It’s the life that qualifies the offering

“You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?”

Matthew 23:19 NIV

I’ve been concerned in recent years about the over-emphasis in many churches on money and what looks many times like a continued ‘push’ to get people to give more and more. It’s not so much the call to give that concerns me, but the subtle lie that is being taught that it doesn’t matter how you live as long as you ‘pay your tithe’, God is happy.

God is looking for men and women who can bring to him, and be for him, offerings in righteousness, so that his will may be done on earth. The Bible teaches that the bringing of offerings is always a key part of worshiping God. Yet it is helpful to understand how God looks at offerings, or how he weighs the offerings we bring.

Let me illustrate this by going back to the very first offerings that anyone ever brought to God, in Genesis chapter 4. These were the offerings of the two brothers, Cain and Abel.

“In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought an offering — fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.”

Genesis 4:3-5 NIV

For centuries theologians and ordinary believers have pondered on and tried to explain why God accepted Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s. Understanding that God is not erratic and that he is impartial, so many find it strange why this would have happened. Most have concluded that the reason lies in the fact that Cain knew that God required an animal offering to bring a blood sacrifice, but he came all the same with a sacrifice that lacked blood. While I have no problem with this answer yet I see a fundamental issue here as I read this passage that is very instructive for each of us as we seek to bring an offering to God.

Let’s look at the passage again:

“The Lord looked with favour on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favour”

Do you see what I see? When these men brought their offerings it was not only at their offerings that God was looking, he was looking at the man and his offering.

“The Lord looked .. on Abel and his offering”

“The Lord looked … on Cain and his offering”

Indeed God first looked at the man before he looked at his offering. I want you to get the lesson here – God never receives an offering from any man or woman without looking at the life bringing the offering. It doesn’t matter how huge the offering is. It doesn’t matter how much good the offering is able to do, God will never look at an offering without looking at the man or woman bringing the offering.

I believe that what happened here was that when God looked at Cain, the man’s life disqualified his offering. It is our life that qualifies our offerings not the other way around. It is an error to feel that your offerings to God will make you have a better standing with him. God never looks at what a man is bringing him without looking at the man himself who is bringing it. That’s why I find the message some pastors are conveying today, namely, that your offering qualifies you, to be very concerning.

This was the same error the Lord Jesus spoke about among the Pharisees, the religious leaders of his day. You see, the Pharisees were preaching that there was a kind of power in the people’s offering. So much so that they could swear by their offering especially if it were an offering of gold! Apparently the greater the monetary value of the offering, the greater the power it had!

““Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’ You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred? You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’ You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?”

Matthew 23:16-19 NIV

The Lord referred to them as blind guides, or blind leaders, or blind ministers, because it is only when leaders are blinded by covetousness that they fall for this lie and teach this error. It’s covetousness that leads to this error. When ministers begin to exalt gain above godliness there is a way they will make the gold and the offerings become exalted above the temple (the worship) and the altar (consecration). Beware of covetousness – it distorts doctrine and introduces error.

Jesus asked;

“You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?”

Matthew 23:19 NIV

It’s the altar that qualifies the gift, not the gift the altar. It’s our inner life that qualifies the offering and not the other way around. There are some offerings that God cannot accept because of the life behind the offering. If you first place your life on the altar, then any other gift you place thereon will be holy. If not you are wasting your time.

This Criminal’s Gratitude

Walking by Faith in Winter Pt2

“The first time I was brought before the judge, no one came with me. Everyone abandoned me. May it not be counted against them. But the Lord stood with me and gave me strength so that I might preach the Good News in its entirety for all the Gentiles to hear. And he rescued me from certain death. Yes, and the Lord will deliver me from every evil attack and will bring me safely into his heavenly Kingdom. All glory to God forever and ever! Amen.” – 2 Timothy 4:16-18 NLT

Last week we began to learn from the emotionally low apostle who was obviously lonely in prison at the tail end of his ministry and life, how to walk by faith when it’s ‘winter’. And one key thing that stood out for us was that, for Paul, faith was a choice based on his conviction that God is good and faithful; and a confidence that God would never leave him nor forsake him no matter what life brought.

