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Too Bad…or not bad enough?

James Okoli
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Too Bad…or not bad enough?
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It’s very easy to sometimes become so overwhelmed by the darkness and brokenness in our world that we lose hope. And yet at other times, we can catch ourselves thinking that the antidote is to simply ignore the brokenness and instead choose to focus on an image of the world that is easier to swallow. If this is the case with the outside world, how much truer is this when we look closer to home? Do we solely see ourselves as broken, dark and depraved, beyond any help? Or do we convince ourselves of our supposed self-sufficiency and revel in our greatness? As individuals, we all have leanings to one side or the other but as Christians, the word of God calls us to recalibrate.

“This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” — and I am the worst of them”

1 Timothy 1:15 (HCSB)

Formerly a law-abiding Jew, seated under the expert teaching of a top Hebrew scholar, Paul thought he was good, or righteous in relation to God. He didn’t need anyone or anything to trust in, apart from his own training and education. So what happened? What changed the man we see seeking the demise of Christians in at the beginning of Acts 9, to instructing his son in the faith that he was “the chief of all sinners”?

It was his encounter with perfection, only found in the person of Jesus, on the road to Damascus that led to his recognition of his brokenness and sin. All through biblical revelation, we see the holiness (in one general sense perfection) of God presented and as biblical revelation progresses, the response alters. Under the Old Covenant, God’s holiness was something to be feared and to draw away from. Countless times the Israelites, in awareness of their own inadequacy and inconsistency, would draw away from the Lord their God (Exodus 20:18,19). However as we see Jesus (the image of the Invisible God – Colossians 1:15) and even in the Psalms, we know that God’s holiness, whilst maintaining the utter power and majesty of God, not only exposes our depravity but also is a matter of worship and surrender. So after Paul encounters the glorified Jesus, instead of cowering and wallowing in his sin and shame, Paul declares his sin to be the reason why Jesus has saved him and leaves shame behind. Instead he is “unashamed of the Gospel” (Romans 1:16). Perhaps this is why Paul lives so fulfilled in Him.

Paul is a great example and yet he always points us to look at Christ. Upon investigating the life of Jesus, it is abundantly clear he accomplished many considerable feats whilst on earth: fulfilled the law, raised the dead, healed the sick, the list goes on. At the heart of his mission, nonetheless, was the salvation of sinners. The salvation of you and I who would, by His grace, go on to believe in Him. What’s really profound in this is Jesus’ attitude towards sinners. As the Son of God, Jesus came revealing the nature of God, who we already know is infinitely holy, and so when asked why he associated with sinners, Jesus replied: “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick” (Luke 5:31). This is striking. The attitude one might expect is one where, he tells them to get clean and then you can sit with me. That is not what we find here. What becomes clear is that God’s holiness was never going to remain a barricade but, in Christ, was looking to make the unwholesome, whole, and the unholy, holy. The Great Physician longs to make you well.

One then has to ask are you “too healthy” for Jesus? Are you “not that bad”? Are you quite sufficient in yourself? If that’s true, you might want to compare yourself to the holy, all-sustaining God revealed in the Bible, a test none of us pass. The word sin in the Greek, Hamartia literally means “to miss the mark”, something which since Adam all mankind has done. Not only have we missed the mark, but we have also transgressed (broken God’s laws) and pursued evil instead of good. Not only that but we have delighted in it.

When you realise all of this, you may well be overwhelmed by your brokenness and the weight of your sin. In fact, you might believe that you’re “too bad” for change. Beyond redemption. A lost cause. The Good News is that no one is too bad for God. In fact, you can count yourself in the same boat as Paul in the verse above. That verse is sandwiched between two verses which give context to his statement: God showed abundant love and grace to save Paul, the worst of sinners, to reveal His extraordinary patience. So, if the “worst of sinners” could be saved and changed to a man who was used by God to author so much of the New Testament and build the foundations of the church, imagine what God can do with you! Not only that but instead of identifying you by your sin, God invites you to be His blameless son, with Jesus as your elder brother. The Spirit of God in a believer testifies to this and seals you as a saint. You are a NEW creation.

