Do You really want to be made Whole?

One of the interesting things about the God we serve is that He never forces us to receive anything good from Him. He respects our free will so much that He holds back even when He really longs to wrap His arms of love around us.

An example is in Matthew 23:37 where Jesus overcome with emotion at the impending doom of Jerusalem cried out,

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate!”

Jesus is the saviour, but He only offers salvation to those who want Him to save them. Not only that, He wants joyful, trusting obedience from those who need it.  I can imagine Him saying, “Are you willing to do everything I tell you to make you whole? Do you trust me that I have your best interest at heart?"

The 'Zaccheus' Factor

Most of us probably know the story of Zaccheus, the short man who climbed up a Sycamore tree to see Jesus (Luke19:1-10). He was not only short, he was a tax collector for the Romans.

He was considered a traitor by many Jews who hated the way the Romans oppressed them by harsh rules and taxes. People like Zaccheus also collected extra to line their own pockets. You can see why he and many like him were unpopular.

But, perhaps there is more to Zaccheus than what many people saw. Perhaps the greed of Zaccheus and treachery was the symptom of a much deeper problem?

Metamorphosis

When a caterpillar is ready to become a butterfly, it eats as much as it can because it knows it will soon be time to birth into something better. What happens next is amazing. 

It builds a cocoon around itself and continues to develop. I see this as a period of reflection, thinking for itself, trying to understand itself. And then it emerges out of the cocoon as a beautiful butterfly. 

However before it does that, you must understand that the butterfly is bigger now than when it got into the cocoon. It is therefore more difficult to come out than when it went in as a caterpillar. So what does it do? Give up? Complain?

Mothers' Surprise!

Jesus often talked about the surprises that will abound in the Kingdom of God. He talked about the first being the last and also of those who assume they would be invited on the basis of having done great things like miracles, teachings, etc only to be rejected.

But there is another group of people He didn’t talk about who I think will be honoured in Heaven: Mothers! Yes I know some mother abuse their children, but this article focuses on those who do not abuse their rights and privileges over their kids.

Be angry but…

It’s not easy to remain unperturbed by the events in our world. As I write this, Boko Haram has attacked another town in Northern Nigeria. Behind the statistics of the dead and wounded are precious lives; fathers, mothers, sons, daughter, friends… 

My cousin’s husband is a soldier stationed in one of those areas, and every day she fears for his life, just as we do too. What’s happening there is unfair and evil. No one deserves such horror, yet innocent people are going through that on a daily basis. What can we do as Christians? Pretend everything is well or seethe with rage?

Some time last year, I became overwhelmed by anger. As I read about the atrocities of Boko Haram, ISIS and Al-Shabab, I lost it. I became very bitter. I had just read a survivor’s story of the brutal execution at the hands of one of these groups and I was livid! The whole day I walked around with rage in my heart and great bitterness. Verses from the Bible reminding me of anger and prayers did not dissuade me from this course. I refused to accept Biblical injunctions that said, “pray for your enemies…” I felt like cursing them instead. If I could, I would have prophesied instant and brutal death on them!

The Gradual Descent to Evil

As the world remembers the Holocaust, the word evil has been used often to describe the genocide of Jews and other people at the hands of Nazi Germans. 

Regular folks like us usually associate evil acts with equally evil and savage peoples. The reality is quite different; a picture I saw recently convinced me of that.

Some months ago I saw a very disturbing picture in a World War 2 book. A mother was clutching her toddler tightly, she was slightly bent and had an expression of anticipated pain. Behind her stood a Nazi officer with his gun pointed at them, ready to fire hot lead into their bodies. What was their crime? They were Jews. Simple. 

Lessons from Rahab

One of the most amazing characters in the Bible who encourages me when I am down is Rahab.

Yeah, the same ol' Rahab you know, the Canaanite prostitute.

 In the book of Hebrews 11, there is a listing of the Who-is-Who with regards to Faith. There is Abel, Enoch, Noah, the Patriarch Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, …. And then somewhere tucked in verse 31 is Rahab!

What makes this list profound is that most of the people listed in it are men and of the ‘chosen people’ of Israel. Rahab was a foreigner, an idolater whose country was destroyed as a result of their wickedness, a woman and worse still, a prostitute! She was the poster girl for the opposite of faith. Yet, she is listed among mighty men who are models of faith. What can we learn from her?

Absence

Happy New Year dear friends, I thank God for keeping us and bringing us to another year. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas Celebration and took out time to reflect on the season and the year.