Now the third lesson here is this, that it is instructive to see how Paul not only believed that God was with him, but was quick to see the hand of God in it all. He said –

‘But the Lord stood with me and gave me strength so that I might preach the Good News in its entirety for all the Gentiles to hear.’

He saw the hand of God in the way that he was enabled to preach the Good News when he was on the point of being judged. A lesser man may have thought that if God didn’t do a miracle and free him from prison then God was not there. But Paul’s heart beat was different. He so trusted God that his prayer must have been – “Lord, as I go out to this court to be judged, empower me to preach the Gospel so that all the lost will hear and be saved. Use me for your Kingdom and Glory’. This man so trusted that God was good and in control that he never lost his passion for the Kingdom of God and for the Glory of God. Wow! Bad times are never an excuse to lose a good heart; to lose the fire of God in us; to lose the hunger we have for souls and for his Kingdom to come.

It is when the devil deceives and convinces us that our troubles mean that God has forsaken us, that we begin to lose our faith in him and our faithfulness to him. What a challenge Paul brings us. He had a clear vision of God’s faithfulness, and of eternity, and the worth of the reward that awaited him. He knew that ‘God rewards those who earnestly seek him’. A clear vision of God’s faithfulness and of our eternal reward helps to put life’s present trials into proper perspective.

Some of you who are reading this now are going through a ‘winter’ season in your life. Be encouraged by Paul – don’t allow the cold of your winter, to chill out your faith in the faithfulness of God. Listen to Paul –

“The Lord will deliver (you) from every evil attack and will bring (you) safely into his heavenly Kingdom. All glory to God forever and ever! Amen”

Declare His Glory among the nations

“Declare his glory among the nations, his marvellous deeds among all peoples.” – Psalm 96:3 NIV

The prophet Habakkuk prophesied many centuries ago the quest of God on the earth;

“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” Habakkuk 2:14

If you want to understand what our God is up to in the world today, this is it: He wants to see the whole earth filled with the knowledge of his glory as the waters cover the sea – completely saturated.

Now it does not say ‘the earth will be filled with the glory of the LORD’, because that is already the case. The glory of the LORD is already everywhere. It fills the earth. The prophet Isaiah heard the Seraphim affirming this;

‘They were calling out to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Heaven’s Armies! The whole earth is filled with his glory!”’ – Isaiah 6:3 (NLT)

So the reality in the world today is not that the Glory of God is not everywhere (indeed even creation testifies of his glory), but the knowledge of that glory is what is lacking in many places. You see, when men see this glory and lack the knowledge of that glory, they (with the help of the enemy) often misinterpret it and end up ascribing that glory to other gods. This was what happened in the Lycaonian city of Lystra;

“The people saw what Paul did. They called with loud voices in the language of the people of Lycaonia, “The gods have become like men and have come down to us.” They said that Barnabas was Jupiter. Paul was called Mercury because he spoke more than Barnabas. The god of Jupiter was in a building near the gate leading into the city. The religious leader of that place brought cattle and flowers to the gate. He and many other people wanted to burn these as gifts in an act of worship to Paul and Barnabas.”

Paul and Barnabas had to rush out into the crowd to stop them, and then to go on to share the knowledge of that glory with these men, which led to a large number becoming worshippers of the true God.

Today there are millions worshiping all kinds of false gods around the world, ascribing to them the glory that is God’s, just because they lack the knowledge of that glory.

The Psalmist says;

“Declare his glory among the nations, his marvellous deeds among all peoples.” – Psalm 96:3 NIV

This is our call – to declare his glory among the nations. The preaching of the Gospel like Paul and Barnabas did in Lystra is how we declare that glory. It is in the face of Christ Jesus and his finished work on the cross, that men come to know the glory of God.

According to joshuaproject.net there is presently a total population of 3.14 billion people who are unreached (or unevangelised). These are nations who have had little or no chance to hear the Gospel. This then is our call – to go and declare his glory among the nations. Let those who have not heard, hear and turn to him. All the unreached nations need to hear of his glory.

If you want to find out more about how you can be actively involved in declaring his glory among the nations, please contact me by replying to this devotional.

May all the nations worship him!

‘No shaking!’

“Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.” – Psalm 125:1 NIV

‘No shaking!’ is a popular catchphrase in Nigeria and it’s often used to affirm that the person or issue has no need to fear as no matter what happens they will prevail. As I read the words of the psalmist here;

“Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures forever.”

I believe that ‘No shaking’ should be the Christian’s catchphrase because just like Mt. Zion there’s no shaking for him.

When it says here that Mt Zion cannot be shaken it implies that they tried shaking it but didn’t succeed. Mt. Zion has faced all kinds of winds and storm but it cannot be shaken. It has faced all kinds of shakings but cannot be shaken, it just goes on standing forever.

You will never experience the unshakable power of God in you unless the shakings comes. Don’t fear shakings, just know that like Mount Zion you cannot be shaken. Say to yourself as you face life’s storm ‘No shaking!’. It does not mean that the pressures won’t come upon you and sometimes even seem as if it will crush you. It doesn’t mean that the wind won’t push you here and there but it means that you will not be moved from your place. It may not look like it now while the storm lasts, but you will be standing after the wind is gone. You will not be displaced from your place of destiny. Nothing will move you out of God’s love. Nothing can separate you from the purpose of God. You cannot be shaken. ‘No shaking!’.

But the key to all of this is TRUST. It is ‘those who trust in the Lord (that) are like Mount Zion’. It’s those that trust in the Lord that remain unshaken. So don’t bother about looking at the thermometer of the heat around you. Rather watch the trust-o-meter of your heart and set your heart to trust him come what may.

So I’ve given you a new way to describe the Christian life –  ‘No shaking!’.

Do You Sing In The Night?

“… God my maker, who gives songs in the night” Job 35:10 (NIV)

Songs normally follow victories. It is not natural to rejoice while our troubles last. Yet this is the privilege we have as God’s children. God gives songs to his children in the nights of life – the nights of weeping, difficulty, or trouble. These are those times when things seem impossible, when you have waited and waited and there seems to be no solution in sight. When things fail to go the way you hoped, and it seems foolish to go on hoping. Those are the times when God gives us songs.

It is like those three Hebrew young men – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who incurred the wrath of the ungodly king and had to face fire. They threw them into the midst of the fire and I believe that the first thing God gave them were songs of peace right in the midst of the fire. God didn’t stop them from entering the fire but He gave them praise songs inside a blazing furnace!

God longs to fill us with peace and praise right in the midst of life’s storms. I recall having experienced this myself sometimes in my walk with the Lord. I remember one time just before marriage when I was trying to get a new job and transfer to another town. Everything had been working well – the vacancy was there, the establishment wanted me urgently, and the process of employment had begun moving. Then all of a sudden everything froze. They couldn’t locate my file, people became unco-operative and I was running out of time, money and hope. I prayed and prayed and nothing changed. Then one day in the midst of all the trouble, when there was still no hope in sight, I heard a song inside of me. Naturally I wasn’t feeling like singing, yet here was my heart bubbling with a song of praise. So I yielded to my heart and sang out the words.

“Everything is gonna be alright in Christ,

Everything is gonna be alright in Christ,

Lift your hands and praise His name,

For eternity the same,

For I know

Everything is gonna be alright in Christ”

Things didn’t change on that day. But things did change and I found that every word of that song came to pass. If we were to go by human reasoning you would expect God to give us the songs when the morning of victory has come to replace the nights of hopelessness. Yes we must sing when the victory comes, but this kind of song we are talking about here is not the type that victory brings, rather they are the types that bring the victory. When we accept these songs from God and sing them, they go ahead to release the victory.

Jehoshaphat understood this principle of ‘singing-in’ your victory. In 2 Chronicles 20:18, 19 (NIV) immediately he and the people heard God’s promises they “….. bowed … to the ground…. in worship before the LORD ……and praised the Lord, the God of Israel, with very loud voice! “. Note that their situation had not yet changed. They were still in danger. Oh, but their hearts had changed –from mourning to dancing – because they chose to believe God’s word. Note also, that their problem was not even solved the day they began singing. Yet the next day they went on singing. They were committed to praising God even though things didn’t seem to be getting better. Then, as they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against their enemies. As we receive and sing the songs God gives us in the night, we allow God to undertake for us.