12 “See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. “

Hebrews 3: 12,13 (NIV)

Sin’s deceitfulness has two arms and they work in tandem to “turn [your heart] away from the living God.

“ Sin’s deceitfulness has a way of fading God and His holiness into the background and bringing us in our pride to the foreground. It excessively elevates the goodness of man and dangerously demotes the holiness of God and His subsequent demands for holiness from His people “

If by God’s gracious providence you are reading this today, here are some final warnings and encouragements. Do NOT believe the lie that you’re “not that bad”. One arm of sin’s deceitfulness has an almost self-justifying influence. Rather than seeing our sin, repenting and trusting in the all-sufficient, wrath-satisfying, free work of Christ at the cross, sin subtly sedates us into thinking: “It’s not that deep”, “there are worse people out there”, “I’m not hurting anyone” amongst others. And we accept it as truth. When we look at Paul, as we did earlier, admitting he is the “chief of all sinners” and David in Psalm 51 acknowledging “[he] was sinful at birth” (Psalm 51:5), there is a sharp disparity between what these heroes of the faith saw in themselves and what we often think we see. Sin’s deceitfulness has a way of fading God and His holiness into the background and bringing us in our pride to the foreground. It excessively elevates the goodness of man and dangerously demotes the holiness of God and His subsequent demands for holiness from His people. So while today you may think you’re not that bad. The truth is, according to God’s holy standard, you’re probably even worse. Christianity is not for those who are good. Rather Jesus’ whole mission centred around saving those who recognised they weren’t good enough and that still remains the case today. You can’t accept the healing Christ offers until you confront and acknowledge the reality of your sickness.

However, sin’s deceitfulness has another arm. And this arm has a self-condemning function. Today I also want you to REJECT the lie that you’re “too bad” for God. The bible says there is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9) and God sees all. Romans 5:20 declares that “whilst sin abounds, grace abounds all the more”. These are not excuses for sin. Rather they are means of God’s grace to show you that God is not put off by your mess. Your mess is not bigger, smarter, or more powerful than the Almighty, Omniscient and Omnipotent Only-Wise God (1 Tim 1:17). There is more good in God than evil in you. Nothing surprises him and it has not stopped Him from passionately pursuing you from all eternity to show you His love and grace in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 13:14). When you believe, you are no longer identified by your sin but by His sacrifice. You are the righteousness of God in Christ and He has amazing plans to fulfil for you and through you.

Somewhere between being too bad and not bad enough, God is waiting to meet you. Today if you hear his voice do not harden your heart. Today if you know a friend who thinks they are too far gone, let them know about the grace of God. Today if you know someone who thinks they are fine in and of themselves let them see the holiness of God. Today if you are either of these people…Will you accept His invitation to forsake yourself, pick up your cross and follow Him?

Humanity in the Image of God

Toye Akinoso
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Humanity in the Image of God

“Nearly all wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves” – John Calvin

The knowledge of self and the knowledge of God are interdependent. The two are so finely knitted into a system of inference that there is no true knowledge of self without firstly knowledge of God.

Human nature has it the other way round, what we do instead is we try to go from our understanding of ourselves and use that as a platform to try and understand God. Which simultaneously and consequently leads to a poor knowledge of ourselves and even a worse and abhorrent view of God. We must begin with the latter if we have any hope of seeing ourselves rightly.

This is what was see in Isaiah 6 when the Prophet Isaiah is given an image of God, he immediately becomes aware of himself and his sin. This is the same with Peter when he goes fishing with Jesus and there is a miraculous catch of fish, Peter’s immediate response to witnessing the divinity of Christ is to falls to his knees cry out ‘Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord‘” (Luke 5:8).

“For we always seem to ourselves righteous and upright and wise and holy–this pride is innate in all of us–unless by clear proofs we stand convinced of our own unrighteousness, foulness, folly, and impurity. Moreover, we are not thus convinced if we look merely to ourselves and not also to the Lord, who is the sole standard by which this judgment must be measured”- Serene Jones

Once we begin to see and understand God for who He is, we will also begin to see and ourselves for who we are. We see in Genesis 1:26 of God’s desire to create man “in our image (tselem), after our likeness (demut).” it is vital importance that if we are to be image bearers, we must first spend to time understanding what that image is.  So how do we do so? Fortunately for us, the Bible gives us ample information to do so.