I am very very sorry for not writing all this while, my laptop has been misbehaving. It doesn't charge and rarely comes on. I will try and sort it out asap.

But I missed writing and hope to resume once the laptop is fixed. In the mean time, I wish you more of good health, peace and joy, and of course God's Presence.
Happy 2015!!!

Healing for the Broken-Hearted

One of the amazing things I love about God is His accessibility. God is not the exclusive preserve of the rich and famous, or the powerful. He is not only available to those who have gone to religious institutions or the very intelligent. 

God is the God of the poor, the rejected, the confused, the fearful, the abandoned, the broken, the vulnerable, the abused, the scorned, the sinner, the mis-understood, the hungry, the failure, … God is an accessible God!

The Greatest Time in History

It was President Barack Obama who called this time we live in, “the best time in human history to be born”, especially if you are in the United States. According to him “whether you live in downtown New York or (in my grandmother’s village) more than two hundred miles from Nairobi, you can hold in your hand more information than the world’s greatest libraries.

I couldn’t agree more. The amount of information we have today and the access to it is phenomenal! There is information for just about everything under the sun, from how to hurt others to how to heal. And this information is usually free! From the greatest classics to most recent literature, the internet is teeming with treasures!

But as wonderful as this sounds, it presents us with a problem. Seeing that we have tons of information out there, should we open ourselves to any and everything? Shouldn’t we be more discerning/wise regarding what we feed ourselves? What would you call a person who leaves a well prepared meal for rotten food in a bin? Mad would be a fitting name I suppose. But aren’t we like that many times? Don’t we feed our eyes and ears, the main portals to our hearts and souls, with filthy and worthless information that destroy us instead of help us. Don’t we spend time on indecent and unwholesome entertainment just for the fun of it?

RE: Why did God save Dr. Ken Brantly and not thousands of Africans from Ebola?

Recently there was an article by Michele Hanson questioning why God saved Dr. Ken Brantly but not the thousands of Africans who died from Ebola virus. There were different responses to it and in this note I wish to add my own perspective to this very controversial topic.

First, we must understand that Ebola is not the first large scale epidemic that has affected people, there was HIV and before that, Smallpox, as well as the Black Death in the Middle Ages. All of these diseases led to the deaths of millions of peoples in many countries. These diseases were spread aggressively mostly as a result of ignorance and fear. Due to desperation from their helplessness to stem the tide of these epidemics, people often became paranoid and resorted to measures that worsened the crisis. Unfortunately these issues are still reflected in some African countries where Ebola has struck. We hear stories of healthcare personnel attacked, Ebola patients abandoned to die, corpses not properly disposed of and inadequate medical resources. It is because of these reasons that diseases, which in better organized countries can be successfully contained, always prove to be very deadly in many poor countries, especially those in Africa.

Jonathan: When loyalty goes horribly wrong

The story of Jonathan in the Bible is one of great loyalty, friendship and courage. Jonathan was the heir to the throne, yet he recognised that God had anointed David, his father’s rival to be king. Instead of bitterness and jealousy, which King Saul harboured, Jonathan was a friend of David and protected him from his father’s schemes.

He also discouraged his father from attempting to kill David and tried speaking sense to the old man, but Saul was treacherous. He would feign repentance only to make another attempt at David’s life.

Jonathan was also a great soldier in his father’s army and won many battles for him. On one occasion, his quick thinking and courage, led to great victory for the Israelites who were outnumbered by the Philistine army. Unfortunately Jonathan was later killed in battle alongside his father, King Saul and his brothers. His death was tragic but I somehow feel it could have been avoided.

IDOLATROUS IMAGINATION

This is not my article, rather it is part of a sermon by Rev. Andrew Giffen of Kirkintilloch Baptist
Church. It is based on the story of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32.

The people of Israel created a golden calf because they wanted an image that their minds could grasp. They bowed down to the calf and worshipped it as if it were God. They knew that it was man-made and breakable. But that was exactly the sort of God they wanted –one they could control. The vast God reduced to something that could be imprisoned in a few ounces of gold. A shrunken powerless God who will do their bidding, protect them alone, and destroy their enemies.

