Misplaced Loyalty

Bewildered, the man asked God, "But Father, why is it that these unbelievers are so prosperous and your own people are always struggling?!" God replied and said, "Unbelievers are very loyal. My people are not." "But God!” he said, "You don't know these unbelievers! Maybe it's because you're in Heaven. I’m on earth with them. They're not loyal at allll!" Then God broke it down to him; the average unbeliever may not be loyal to God, but he is certainly loyal to whatever he believes in. True story; I heard it from the horse's mouth...

This was the analogy he used: Give a group of unbelievers an equal amount of money to spend (say £100), and watch what they do with it. They’ll be very predictable. The alcoholic will go out and spend his money on drinks. The staunch Arsenal football fan will steer clear of the Chelsea merchandise store and head for the Arsenal one to get their latest kit or tickets to the next game. Similarly, the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings fanatics will treat themselves to as many of the books and movies as they can afford, and the committed gambler will go to the bookies to place some bets, leaving the music lovers to splash out on the magazines, latest albums releases or concert tickets that they’ve had their eyes on for a while. Get the picture? Their commitment is such that some of those football fans are ready to die for the teams they support (I believe they’re also known as hooligans), and when push comes to shove for the gambler, the man is ready to sell his child!

Now, give the same £100 to a group of believers and watch them. What do they do with it? The SAME things the unbelievers did...! I generalise, but isn’t it funny how true this is in the lives of most professed believers? We have the entire back catalogue of an artiste like Jay-Z or Michael Jackson (I’ll be the first to put my hand up on this one and say I’ve been there), but we don't own a single album of Israel Houghton or Donnie McClurkin. We've devoured the autobiographies of Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama, but we haven't got a clue about Billy Graham or Oral Roberts. Our personal libraries are filled with books by the likes of Jackie Collins and Jeffrey Archer, but we own zero Christian literature. We sacrifice punctuality to accommodate the second half of a football match and spend money on alcohol every weekend when we go out, but if a church event clashes with anything else, the church event must give way - and were yet to be seen smiling when the offering basket comes round during the Sunday service (let’s not even go into the subject of tithes here). A good proportion of our time is spent with TVs blaring through our homes and we know the channels for CNN, MTV and ITV by heart, but we can't even hazard a guess as to what channel God TV is on - and we certainly couldn’t tell you what series they have aired this year. We’re amazing at cramming all sorts of events into our very tight schedules; parties, weddings, cinema & theatre trips, concerts...you name it... But ask us about the last kingdom event we’ve been at apart from church on a Sunday and we'll draw a blank – I’m talking no bible study, no conferences, no worship events...nothing!

The Clarion Call

“One day we’re going to have to question some of the things we have allowed in the body of Christ”, I heard him say. “Like some of the words we have allowed ourselves to use... The word ‘Denomination’, for instance...” Ohhh boy, it wasn’t about to be a fun session up in that Pentecostal church! No hollering and hooping to be heard. “The meaning of that word, by its very nature is divisive...” he continued. He could have very well stopped there, but he didn’t and by the time he was done, I was close to tears. All I could think was, "How could we have missed it so badly?!!!"

I’m reasonably proud of the ministry that I’m a part of. I’ve seen God move in unprecedented ways there and grown leaps and bounds spiritually just sitting under the teachings of many of the preachers we have. As believers, I think most of us would allude to some sense of pride in whatever ministry we’ve chosen to be a part of and my aim is not so much to detract from that, as it is to get us to consider ‘the big picture’ and maybe start to think a little differently. Bear with me on this one. Whenever I’m challenged by anything, I can’t help but offer up the challenge to someone else.

Apparently, people who take the time to study these things have found that every great revival in history has been preceded by a coming together of the church (read as ‘all of Christianity’ or ‘the body of Christ’, not just a building as the word is often used). If that’s really the case, I can’t say I’m too encouraged by the current state of affairs. In fact, we might as well forget all about it! Has the church ever been more divided than it is in the 21^st century? Is it even legit to call ourselves the body of Christ at this point? In my opinion, it’s only a dysfunctional body that can have the left leg trying to go somewhere completely from the right leg, coupled with a head that’s really just laying down on a pillow - all at the same time!