The are two main categories when we look at the attributes of God in scripture.

There is firstly the incommunicable attributes of God.  These are the attributes of God which belong to God and God alone. Only God is Omnipotent (Isiah 40:28), only God is Omnipresent (Jeremiah 23:24), only God is Sovereign (1 Timothy 6:15) , only God is Immutable (Malachi 3:6) and only God is Omniscient (Romans 16:27).  These are all attributes which can only be true of God and cannot be true about us.


The second category are the communicable attributes of God. These are the attributes of God which are true about God but can also be true about us. God is love therefore we can be loving (1 John 4:8) but we do so imperfectly. God is just and thus we can have a sense of justice but once again, we do so imperfectly. God is the creator and so we can be creative, however cannot do so ex nihilo (from nothing) as God has. These are the communicable attributes which as a result of being made in his image ‘imago dei’, God shares to some extent with us.

What we tend to see today is that because of the poor understanding of God we have, we tend to gravitate towards the first category, we try to possess attributes which are only true about God. Human nature has us trying to become god in our lives. Naturally we strive to be all knowledgeable, we strive to be sovereign, we want to be all powerful, these are all traits we see in developments of modern technology. Even as christians we fall into this same trap, we also want to be sovereign. How often do we pray that our will to be done rather than God’s.  We spend so much time focusing on the incommunicable attributes but it is important that we understand that God is completely and utterly distinct from us. The incommunicable attributes of God are what make God, God. When we fail to realise this we tend to become god in our own lives. Instead when we see that we cannot possibly possess these incommunicable attributes, we are then able to see our condition, where we fall short and why we are in need of a Saviour. The incommunicable attributes of God should cause us to behold Him for who He is, it should lead us to worship and treasure the Creator. This then leads to enjoy our sharing in God’s communicable attributes which is only possible due to His design and for His glory. If we do not see God rightly, it proceeds to rob God of his glory and leads to a misunderstanding of what it means to be an image bearer.

“Know God. Know yourself. Know yourself to know your need of God. Know God to know you are not gods.” 

To be an image bearer is to bear the communicable attributes of God. When we try and bear the incommunicable attributes we no longer bear the image of God but instead create idols. As Jen Wilkin brilliantly puts its, ‘working towards the incommunicable attributes is to say I am instead of acknowledging the I AM’. To be an image bearer means that when people see us, they ought to see something about our character which teaches them something about who God is. Genesis 1 teaches us that we are made in the image of God, Genesis 3 teaches that something abhorrent and terrible happens to that image, so now the goal of our salvation is not simply to be forgiven and escape hell, but it is primary to restore this image of God.

Bathos 2019

On Mission
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#Bathos2019 was the third annual retreat hosted by OGGM earlier this year! Like all of our previous retreats, Bathos was designed with students, young adults and professionals in mind. In a time where we are all managing our various pursuits, passions and interests, the question that remains is; Are you willing to go deeper in God?

To answer this question, OGGM hosted around 120 people who all had the opportunity to hear and engage with the Word of God through numerous seminars during the day alongside two main sessions. During the retreat, we had the privilege of having a great number of High profile speakers who were speaking on a range of issues which were all about equipping our delegates in for the journey of going deeper. The speakers include but are not limited to:

– Lord Micheal Hastings CBE (KPMG International’s Global Head of Corporate Citizenship, Second Chancellor of Regent’s University London )

– Pastor Agu Irukwu, (UK overseer of RCCG, Senior Pastor at Jesus House London)

– Pastor Baj Akisanya, (UK Youth Overseer RCCG, Pastor at Jesus House London)

– Pastor Joe Reeser, (Lead Pastor and Director at Ramp Church Manchester)

– Mike Omoniyi, (Director and founder of OGGM and founder of The Common Sense Network)

The speakers and seminar leaders addressed a range of topics all with the goal of ensuring our delegates left with a clearer understanding of how to go deeper with God. Sessions included a range of topics such as ;

– ‘Why go deeper’ where Pastor Agu spoke on the identity crysis facing our generation

-‘Shallow vs Deep’ where Mike Omoniyi spoke about pursuing greater depth.

