Usher in the Kingdom

The Situation

Kenya is world famous especially because of our long distant runners who year after year continue to dominate headlines in major cities of the world as they win marathon after marathon. This popularity has since been replicated in other areas and we are now a country also feared for our heightened levels of corruption.

When I try to escape the collective stereotyping, I’m told my name betrays me and our ancestral mother who is currently also known by the name of the God of heavens turned into a cannibal by eating her own children. Too drunk and too confused from the intoxicating wine she bought with the children’s inheritance she calls out ‘kuku’, for her toddlers to carry and enthrone her come 2017.

Down at the lakeside where the music never stops there’s a new mourning as a son of the lake has been bewitched and he now blares a new song of how to fry children instead of the delicacies of the glorious lake. Instead of making music, he’s resorted to the culinary arts but alas, his dishes are his own siblings, his ‘people’!

In a nutshell, that’s the fate of our youth under NYS and Youth Fund managers.  It goes to show and I pray this makes us to stop and think,  there are only two tribes in Kenya, the Tribe of the Cannibals whose staple food is every member of the second tribe, the Tribe of the Blind.

The members of Tribe of the Blind grope in the dark as screams rock their ‘night’ every time the first tribe strikes. The ‘Blind’ always think that enemy is one of them and so they grapple with each other and chant of how wonderful it must be to be a member of the Cannibals because there never seems to be any chaos in their camp. Without knowledge they elect their enemies and enthrone them as chiefs and kings.

The youth of this country have no future because of such people and others with the same gargantuan appetites that have made the state of our nation to be as in the days of Ahab where ‘shameless idolatry and gross degeneracy’ ruled.  Here people worship money on altars smoking from the sacrifices of their own children.

The Solution

People who have good will for this country are facing enemies who bent on destruction and whose only concern is to live for now and to live like kings. These enemies are worse than terrorists for they kill in the millions as they deprive the youth of their inheritance.

To fight these enemies’ calls for new strategies, for when we tried the police, they corrupted them, when we tried the law, they bought the lawyers, the magistrates, the judges and the supreme judges when we tried using commissions, they gave them chicken and so now we are left to liberate ourselves without looking to anyone for help.

The first thing we need to do is to find the salve that will open the eyes of the Tribe of the Blind. The Tribe of the Blind is the majority of us who do not see the big picture. Most of us who do not understand who the real enemies are, but continue to fight each other, calling each other names according to a nomenclature invented by those who divide and rule.

Time has come to discard segregation by use of vernacular what and should inform any such judgement is the character of the person. 

We need to inform so as to open the eyes of our people, and this then begs the question; who are ‘Our People’?

  

These are the men and women of this country whose desires are first, to build a cohesive nation, a nation where there is no discrimination and where one is ensured peaceful existence. Secondly is that we build a nation with a vision for posterity, which means that we put the aspirations and dreams of our youths as priority.

Myles Munroe once said “As a pregnant mother is responsible for the welfare and health of the child she carries, so is every nation responsible for the generation within its national womb”

‘Our people’ desire a corruption free nation and a Kenya where people value humanity above stolen prosperity and where every person’s dream can come true.

From the pulpit to the dais we need to point out the real enemies of our nation. We need to pull down everyone who is a vision killer and who has a record of stealing from the public by ensuring that they do not hold any public office.  Thieves cannot continue to become leaders in this nation. It is time for that change and this change will not be effected by laws but the consciousness of the electorate who will look at track records of those vying and put the right people in positions of service.

The church has the biggest share of this work and it has to fold its sleeves for as they say “it’s time to swallow the bone”. We have an agenda, an agenda to make Christians; that is, people who have a thinking, a doing and a heart similar to that of Christ. Christ is all about love; love for others and love for God.

The church then cannot continue to expect change in the mind-sets of the already blinded, adulterated adherents, especially within the youth by serving them for two hours only on Sundays then for rest of the six days of the week they are bombarded with messages of hate from deviant politicians and all manner of indecencies especially from social media with new projects that advocate for ‘self-release’ like the one which has come to be known as X.