The reason then that God wants to give us songs in the midst of the night is so as to help us walk in faith. He brings those songs to reassure us of His presence and to strengthen our faith. And He knows that as we sing even when we do not feel like it, we win. Please do remember to sing in the nights of life.

The Goal of Christianity

“Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” – Matthew 10:39 NIV

The phrase that our Lord used here is what got me thinking;

“Whoever finds their life…”

I thought, ‘Why? Finding one’s life is the general theme of most of our popular Christian books and messages today.’ Whether it is, ‘Your Best Life Now!’ or ‘How to Maximise Yourself’, the central message we are preaching and being taught is that one of the main goals for life in Christ, is for one to find oneself (who God created one to be) and to maximise one’s God-given potential. On the face of it this does not look like a bad message at all and indeed there are many Bible verses that support the idea that God desires the best for us and wants us to be the best we can be. But the problem is not whether there is any truth in this message, but rather, in the central position we have come to give to it. For in placing the cart before the horse we have introduced an error.

The goal of Christianity is not for you to pursue finding yourself or your purpose or even finding meaning. Those are all by-products of the life of a Christian. The goal of the Gospel is for you to find Christ. Not just at salvation, but to make the pursuit of finding Christ your goal for the rest of your life.

Let’s look closely at the paradox of this tough declaration of our Lord. First he says, “Whoever finds their life will lose it”. If our chief aim is the pursuit of finding our life, we will lose its essence. We will never find it. We will never be fulfilled and we will never fulfil God’s purpose for us. Rather he says, “…. whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” God is not against our finding purpose and meaning and becoming fulfilled. No, he is right here showing us that there is only one way to get there – by losing your life. By giving up the pursuit of your own fulfilment for Christ’s sake, and rather making Christ your only pursuit, so that your life pursuit becomes like that of Paul:

“But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things… I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” – Philippians 3:7-8,10-11 (NIV)

So, this is the Gospel: Turn away from pursuing anything else and let Christ be your pursuit number One. Let the cry of your heart be, ‘I want to know Christ and become like him’. Then every other thing about your life will fall into place.

God’s field is the whole world

“The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one ….”   (Matthew 13:38 NIV)

Most of my life I have understood the field in the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13:24 -30 to be referring to the Church and how the enemy comes to plant weeds (false brethren with false doctrine) in the midst of God’s people. This has been the classic focus of interpretation for as long as I have preached or heard others preach from this parable. Indeed this can be a lesson inferred from this story. Yet as I read it again recently, I saw that one obvious key to the interpretation is the explanation of the parable that the Lord himself goes on to give his disciples in Matt. 13: 37- 43. And in his explanation he says this ‘The field is the world …’

The field is the whole world, not just the church. You may wonder why this is important. You see, we often get caught up in the mentality that the only group that our God is involved with, is the Church. And that he has left the world with its madness and only focuses on the Church and those she can win. This is not true. God owns the whole world and is fully involved in it. God loves the whole world and sees it as his field. God is very actively involved in every area of the world right now, because it is his field.. As this parable says, he’s sowing his good seed in the whole world and expecting a harvest from the whole world.

There is a way that when we, as the Church, do not understand that the whole world is God’s field, we begin to withdraw from many segments of the world, and are not available to work with God. God wants his Church to be engaged in every aspect of society, because the world is his field. Yes, the enemy has sown weeds everywhere we look in our society, but God is not going to allow this world just to go to hell. He is going to get a mighty harvest. In the parable we see how careful God is that no one should perish when he says:

“ ‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.’ ” – Matthew 13:29 -30 NIV

With all the madness going on in our world God is ‘not willing that any one should perish.

What this parable is teaching us, is, that we need to be engaged in the world everywhere from classrooms to boardrooms, because God’s field is the whole world.

We need to have Christians everywhere.  ‘Let them grow together….’ he said. Alas, it’s only by being in the world, and not being of it, that we can determine the size of the final harvest.

When the Lord said “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” – (Mark 16:15), he was saying “Penetrate all spheres of society and preach the Gospel.”