-‘Suffering’ where Pastor Joe Reeser and Mike Omoniyi aimed to shed some light deep issues regarding the way we view suffering

Throughout this week we saw numerous delegates baptised, souls saved and lives changed!

 To find out about our upcoming retreat, make sure you follow all our social media links.

Time , Season and Purpose Part 1

On Mission
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Hi everyone , I hope you’re all doing well ! Just a bit of an introduction In this post as you can see by the title I will be covering season and time and then I will talk about more purpose in part 2 . I feel like it’s important that we have a conversation about these topics because we are living in a epoch in which the majority of us question Gods season , time and purpose for our life and sometimes we ask ourselves why we must follow it. I hope as you read this post it gives you insight to some of your questions.

Time : The indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.plan, schedule, or arrange when (something) should happen or be done.a point of time as measured in hours and minutes past midnight or noon. (Oxford dictionary, 2019)

Season : a proper suitable time , an indefinite or unspecified period of time ( oxford dictionary ,2019) .
For me the key word in that is ‘period’  which means a certain amount of time which means that seasons do not last forever.

Purpose –why you do something or why something exists ( Cambridge dictionary, 2019) .

Autumn, Winter, spring and summer

These are seasons that we are all able to identify,  as there are always signs which indicates when the seasons are transitioning. Therefore we are able to prepare accordingly for the changes that are going to occur. It’s funny  how we often so quick to prepare for physical seasons , but we find it difficult to detect Spiritual seasons .

Ephesians 6:12 tells us “this is not a battle between flesh and blood but Spiritual principalities.”

Meaning every decision you make here on earth, the Spiritual realm responds. Seasons are also very important because within seasons there are time frames which God gives us to carry out a particular assignment or to obey an instruction. The seasons that you enter are steps in fulfilling parts of your purpose that God has given you.

“To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;”
‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭3:1-5‬ ‭NKJV‬‬‬‬‬

These verses reveals that when God created the earth, He introduced the concept of time as it is the very thing that brings order and discipline into the world. God wills for us all is to respect the principle of time and seasons as it through these principles that He will order our steps.

Jesus is the perfect example of walking out in his season. In his 3 years in ministry, He only did things in Gods timing. Although Jesus had the anointing and the power to perform miracles at any time, He did decided against it because as He was now living on Earth, Jesus had to submit and that He had to respect it so those who follow after him know and obey the principle of time. A perfect example is when Jesus respecting time was at the wedding and the wine ran out and Mary the mother of Jesus said, “They have no wine.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” ‭‭John‬ ‭2:3-4‬ ‭NKJV‬‬‬‬‬

This verse really interesting because Mary knew that Jesus was capable of preforming a miracle but Jesus wasn’t going to preform a miracle just because His mother said so. Jesus was waiting for what God already ordained him to do in eternity to manifest it in time. This relates to us because we are living in a time where there’s so many gifted people on earth many anointed people. But the problem is timing , so many people do the right thing at the wrong time. Never let the influence or the pressure of people cause you to do things before your time ! Jesus could have been under pressure by Mary his mother but He knew that eternity did not permit him yet to preform the miracle. Jesus was so sensitive to time that He regardless of the circumstances, He had obey the God’s timing which he was under.

The problem that we have now is that nobody wants to wait everybody just wants to go ! It’s great that everyone’s ambitious but it comes at a cost when you do things at a time that heaven has not ordained.

You may be asking , how do you know when your season is changing you will know if you are in constant communication with the father. Revelations such as time and season only comes through spending time with God and He will begin to show you signs. Do you think Jesus had perfect timing because He was the son of God ? Certainly not , Jesus also had to fellowship with the Lord so that He could have the strength and  decernment not to bring heaven on earth too early.

“Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”Luke‬ ‭6:12‬ ‭NKJV‬‬‬‬

We need to get to a point in our lives where we are concerned about if the heavens are in agreement with our timing because that’s the only way we will know truly if we are walking in the will of God. I know sometimes it’s hard to understand why God would make you wait to release whatever it is He may have in store for you, but just remember that with every great thing there is a process to it. If you are wondering about what season of your life it is that you are in, I would urge you to seek God because it is only in Him that you will find clarity.