If there is going to be any meaningful change in our society, there has to be a rethink of how we teach the next generation of citizens of this country.  Being the spiritual government, the church cannot abdicate this task to the political government. The church’s core mandate is to ensure elimination of retrogressive thought patterns in the society by educating through discipleship on Christian good practise and belief.

Everyone likes to exonerate himself from blame and that’s what the church has been doing, distancing itself from its responsibilities and blaming politicians of the decay in society but the politicians have not done by themselves, the members of the church are guilty too of propagating  ethnic hatred and when not, their silence speaks volumes.

The church has to understand that it is the one that holds the salve that will open the eyes of the Tribe of the Blind and it can only do so by ensuring that first the leadership  in the church is above board and is well trained on Kingdom principles.

Jesus did not take the message of the Kingdom of God to the world alone; he recruited twelve people and for three years taught them in theory and in practice of how to ‘change the world’. How then, can we expect to change the world without properly training our leaders?

Trained leaders will then come up with an informed church curriculum that will train its members of on Kingdom Principles especially those concerning leadership.  The teaching plan(s) has to be ambitious enough so as to counter the six day a week deception that members are exposed to and this calls for incorporation of all current technological platforms as tools for discipleship. We have to use what the generation of today are using i.e. Social Media, Television and the Radio.

The teachings should aim at making everyone who engages in them teachers tapping into the power of oral traditions.

When I look at Nehemiah’s rebuilding process, it teaches that before embarking on any project, we need to:-

         i.            Seek the face of God through PRAYER  and seek for favour and success

       ii.            Need not be shy to ASK for  help from those who can provide the resources we need to build

      iii.            Go ahead and START rebuilding without necessarily waiting for numbers

     iv.            When others join in, SHARE the workload so as to finish faster

       v.            DON’T  listen to distractors

     vi.            Be CONFIDENT that God is able to give your victory in your endeavours

    vii.            Be ready to PROTECT what you are building

For as the Presidency and other people of good will continue to fight against the current breed of vision killers we have a job to ensure that the future generations never again fall prey to such.   

The next generation has to be equipped and empowered by first being made to understand who they are in Christ. It is our job to teach them and to protect the future of our great nation. 

P/s This is a band I love. Love the worship

United Pursuit  - Let it Happen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvsAV-MgGao

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Bleeding Corpses

From the stories doing the rounds on Kenyan media it appears that some people did not just read criminal novels and view bank robber movies, they actually took notes.

The degree and levels of intricate planning suggested depicts skewed minds that work round the clock scheming and following the manual on 'How to efficiently rob a nation' , ripping through the very souls of Kenyans as they steal as much as they can.

On the backdrop of all this are the voices of our noisy politicians echoing the need for 'their' people to register as voters so that they can oust the status quo or sustain it depending on who's talking. The reasoning is, that to get or retain power assures us of lesser thievery but as is, it's a bigger slice of the stolen cake.

Every five years we are treated to the loud blare of the same song deafening our ears of how we need to take the power in our hands by registering as voters then come election day we line up under the scorching sun to elect persons who would consume us slowly like warm peanuts.

After celebrating our man or mourning the stolen votes we start another five year stretch of theatrics as the schemers get to work siphoning what would have been our young people's dreams and making sure that yet another Kenyan toddler never lives to see their first birthday.

We are blinded to the fact that we are like a hotdog being chewed from both ends and yet being squeezed from the top and the bottom and in time we'll be no more but a blob of poop swimming down a sewer.

We are in deep slumber inside our cocoons lamenting of how vile politics has become, and because we've had it hard we wish the same for others, even our very own kin and we quickly pull down persons that appear to have any vision for this country, munching up their dreams and stamping on their very existence.

We'd rather shield 'our own' wishing all the while we'll transform into a beautiful butterfly from the ugly caterpillar that we are, forgetting that the rot is within us and we can only heal if we rid of that rot or by an act of God.