Body parts are not designed to be completely independent of every other part of the body. So why do we find some of the Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Evangelicals, Baptists, Methodists and all the others on the endless list of denominations, comfortably operating in isolation and completely detached from everybody else? Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that each one isn’t walking in some degree of divine revelation, but I would be hard-pressed to believe that any single denomination has all the pieces of the puzzle. That’s simply not how God works. He’s the master strategist when it comes to making sure that no man is an island. Everybody needs something from somebody else.

The SALT and LIGHT challenge

“Our Christian habit is to bewail the world's deteriorating standards with an air of rather self-righteous dismay. We criticize its violence, dishonesty, immorality, disregard for human life, and materialistic greed. "The world is going down the drain," we say with a shrug. But whose fault is it? Who is to blame?

Let me put it like this. If the house is dark when nightfall comes, there's no sense in blaming the house; this is what happens when the sun goes down. The question to ask is "where is the light?" Similarly, if the meat goes bad, there's no sense in blaming the meat; that's what happens when bacteria are left alone to breed. The question to ask is "where's the salt?"

Just so, if society deteriorates and its standards decline until it becomes like a dark night or a stinking fish, there is no sense in blaming society; that's what happens when fallen men and women are left to themselves, and human selfishness is unchecked. The question to ask is "where is the church?" Why are the salt and light of Jesus Christ not permeating and changing our society? It is sheer hypocrisy on our part to raise our eyebrows, shrug our shoulders, or wring our hands.

The Lord Jesus told us to be the world's salt and light. If therefore darkness and rottenness abound, it is largely our fault and we must accept the blame. “

- John Stott

If you’re at all interested in what my reaction was to that quote, it was, “Wow. Food for thought!” While we can debate on whether or not he’s laying blame in the right places and probably draw the conclusion that there’s a lot more to the picture he paints, it remains true that followers of Christ have a role to play as the salt & light that Jesus said we were (in Matthew 5:13 & 14).

The quote speaks volumes and probably has enough clout to be an article all on its own, but it challenged me so much that I couldn’t resist expounding on it.

For Lack of Knowledge

Let me start by saying that it's truly amazing when 'the light' shines (Ephesians 5:13). I can hardly believe how much my thinking has been transformed on the subject of purity in recent years. As a yet-to-be-married young adult that has resolved to walk what is the less travelled path in these times, I would like to delve into the topic of sexual purity.

Some of what I'm about to share, I picked up from Singles' Conferences. Those events are generally aimed at equipping the unmarried with the tools for successful relationships with God & other people, that lead to healthy & successful marriages. However, I've come to find that a lot of people don’t bother to show up at them for the same reasons that I never used to attend them. One being that the term ‘single’ is often mistaken to mean anyone who isn’t at least in some sort of relationship (as opposed to meaning all those that are not married), and the question, "What else are they going to say that I don't already know?!" basically sums up the other. Well, at the last one I attended, I heard something I had never heard before (believe it or not, this was not the first time that happened, but it didn't stop me from asking the same question yet again before resolving to attend anyway!). This blew my mind. Apparently, medical research has found no function of the hymen in the female anatomy (Now, we know God makes no mistakes and has a purpose for everything He creates). The speaker likened the blood that is shed when the hymen is split during consumation, to the blood of the lambs during the passover in Egypt (Exodus 12:13). The shedding of that blood is designed to form a covenant of covering for your marriage (with God), so that when marital-death is visiting homes to bring destruction and sees the mark of the blood on your marriage, it will pass over. I found that pretty interesting.

When people speak about purity before marriage, it's not often that anyone explains the gravity of the effects/consequences of going against God’s will. I think if most people really knew what they do to themselves when they fornicate (and my study Bible tells me that fornication also includes other forms of immorality such as adultery and incest), they would never get into it. Every one of our actions is essentially a seed and the one thing a seed knows to do is grow and produce a harvest, so whether we sow unto disobedience or obedience, we reap accordingly. Disregarding God's instructions in this area of purity pretty much guarantees that one curses the foundation of their own marriage and the fruits always come to bear somewhere down the road. A lot of the challenges that marriages are facing today are as a result of this.