It means to go into the world of children, and that of retirees; into the world of entertainment and that of politics; into the world of business and that of the unreached in the ends of the earth. The whole world is his field. We must not just think of creating an alternative church-world, but rather think of how to penetrate the whole world. For example instead of Christians thinking of having the Christian political party, there should be on-fire-for-Jesus believers entering the so-called corrupt political parties and being God’s worker there to bring about a harvest from there too. Instead of just building Christian schools we need more Christians called as teacher-missionaries into our public schools.

This is our call – Let us GO INTO ALL THE WORLD. If you have not yet found where you should be penetrating, I challenge you today, to ask God where he wants you to be! I am certain that for most of us we are already in the place, we only need to awake to the reality of our calling and begin to see, for example, that secular school where we work, as our primary calling, and not the worship group we are part of at church. The latter is only where we go to refuel for the real task. Let us GO!

Whatever Happens Tell Him

“Whatever happens conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ” Philippians 1:27 (NIV)

What a big challenge this scripture is to me – “whatever happens“. There are times when I feel justified to “be myself” and really express myself not minding if God is pleased or not. For example a while ago, someone who had destroyed my property went on to say that my claim was a lie, instead of apologising. That really made me mad and I spoke to him angrily. I was soon proved right and he then apologised; but I had lost my peace. I had not conducted myself in a manner that was worthy of the gospel I believe in nor the Lord that I follow.

There are times when we feel justified to walk in the flesh – in moments of anger, discouragement, failure, disappointment, pain, tiredness, stress, etc. But God wants us to grow into the image of his Son, who was able to endure the cross without sinning,

“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly“1 Peter 2:22 & 23 (NIV)

There is a key here to how Jesus was able to please the Father in even such an extreme situation. He made it his habit to pour out his heart to God. There is a short verse in the same book of Peter that I have found very important in my daily walk with Jesus. It says

“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” 1 Peter 5:7 (NIV)

When I go immediately to God and tell him all that I am going through and all that is going through me, I always find that I receive grace to face whatever may be before me in a manner worthy of Christ.

Beloved I may not know what you may be facing now but I know that he cares and desires that you respond in the right way in that situation. He is waiting to help you if only you will pour out your heart to him. I pray that God will teach all of us how to cast our cares on him every moment and leave it there. He really does care and he is at work in us to make us true disciples focused on pleasing him no matter what we may be going through.

My Soul Longs for You

“I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory.” – Psalm 63:2 NIV

I love this Psalm. I find the thirst of David’s soul for God, powerfully attractive.

“You, God, are my God,

earnestly I seek you;

I thirst for you,

my whole being longs for you,

in a dry and parched land

where there is no water.” Psalm 63:1

His soul has one pure desire – God. ‘All I want is you Lord. It’s you Lord’ was the cry of his heart. How different it is from my own heart so many times. So many things creep in and make my longing dull and my cry so feeble. And then I begin to measure what matters by what I can see and touch. And the tempter tells me that it’s ok to pursue other things, for these are the real issues before me. The good becomes the enemy of the best. O Lord help me!

The soul athirst for God is not longing for something that is unreal. It is real because that one has tasted some of it before, and he knows there is much more. Hear David

‘I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory’ (v2). David wants more, because of what he has already tasted.

I, too, like David, have tasted God in the past. I have experienced him – I have seen him. I can’t always articulate it well in words, but I know my past experience with him. I remember seasons of deep intimacy. I recall times when he came very close. I recall my intercourse with the Almighty when he spoke and I heard, and when he acted, I saw it. I remember the joy within my soul. I have beheld his power and his glory. The God who is there. I have seen him. I have tasted him and I know he is good.

This is why I am refusing to continue to fall for the lie of the enemy of my soul. This God is real and he is all I need. No matter what life brings, with its ups and downs, I won’t be deceived about my real need. I need more of Him. I want more.

It’s true that I don’t have all the answers to all the questions that plague my mind, but I know that my God is real and that he satisfies my soul with his living waters. It’s true that troubles may last and prosperity may flee, but my need is deeper.

So my soul thirsts for him. My soul longs to be with him – to continually drink of him. This is life. This is what I need. I do not seek in vain, for it is real. He satisfies my soul.