Maybe that's exactly what we need, an act of God for we have become complacent and patriotic to the very people that oppress us and we sing of the great pumpkins in the land of oppression that we'd rather eat than the grapes awaiting us in the promised land.

We enjoy the lashing and the name calling that is paraded on pedestals of power as they jostle for our attention and we have been reduced to the rubber stamp that is the final assent to our own crucifixion.

We need an act of God, one such that no one will have the nerve to take claim but one such that will turn the tide so that the oppressed will be liberated and the scoffers eliminated.

Who are my brothers and sisters? Only those who do the will of my Father whom I thank for the hope and also for faith, for in my little self I may not do much but by His power I can say to this mountain move and it moves.

And so, this mountain of corruption I declare death unto your roots, I declare that no more shall we bear your burdens. I declare that you are defeated in Jesus name and may all that eat at your bosom be astounded and shriveled.

May they be deprived of their wine and their oil. May they know pain as they have caused pain.

Lord turn around our condition and let us again sing of your wondrous works. Amen.

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Cry Africa

Africa has been known as the Dark Continent for ages and this name seems to be embedded deeper and deeper as from what we see all around from acts that fill our hearts with grief. From the 147 who lost their lives in the Garissa attack of whom 22 were Christians attending Christian Union, Boko Haram carrying away girls , the recent South African xenophobic attacks to the drowning African migrants headed to Europe.
It’s a hard time for Africans but more so for the African Christian. This poem is dedicated to true sons and daughters of Africa. To those who cling on to the name of Jesus to the very end. Let’s pray for Africa.
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 As I sing Hallelujah screams fill the air and hell ascends
Gunfire rocks the air in staccato and it seems it never ends
Jumping over bodies strewn on painted floors
Splattered red with young blood so early gone

In this caving shadows my heart crouches and hides
Scared of men hoisting black flags who come in the nights
To carry my sisters off never to be known dead or alive
Scarring mothers, leaving fathers with open wounds, deprived

I scram and gasp as I grasp a straw of freedom
Thinking my neighbor was surely going to be my keeper
Surely he understands but he turns and wildly screams
“Burn the foreigners, and rob them clean”

I scamper and get into a boat that’ll take me out of this hole
Am hungry and tattered but as the boat rocks am full of hope
To see the Promised Land where my soul will be whole
But midway, my midnight they decide the twelve must drown

Where do I run to, oh me wretched soul for I was born African
Al Shabab makes me their Shabaha to them I’m the Kaffir
Boko Haram hunts me down for to them I’m Mwana Haram.
The South African shouts at me “Mabahambe “
As they ‘weka tyre’ and burn the blackness into me

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MyDressMyChoice

#MyDressMyChoice is what has been trending for the past week following the undressing of a woman who was allegedly scantily dressed.

Dressing is and has been a controversial issue from time immemorial and from the onset when our colonizers came into this country and found our ancestors walking bare chested, they labelled them indecent and introduced their own attire which we religiously adopted.

As Christians we agree that there is what is termed as indecent exposure and we do insist that practising Christians carry themselves in such a manner to reflect that they have an understanding of what their bodies represent, which is the temple of the Lord. Paul in his instructions asks women to dress modestly.

1 Timothy 2:9 NIV

I also want the women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, adorning themselves, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls or expensive clothes,

Most of our beloved women who are practising Christians will sometimes go overboard and dress indecently with over exposure and this is due to various factors. Mostly it is because no one has taught them why we insist on modesty when it comes to dressing. Lack of knowledge does not call for tongue lashing but rather men who term themselves as spiritually mature know that correction instilled with love and true teaching goes along way in creating a people that fear God and better still that understand His teachings.

The undressing of that particular woman was unfortunate but more unfortunate is the Christian who endorses such an act. The act itself is no different from the stoning that Jesus stopped. Two wrongs will never make a right and that for sure was a wrong.

Christians also tend to forget that we are in the world but not of the world. Understanding where we are is also understanding what to expect. Most Christians still expect the world to come up with an acceptable 'morality' forgetting that without God, man continues to deteriorate. The epitome of the ungodly is evident with the rise of strip clubs and the trend of casual relationships that do not view sexual contact as reserved for those in matrimony.