I pray in this Season we become sensitive to the voice of God , I pray that you are realeased from every pressure society has put on you. I pray that God reveals to you what he wants you to do and when and I pray that once you know you obey in Jesus name Amen!

Stay tuned for part 2

God bless you all

Can I move mountains? Spoiler : No

Toye Akinoso
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Can I move mountains? Spoiler : No

Mathew 17:20 “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

The parable of the mustard seed is one of the most heavily debated passages of scripture. On the surface, it is pretty simple. Jesus is saying to the disciples if only they had the littlest of faith in him, they could move mountains, seems pretty simple right? in truth this is a passage of scripture for which many theologians have argued the message of this scripture for hundreds of years. One of the leading arguments put forward by many commentators and scholars for the meaning of this verse is that when Jesus uses the word ‘mountain’ he is not speaking of physical mountains but is instead talking about the Jerusalem government. Which if you have ever visited the holy city, you would know the temples were often found upon a mountain, hence the name the ‘temple mount’, and therefore when Jesus says this to the disciples with the mountain behind him and the temple clearly visible, he is in-fact saying to the disciples that only if you believed in me, we could challenge and change this entire establishment. This is what we see all throughout thought book of Acts, where we see time and time again the apostles go up against the corrupt leaders and religious people.

Many other commentators and theologians have presented many different cases for this scripture all with context heavily considered. Only a handful of theologians actually believe that when Jesus lambasts the disciples in this passage, he is referring to moving physical mountains. However, in today’s church, when this verse is often referred to it is typically to do with the doctrine that if you pray hard enough, and have enough faith you can perform all sorts of crazy miracles. This has given birth to the ‘ word of faith movement’ which is a doctrine that falsely teaches by simply having enough faith, we can will God into action which is altogether unbiblical and is instead antithetical to the true teachings of scripture.

 

The issue with this ‘name it and claim it’ or ‘blab it and grab it’ movement is that we as humans tend to fall in one of two extremes when dealing with doctrines such a these. Firstly many believe that if you don’t pray with absolute confidence that God will respond right then and then, I might as well not pray at all which borders on fatalism. Or on the flip side, some believe that if we pray with absolute certainty, God will move instantly, like faith is some sort of cosmic vending machine, relegating the meaning of faith into simply a mechanism which can be used to make God do whatever is it we want, subsequently exalting man and his “faith” above God.

 

“And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses” (Mark 11:25).

Faith is not the sole condition for answers prayers, all throughout scripture, we are given numerous conditions for prayer. For example, we have to ask him with the right motives (James 4:1-3), if you harbour unforgiveness in your heart your prayers won’t be answered (Mark 11:25, Mattew 6:14-15). 1 Peter 3 teaches if you don’t honour your wife your prayers are going to be hindered. Isaiah 58 instructs that if you don’t care for the poor your prayers will not be answered. Furthermore, God exclaims through the prophet Amos in Amos 5:23-24 that if you have not first reconciled with your brother or sister, we will not hear the noise of your prayers and songs. And above all of these conditions of prayer, we must pray and act in accordance with the sovereign will of God. Regardless of how much much faith you may think you have, be it the size of a football let alone a mustard seed, no amount of faith will cause God’s hand to move contrarily to his own will or our own welfare. One of the biggest issues I find with the circles which teach this doctrine of ‘word of faith’ is that when one of their self proclaimed ‘healers’ would pray for someone, and they were not healed, the blame and responsibility is then placed upon the recipient of the prayer did not have enough faith, It is an insensible excuse which lacks sensitivity and on the basis of mark 11 goes against the teachings of Christ.

