each believer is responsible to God to search the Scriptures to see if what is being said by Church leaders is true"

This is a godly admonition in line with the behaviour of the Berean believers as recorded in Acts 17:10-12
"The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, EXAMINING THE SCRIPTURES DAILY TO SEE IF THESE THINGS WERE SO." (Emphasis added)

I am persuaded that if more brethren were to learn from this behaviour, the scourge of spiritual parroting would be stemmed. However, it seems most church attendees are merely interested in joining the crowd in assemblies while of the few who receive the word with eagerness, the grace is often not found to search the Scriptures for validation and perfection.

Our beliefs and lifestyles should not depend on the charisma of leaders or the couple of verses cited to support a position during preaching. Rather, it must be result of a close relationship with God whereby, at His presence, He helps us see the truth of His word as we diligently study, comparing Scripture with Scripture with prayerful meditation. As the Lord teaches us, He also leads us through germane empirical dealings which help to verify and permanently etch the truth in our hearts and lives. It is only at this stage that a teaching or a practice becomes really "personal" and we truly escape being mere parrots. I believe this is the sense in which Paul said he would not venture to teach on any issue where he was yet to reach such a stage (Romans 15:18)

Scope of Religious Parroting

There is no area of Christian life that is immune to religious parroting.
- Doctrines
- Personal lifestyle in dressing, eating, keeping friends, recreation, education (such as home-schooling, teaching on evolution, etc), sex and sexual orientation,
- Family relationship (gender roles, submission, etc
- Devotional life in praying, fasting, study of the Scripture, use of objects like oil, handkerchiefs, etc., position on the cessation or persistence of the charismata, applicability of tithing under New Covenant, etc.
- Corporate church life in handling such things as Holy Communion ans Water Baptism, view about observance of Christmas, Lent, etc

Dangers of Religious Parroting

The following are some of the evil consequences of religious parroting on the believer:

1. It is a common saying that, "He who does not stand for something will fall for anything." Being easily swept by every wave of doctrine is a clear evidence of religious parroting.

2. Vulnerability to demonic ministration is real since such believers possess little or no personal revelation of the things they proclaim or affirm. So, any fresh suggestion by the enemy is received uncritically to join, amend or dislodge the previous ones being parroted. It is not surprising that most founders of cults were never grounded in the fundamental doctrines of Christ.

3. Because of lack of personal conviction, the parrot cannot live a genuine practical Christian life. It is a correct dictum that no one will voluntarily suffer or die for what he does not believe in. They are not driven by an inner deposit of set of rules as handed down by his/her leaders.

4. The experience of the seven sons of Sceva (Acts 19:11-16) shows there is a real practical danger to life and property to all who choose to follow a life of religious parroting in affirming the things they do not understand.

How about Spiritual Imitation?

The doctrine of spiritual imitation is clearly set out in the Scriptures. (John 5:5:19; 1Corinthians 11:1; Ephesians 5:1). We as believers are specifically enjoined to imitate our leaders as they imitate Christ. So, in what ways is spiritual imitation different from religious parroting?

I will address this through an analogy.

Let us imagine a home with a four year old boy and a parrot. Let us also imagine the boy being reprimanded for stealing cookies by being instructed to recite the words, "I will be a good boy and not steal the cookies again." The parrot also heard the words and became proficient in repeating those exact words. Now, what is the difference between the reciting done by the boy and the repetition made by the parrot? The short answer is UNDERSTANDING.

The boy understands . He has a notion of what a good boy is. He understands the meaning of stealing as something bad. He has moral values by which to relate and derive meaning from the words uttered. The parrot has none of these. It merely churns out a meaningless string of words as a computer printer prints out characters on a sheet of paper without any personal value to it. As the words are of no intellectual or moral value to the parrot, so also, the Christian who blindly copies other Christians without personal apprehension of the truth has no spiritual benefit from the words he is adept at multiplying.

Not about Originality but of Confirmation
Correction of religious parroting is not an advocacy for originality. Indeed, there can be no originality with the true believer. All his/her life must be from God who alone is original ad His truth does not change. Unlike the parrot, the boy will benefit immensely from the same words even though they were NOT original to him. He imitated this from the tutor who wrote or dictated the script. The benefit would come because he would apply his sense and moral value to the words and become a better kid. (Of course, if he were to totally block his mind and harden his heart against the message of the words then he would be just like the parrot - or worse.)

Moving from religious parroting to spiritual imitation requires the exercise of faith in the areas of assurance of salvation; diligently the Scriptures for light concerning the issues; securing of an inner witness of the truth discerned with a clear conscience and total submission to God's dealings with respect to the issues.

God bless you.

People will always hurt us. This is the reality of life. Every believer ought never to forget that offences would come. People will spitefully use us and persecute us – and this will doubtless hurt us. Very much. But in all this, the counsel of God is, KEEP LOVING.

The ability to love can be severely hampered by bitterness (offence). If we think or say that it is impossible for us to love those who cause us hurt, we are merely showing our ignorance in tying hurt with bitterness. But this is not true. Bitterness is not necessarily associated with hurt. How many of us who are parents have not been severely hurt by one or two of our kids? Has this always degenerated into bitterness against such children? Not likely. What is the key issue? It is ILL-WILL. Bitterness ensues when we allow ill-will to be added to our hurt. And that IS offence.

The Bible is clear that we must forgive offences before we can receive forgiveness from God. We are even instructed to bless and pray for those causing us the pain!!! (Matthew 5:44) But how can this be, when the hurt is still burning so painfully? It is by resisting the attempt of ill-will to enter our hearts but rather to give free flow to GOODWILL which is an attribute of the love of Christ that is already spread abroad in our hearts. This is the message of the Cross. It is foolishness to those who are far from God, but to those who have received grace, it is life.

Are you a believer, and offence has already come? Have you been hurt and you are embittered? Willingly release yourself to the cleansing power of the blood of the Lamb. You can do it RIGHT NOW. Hand everything over to God and submit yourself under His loving hands. Both the hurt and the ill-will shall be washed away. It doesn’t matter the depth of the hurt.

God is love, and love covers all sins.

To be multi-talented (or multipotential) is a divine gift for the enrichment of one’s path towards the attainment of life goal. It should be received with thanksgiving and not lamented as an excuse for lack of focus and the associated failure in life. Tamara Fisher has described multipotentiality as "the state of having many exceptional talents, any one or more of which could make for a great career for that person."

So often does one come across awesomely multipotential individuals who eventually do not make much of their lives. The invariable reason is an inability to focus. The tendency for such people is to become “jack of all trades” (master of none) which also means “success at none!” But this need not be so! God who gave the multiplicity of talents certainly did not intend it to be the reason for failure. On the contrary, the purpose of the talents-mix is to satisfy the full requirement for success in such individuals so that attainment of goals is easier. Michael Jackson would not have been such a successful entertainer if his only talent was a beautiful voice. Or just good physical appearance (which he tried his best to destroy). Or just excellent choreography. Or just musical composition, etc But he had ALL together and utilised them towards a single focus of entertainment. This required of him two major things:

1. An identification of the life purpose, and

2. A determined life of discipline in walking towards that purpose.

And this is where many multi-talented people miss it. They neither identify their purpose nor exhibit the required discipline to achieve it. Therefore, (because they are gifted in so many areas) they keep changing focus, moving from job to job, project to project, activity to activity, never actually staying long enough on any one to succeed. Eventually, what is meant to be an enviable blessing is turned into a curse. But the fault is that of man, not God, the Giver of the talents.

I pray that each person who is already in this type of situation will take a fresh look at the two requirements listed above under the guidance of God and begin to enter into his/her abundant success.