What then guides the man who doesn't have the heart of God ? The guide to such men is the law. There are laws that will take care of indecent exposure but those who have Christ are led by the spirit of God and the knowledge of His principles. The spirit of God convicts them when they are about to enter into sin and so they saved.

All said, a Christian person needs to understand that not all fashion trends are for us and that does not mean that we cover ourselves up from head to toe but let's appear different from those who are of the world by acknowledging that how we dress does not only affect us, but it also affects those around us of whom some are weak.

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COGS IN A CLOCK

I once had a dream that changed the way I perceived life. As a young man I used to ponder a lot about my purpose in life and then one night in that dream I got this wonderful revelation about how God views us.

In my dream I saw many cogs as those inside a winding clock or in an engine moving with varying speeds but all working together for a common goal. My eyes were then zoomed in to a particular cog and on that cog was the tinniest crack. The cog was chipped and as the cogs moved it slowly continued to crumble emitting coarse particles that made the cog to break and the system stalled.

To restore it, all it took was a change of the particular cog and a cleanup of the rest  and it was up and running as smoothly as if new.

I understood then that we are all small particles that form cogs that are pieces of a large system. If defective, we soon corrupt those around us and eventually all it takes is a replacement by God. Replacing all the defective pieces ensures that God's intended purpose for mankind is uninterrupted and untainned.

The purpose of men is to be an extension of God's efficiency and reliability. When we fail to be of positive influence we are failing in our purposes and we are calling for replacement. That's what I learnt that night in my bed that if I didn't shape up, God had no choice but to step up and replace me and so it is and will be for everyone. We are all parts of various cogs in God's plan for mankind and our failure affects a whole system.

Purging is God's way of cleaning up his system and He starts with the priests, who are supposed to reveal His overall plan, followed by leaders in governments because they ensure of His order, then everyone else who forms any other part of any other cog as varied as there are professions. God is always checking on us ensure His plan is not averted and that it doesn't stall. This check is commonly reffered to as judgement.

As the maker of a watch will not entertain a disfunctional unit, so will God not allow his plan for mankind to fail.

Much has been preached about redemption and of Christ who became the defective cog so that everyone else would be given an equal chance to remain in God's plan, yet most have insisted that they'd rather be different and be the ones to be replaced.

Well, God will not argue with anyone who willingly chooses not to be part of His plan and that's why His word records :-

Matthew 13:47-50 NIV

“Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish.  When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away.  This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

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Mankind Reloaded

When God created man, he created him different from the other animals. When it came time for creating man, God said, “let us make man in our own image” and thus man was created with all the attributes of God as are in the names of God. 

Man was a complete being yet on earth he did not find comfort in any of the animals that surrounded him that God had made and it made God to do a separation by putting man into deep sleep as a surgeon would, and from man he made woman. Therefore it is the union of the both man and woman that we have the complete ‘mankind’.

When they were in the garden, the woman proved to be the weaker partner and through her we see sin entering ‘mankind’. The male ‘mankind’ cannot feign innocence because it is a part taken from him that responds to the temptation of rebellion which is sin.  If woman had not been taken apart from him, he would still have sinned for ‘woman’ would still have been inside him. 

With this understanding God sends them afar from his favour and presence which is depicted by the Garden of Eden, and they go out unto the world to fend for themselves. 

Mankind also attracted death by their act, for sin attracts death. How? Any being that rebels against itself is destroying itself. Man had the Spirit of God operating inside him yet he doubted himself and believed in a lie.

Mankind lived for some time experiencing the effects of his rebellion until God desired for them to comprehend what sin is. God introduced the law and commanded man to observe it. Those who observed it received blessings but those who failed received curses.  

There came then a distinction of a people who adhered to God's instructions and those who did not. The Jewish people believed in God and tried as much to adhere to these set of instructions. Throughout the generations of man, no single man was able to observe the laws of God to the full and therefore able to escape death until Christ. 