But God instead commands his people to worship him as he is, not as they (or we) would like him to be. God forbids idolatrous imagination. For you see that is the fundamental problem,that the second commandment addresses. We don’t want God to create us – we want to create God. God in my image – not man in God’s image. We want a God we can control, manipulate, regulate. The default position for you and me today is to imagine God the way we want him to be, not the way he has revealed himself to be. For instance you might want a God who saves all people, who sends no-one to hell – so you create in your mind a loving God who is never angry.

A remnant still remains, don’t lose heart!

Have you ever wondered at the type of news we hear on almost daily basis? If its not accidents, its murders, immorality or some act of depravity. Because ‘bad news sells’, we are bombarded on every hand by such bad news that it can make even a saint give up on humanity! What a relief when we hear something good that restores our faith in people again.

Sometimes its not news, but people’s behaviours.We live in a very free society which encourages us to live according to how we feel. Morality is replaced with feelings: I feel, I want, I get. This drives us to indulge in acts that end up being detrimental to us and sometimes others. We are encouraged by others who tell us to live in the 21^st century and stop being outdated or ‘old school’. Any attempts to disregard such views is often met with jeers and sneers from friends.

The Secret of the Proverbs 31 Woman

The Proverbs 31 Woman is like an enigma, she seems to have it all. She is industrious, she is smart, she is a planner, she takes care of herself and her family, she brings honour to her husband and he in turn does not only love her, he and their children praise her. Wow! I’m sure all women want to know how she does it.

The secret of this lady is found towards the end of the chapter. It is in Proverbs 31:30, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”

The Golden Rule - Christianity is a Relationship!

We have all heard the famous command, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” But that statement is not complete as it is. There is an initial and fundamental part to it that is often ignored, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and then love your neighbour as you love yourself.”

You’re probably thinking the first part is not so necessary, we just need to love people as ourselves. But the truth is, we cannot truly love others or even ourselves unless we go back to the source of love - God.

The Wedding Day is coming!

I remember my wedding day. It was special. Very special. My darling groom was immaculately
dressed, he had travelled thousands of miles to be married to me. I too was beautifully dressed. I was gorgeous! I had been attended to by the hairstylist, manicurist, make-up artiste,..etc. My white gown was spotless and fitted perfectly. I was ready.

As I walked down the aisle to stand close to my groom , I could see all our family and friends straining to have a glance at this beautiful bride. My husband was no different. I saw him smiling as he beheld the object of his affection. The woman of his dreams finally becoming his wife forever. So he waited patiently, he knew it was going to happen soon.

Christianity is not just a Religion. It is a Relationship!

The key message of religion is if you do good, you get rewards from a god. You don’t have to be in relationship with the god, just do as you are told, then all will be well. But Christianity is markedly different, it encourages us to relate with God as a father and friend! Wow! Christianity is founded on relationships, vertically with God and horizontally with man through the Cross.

I am all too aware that some of us were given the view of ‘Christianity as a religion’ when we were growing up. We were told to avoid sin, in order to please God and go to heaven when we die. On the surface, it looks like a good teaching, and yes as Christians we should strive to live right. But the motivation for living right is fundamental. Are we living right (obeying God’s commands) because we want to go to Heaven or are we living right in appreciation for what God has done for us?

The God who gives second Chances

Some months ago, I read about Charles"Tex" Watson, one of Charles Mason’s cult members who murdered Sharon Tate in 1969. She was an actress, and at the time of her death, was 8 months pregnant. 

She and her friends were killed in her house, in an attack that was very random, unprovoked and very barbaric. It  was evil in its purest form.

At the time I read that story, I was heavily pregnant just like Sharon. I imagined what she felt at the time of the attack, and my heart just broke. I wept like a baby.

This tragedy happened even before I was born, to people I didn’t know, yet I was overcome by intense emotions. One of those emotions was hatred and anger. I even prayed that God would not forgive the killers, especially the leader of the pack, Watson.

It just so happened that He did. I was enraged!

The God who gives Choices

Two things happened some days ago that inspired this note. I read that Meriam Ibrahim had been freed from prison and her death sentence overturned. If you don’t know her, she is the pregnant Sudanese lady who was sentenced to death for apostasy (converting from Islam to Christianity).

The second one was receiving a pamphlet from the Yes Together Scottish campaign group. The group took time to put some very convincing reasons why Scotland is better being inside the UK than as an independent country. And then they asked people to make an informed choice in the referendum; not out of fear, or out of some nationalistic pride, but based on facts.

In many ways, this ability of people to choose is what makes Christianity so appealing. Unlike other religions that thrive on fear and force, Christianity offers freedom of choice.