Reference Text: 2Samuel 13: 1-19

The central feature of febrile relationships is warped emotion whereby the passion of affection is heatedly (feverishly) directed at a wrong object or in a wrong manner. Typically, rationality is sacrificed for desire and propriety gives way to self-gratification.

This relational disease is essentially spiritual in nature while its physical manifestation is in the psychiatric dimension. In most cases, only one member of the relationship is sick with the disease but the effects are soon felt by the others who, then, can rightly be described as the victims.

The diseased person is no longer in touch with reality. He/she sincerely believes that he/she genuinely loves the victim(s), but in reality, what is termed "love" is a great need to appease the surging evil desire consuming his/her heart. Under the influence of the toxic desire, there could be expressions of acts of tenderness and goodwill towards the victim which are often exaggerated, unwarranted and inappropriate. Such acts may be deceptive enough to even mislead the victims into thoughts that the sick person actually loves them. But at the core, the acts are not premised on goodwill or caring affection for the victim but on an uncontrollable propulsion to be accepted and seen as relevant and loving.

As in our text, we see this malady most often between men and women especially centered (or meant to be centered) around sex. Sometimes, it is between friends and colleagues or even in the place of work between boss and subordinate. And also with organisations, celebrities and even religious settings like churches and prophetic leaders. A very unfortunate variety is that seen between parents and their children, most commonly between mothers and one of their sons which may, on occasions, lead to the sacrificing of other children for the sake of the son of the evil love.

A rather funny variety is that between fans and sports clubs especially when the game is soccer! It is not a laughing matter when a soccer "lover" kills himself or another person just because his club lost a match or he was prevented from watching the game.

What we are saying here is that in all cases of febrile love, hyperpyrexia will eventually ensue. Depending on the severity of the case, the result may be as mild as a few slaps and kicks. But then it may be a rape followed by deep apologies and expression of love (as in the case between Sechem and Jacob's daughter, Dinah) or by intense hatred and further harm as with the children of David we just read about. In Nigeria today, the victim may be unfortunate to be bathed in hydrochloric acid just because the taxi driver greeted the lover too familiarly. The possibilities are endless.

Treatment

Both the afflicted and the victim need to be treated. The victim must appreciate the abnormal nature of the relationship and flee! Now, fleeing does not necessarily mean physically running away from the sick person and abandoning him/her but rather removing yourself from the very circumstances which make you a victim. There may be the creation of physical gap but the more important gaps must be spiritual. This is a disease premised on lust and the solution is to flee by not giving it any space of operation.

The sick person too needs urgent attention lest the fever consumes him/her. This is not a condition that will respond to physical tepid sponging or even application of ice. The spiritual pyrogen called lust is not moved by such things. The anti-pyrogen needed is the Blood of Jesus that was shed on the Cross at Calvary.

So, whether as a victim or as the sick, spiritual empowerment is required through faith in Jesus Christ for personal salvation and deliverance from these evil works.

Are you, or someone close to you suffering from a febrile love relationship - either as the sick or as the victim? My counsel is that you go before Christ in prayer now for permanent resolution. The Good News is that He has paid for it all to save you.

This link should be helpful: http://fik.so/pray
God bless you.

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The Bible says:

"Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load." (Gal 6:1-5)

As members of the same body of Christ, it is the duty of every believer to bear the burdens, especially the spiritual burdens of one another. However, we are not usually careful about two snares:

One, the temptation to feel superior and therefore do the good deed condescendingly and often nonchalantly.

Two, forgetting that we have our our filthy burden of sins.

Therefore, we are reminded that we must not only obey the Lord in doing good, but also to do it with grace and gentleness and respect, fully mindful that the object is also a joint-heir of our common heritage in Christ.

Further, while we sympathetically bear the loads (sins, infirmities, etc) of our brethren, we must responsibly continue to be fully aware of our own weaknesses too - and bear the load (repentance, humidity, holiness, etc), not ever imagining that we are yet perfected or superior to others.

Our sense of victory over sin should always be in ourselves alone and not by comparing ourselves with others who happen to be struggling in the area where we seem to have achieved victory. Remember the Pharisee praying in the temple comparing himself with the tax collector. In all these, know that despite your personal "victories", you only stand by grace, not your power.

It is well.