Christ knew who He was, the son of God and when men perceived Christ’s boldness when he claimed that he was equal to God they described to him the ultimate test by crucifying him until he died. 

There is the understanding that God is eternal because there is no sin in him and death is a result of sin. If Christ had died and not resurrected, then there was no way he could have been righteous but when he resurrected it became obvious that he did not harbour sin. 

From this test, Christ proved to be as man was before sin entered into the world, that is,  as Adam before the act of rebellion. The spirit which operated in Christ that made him act in righteousness is the Spirit of God which is also the Holy Spirit.

Why then did he die if he was without sin?

God’s plan had never been to do away with mankind after the fall but to educate him of the presence and effects of his rebellion by introducing His laws. He wanted man to understand the depth of his actions. When it was evident to mankind that no man was capable of following God’s commands to the letter without the Holy Spirit operating inside him, He brought Christ his righteous son, who lived among the rest of ‘sinful’ mankind. The son has the same attributes as the Father as described by the names of God and as was Adam before the fall. 

When the 'unrighteous' men planned to kill Christ, He knew and He willingly agreed to pursue the path taken by all sinful men and in so doing took ‘sin’ upon himself. 

He died, which is being inactive from the physical body and for two days He existed active in the spirit so as to regain for the rest of mankind the attributes of the Father. On the third day he resurrected, for death is an attribute of sinners and His spirit was holy so death could not hold him any longer. 

He now had power over sin and therefore authority over its attributes including death. Those who acknowledge Christ make Him Lord or master over their lives. That authority over death is now bestowed upon those who believe and acknowledge Christ as the ‘man’ who acquired that lost glory.

The Church as the Bride

By recognizing a fellow man as the restorer of authority and lost glory, we who believe in Christ depict our  ‘femininity’ in that we declare that we are incomplete without Christ in the same way mankind is incomplete without the male and female man.

The church is therefore the bride of Christ that waits to be adjoined to its groom when he will be revealed, who made it pure and righteous through an act of selflessness. 

Mankind received death while being apart, that is, being in two entities, man and woman. 

As Adam had to be put into a 'deep sleep' for the woman to be pulled from within him, in reverse Christ had to die (deep sleep) so that all who believe in Him would be embedded back to him so as to receive life. 

The second coming of Christ is the celebration of this union.  The body of believers, which is the church, will celebrate for they have waited in earnest for his return. The first coming was a declaration of interest (while we were yet in sin) and payment of the bride price which was his death; the second coming is on the wedding day for He is alive for He resurrected.

 

Who can be saved?

Because we have understood that no man is able to fully follow the laws of God and everyone falls short in some way, we know that there is no greater man when we are compared against each other using that law. So it is apparent that everyone needs Christ so as to regain the position which God had made ‘mankind’ to exist in when He created him.

Everyone on earth is therefore a potential candidate for Christ's grace and salvation. 

IT is sad though that many have chosen not to agree with this truth and most believe that there are many ways to attain this pre-sin, Adamic position but no one else through history has died righteous and while advocating for the freedom of the rest of mankind from the curse of sin. 

Christ is the sole redeemer and all it takes is acknowledgement of this fact. Those who declare Christ as Lord and believe in their hearts are therefore saved. Not because they have been of good moral standing but just because they believe. 

Once we are saved, are there greater men than others?

When we accept Christ, we become one with Him we therefore formulate a part in His body. We are given particular position and job so as to make sure that the body is functioning in full synergy. What makes this possible is respect towards fellow believers with the knowledge that infighting is equal to the first sin of rebellion. First to God and to second to self.

Paul, who wrote most books in the New Testament, puts it nicely. We are members of one body and some are the feet, some the hands, some the eyes and so on. One part of the body cannot boast of being important than the other for when that part is missing, that body cannot be termed as to be ‘complete’ regardless of its ‘assumed’ importance. Those who think then that they are important should be the ones who are most humble because of this understanding. 

How will life be after Christ’s return?

Any woman who has been in marriage for a while will testify that no one ever really knows how marriage experiences will be like until you go through it. These are uncharted waters but what we know is that Christ being as the father, would lead us to a life that is not only pleasant but also fulfilling. In the Garden of Eden we are able to see a glimpse of that life, where there’s supernatural providence and peaceful co-existence of all God’s creation but the word of God clearly says that no person has ever seen nor even heard what God has prepared for those that He loves.

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Authority

Ever noticed how people who are in authority never ever think that that authority can be passed on to somebody else. Most people want to stay in their positions of power believing that they are best suited for that position and no one else can perform better than they do.

Sometimes life creates shifts which bring about changes that do not please us but regardless of us being pleased or not, it doesn’t change the fact that these changes have to come. Most people fight change and try as much to discredit new authority especially when that authority tends to term their position irrelevant.  Sometimes it is true that the new change is bad but sometimes, a closer look inside reveals who is the worst of tyrants.

As so it was with the teachers of the law in the times Christ. When Jesus appeared in the scene, doing things only previously done by prophets the crème de la crème of the religious faculties got shaken. Here is a new guy in town who is turning water into wine, healing the sick and God knows what else he is going to do. He’s been preaching with such authority and there’s a buzz in town all about him.

Then appears one guy who really gives them jitters and they don’t know what to think about it all. He was ‘supposedly’ blind as from their cross examination. He claims to have met Jesus and Jesus made mud using spit and then continued to apply it to the man’s eyes. He later asked him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. From there the man now claims he can see.

The teachers of the law wanted to hear it from the man’s parents for they did not for one minute believe his story.

Joh 9:18  But the Jewish leaders would not believe that the man had once been blind. They sent for his parents

When the parents came, after being summoned by the ‘authority’ of the teachers of the law they confirmed that actually the lad had been blind but they too did not understand the circumstances that led him to be able to see.

“Ask him, he is old enough to answer for himself” the parents said, with a tone which suggests that they did not like the direction that this form of questioning was headed.

They confronted the man again about his new found ability to see and in the process wanted him to paint Jesus as a sinner; the man just let himself go.

“Sinner or not, I don’t know (or care), what I know is, I was blind but now I see!”

Joh 9:26  "What did he do to you?" the Jewish leaders asked. "How did he heal your eyes?"

This next question just did it for the once blind man. He had started to see not just literally but was able to see what these teachers of the law really were.

“I told you once before, why do you ask me again, do you want to be his disciples?” obviously a question with a bit of sarcasm in it. 

From there the teachers of the law went on a rant about how they did not know nor acknowledge Jesus’ authority and actually believed that it came from the devil.

The man found this strange, for the teachers of the law were supposed to know these things. Anyone who came performing miracles had to be aforementioned in scripture and it was their job to know. He did not mince words with them because they were in a position of perceived ‘authority’ but made them know that this was the first time in history that a man who had been born blind had been given sight and whoever did such  a feat had to have come from God himself.

The leaders felt cornered and actually admitted that this man was actually teaching them. They did what every bully does and that is to get confrontational. They insulted him and chased him from attending their teachings.

I wouldn’t have minded if I was the blind man for certainly what they were teaching was amiss of something.

Later after Jesus had become popular and had done many great miracles, they plotted to kill him for they feared that they were becoming irrelevant. They wanted to kill a sinless man because he was going to take all their jobs and nobody was going to listen to them again for a greater teacher had appeared.

Because they did not believe in his teachings, they condemned themselves because the same scripture they had used to teach in temples and in the synagogues gave the account of the coming of Jesus. Jesus was to bring God’s children back to God by grace but those who did not believe in grace and stuck to the law were to be judged by the law.

When this new authority came, it came easy on sinners. All one had to do is to believe in Jesus and he was to be saved regardless of the sins one had committed. What the teachers of the law taught was Mosaic Laws; one’s act condemned or saved him. They now lay condemned by their own actions yet the new authority still cried when they crucified him.

“Forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing”.

 

This new authority turned out to be their only salvation.

 

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