People who are born of Christian parents as well as those who have been nurtured from their youth in Christian homes are by reason of long association very familiar with all fine points of Christian doctrines and practice. They are “conditioned” to
living the expected “Christian” life - performing all necessary ceremonies and abiding by ethical expectations. The problem usually is that from youth they “accepted” the teaching about Jesus Christ being the Messiah and Son of God. It is just part of their general education! It is much like accepting from their school teachers that 2+2=4 or that the earth is spherical or that melanin is responsible for skin pigmentation. They are all mere facts to be accepted (and if in doubt, one may even attempt an independent verification). The level is primarily intellectual and maybe, moral – but not in the least spiritual. They know everything about Christ without knowing Christ.

The doctrinal truths become very familiar but there was never a time as they were growing up when they “came to themselves” and were convicted of their personal utter unworthiness before a most holy God. Even when some of such people “confess” Christ, it is often with a mind of concordance with the correctness of doctrine and not with any personal revelation of Christ. Meanwhile everybody around assumes that all these young people are saved.

I remember the testimony a lady minister gave sometimes ago about the happy “embarrassment” she experienced when her teenage son announced one day that he had, that day, accepted Christ as his Lord and Saviour. The embarrassment
was because the boy was already a leader of the youth Christian group in both school and local Church (Pentecostal for that matter) with all the usual paraphernalia such as ability to pray, expound scriptures and manifest spiritual gifts. How many more people are still in such a position? Only God knows. The problem is further compounded by the fact that when these people are still little kids, their parents tend to be emotionally defensive on spiritual issues concerning them. You know, the natural tendency for a Christian parent is to presume that his/her child is already saved. But we all know that salvation of the parent is not inheritable by the children. Each child must come to Christ individually – just as the parents too got saved. Incidentally, this was one of the problems that introduced nominalism to the early Church. (i.e. the presumed salvation of offspring).

Another compounding factor is that by the time these children grow up, their level of entrenchment in the Christian religion makes it very difficult for them to have the grace to accept that they need to be spiritually converted. This is not always a
simple matter of pride or arrogance: many of them sincerely equate Christian religion with salvation and wonder what more they were expected to do. It is a serious problem indeed.

The situation may even be said to be more serious in non-Pentecostal denominations because of social traditions and doctrines of men. Starting with the Roman Catholic Church and filtering down to most of the traditional protestant
denominations, the practices of infant baptism and “confirmation” have, together, watered down the need for spiritual conversion. They have resulted in many generations of those that claim to have been born into Christianity, sealed with the
infant water baptism and ‘confirmed’ in the faith by affirmation during the ceremony called Confirmation. The consequence is that except in a few cases where the persons have, through grace, yielded to the Holy Spirit, these persons’ claim to
salvation is based on wrong (unscriptural) premises. They rely on their membership (or their parents’ membership) of the local assembly; they rely on the fact that they have been sprinkled with water at infancy; they rely on their regular
attendance of church service; and finally, they rely on the fact that they have recited the Nicene Creed or some modification of it. Incidentally, the Creed is doctrinal rather than penitent in content and purpose. Even though a few denominations insert the admission of being a ‘miserable sinner’ in their Confession of Faith, the act and the ceremony remain purely intellectual and emotional rather than spiritual. The needful essence of repentance and spiritual U-turn is loudly absent. Christ is verbally professed but not revealed. Hence the human spirit is not regenerated and the Holy Spirit is not received.

Nonetheless, the Church is blessed today by the move of the Spirit across every denomination. So, in every congregation now are believers who have had the revelation of Christ and truly experienced the new birth. No single denomination has the monopoly of salvation. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Baptist Convention, the Pentecostal / Charismatic movement, the Seventh Day Adventist Church, etc, as many as have yielded to the Spirit have been saved. Unfortunately, there is the majority of persons in all these denominations who are not yet saved. Oh! How glorious it would be for all the people that are already attending church and are ignorantly supposing themselves to be genuine Christians, to receive the grace of God to be born from above by faith and cease to depend on their inheritance in flesh. What is born of flesh is flesh.

So, I speak to you, dear believer, "Is your child saved?" Did the members of your household actually come to Christ through the gospel, personally believing in the heart and confessing with the mouth the Lord Jesus? It will be a monumental disaster to assume that our kids are saved when they actually never had the conversion experience.

Please, make sure.

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.

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.