‘Finally, the only way anyone can fulfill the condition set forth by Jesus is if God himself chooses to impart to us the faith he requires. Faith, ultimately, is a gift from God. When God wants to bless us with a miraculous answer to our prayer, he will take the initiative to cultivate and build into our hearts the fulfillment of the condition he requires. Therefore, each time as we pray, each time as we seek God for what only God can do, let us begin by asking God for an extraordinary, powerful faith.’ – Sam Storms 

To Illustrate this point, let me take an example Sam Storms ‘Practicing the Power’, let’s imagine that one day you decide to go sailing, therefore you decide to go to the store or go online and watch every Youtube video you can about sailing. Lets say you even go as far as asking a veteran sailor who answers any questions you may ask. After doing all of this, you then finally go and rent a sailboat, then you take your boat out unto the sea and patiently wait in anticipation. At this moment you learn and important lesson, you can learn all the you possible can about sailing, you can even be able to build a sailboat, you can even use advice which comes from the wisest sailor, you can cast you boat into the most beautiful lake under the sun, you can successfully hoist you sail but what you cannot do is make the wind blow. So what does this mean? you and I can study the Bible thoroughly, we can learn everything there is to possibly learn about faith and performing miracles, we can can even receive the wised Godly counsel in regards to the topic, we can everything within our power as a Christian man or woman, but only God can make the wind blow. Whether or not the sail moves one inch or fifty, whether or not there is a little breeze or a storm, all of which are dependent on the sovereign will of God, who blows wherever and however much he pleases, you and I cannot force him into action. Nothing we can possibly do can force him to move, no amount of faith, no amount of sacrifices, no amount of prayer can will God’s hand into action.

So to answer the question, ‘Can i move mountains?’ no you cant. God can if he chooses so, whether that be physical mountains or metaphoric, we can have a minimal amount of faith or an enormous amount, the issue isn’t how much faith you have but whether that faith is placed in line with God’s Will. Never the less, faith is of a remarkable importance, after all Jesus lambasts the disciples for their lack of faith in Matthew 17, however, faith cannot and must not be used as a tool to hold God to ransom to do whatever we please. We are required to grown in our faith but let us not fall into the trap of exalting our faith above God.

Zeal for Real? (Part 1)

James Okoli
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Zeal for Real? (Part 1)

I’m a partial believer in this familiar statement: “Experience is the best teacher”. Partial because there are some things we simply grow to know. For example I know fire is dangerous, because I was taught that from a young age. I also understand why – because fire burns. However that’s just something I’ve been taught to know. I have no zeal to live a life that shows my passion to for fire safety. I’m not part of a group of people who preach about fire, I’m not an arsonist either. I’m just somewhat familiar with it and realise its danger when uncontrollable so I avoid it. However there are people who are zealous about fire (they’re called firefighters). In all seriousness though, this scenario can be like us with God: we can either be people who just know a lot about God or we can be genuinely zealous for God. In this first part, I want to place the spotlight on misguided zeal.

Being zealous for God requires God himself. We cannot be zealous for God without God- that leads to misplaced zeal. In contrast, for many of us, knowing information about God is usually either down to intellectual curiosity or the family you were born into. Placing the opening statement in a faith context, I partially agreed since experience can lead to me “knowing” a lot about Christ (i.e. through church or family); however unless He is revealed to me by the Holy Spirit my knowledge is futile. Our experiences can distort truth if not subjected to God’s Word which is God’s revealed truth to us.

What we discover from a painful experience could have been covered in the Holy Spirit’s syllabus for your sanctification

 The Holy Spirit is the best teacher and He repeatedly brings the truth of the Word alive in our experiences.  What we, often belatedly, discover from a painful experience could have been covered in the Holy Spirit’s syllabus for your sanctification. God, in his mercy, is still able to teach and guide us through tough instances yet nevertheless, the essence of our knowledge is to produce Christlikeness rather than a crushed character.  

So let’s further investigate this concept of zeal. According to the Oxford Dictionary it is a “great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective”. In scripture zeal for God is always displayed through what we do and what we say, but the key to distinguish between real zeal and false zeal is the manner or motive in which we act. Let’s look at Numbers 25:10-13 (we can actually learn from Numbers!)

10 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 11 “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the children of Israel, because he was zealous with My zeal among them, so that I did not consume the children of Israel in My zeal. 12 Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him My covenant of peace; 13 and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.’”

Just a brief (modernised) background to the story. Israel had just defeated their enemies: King Sihon & the Amorities and King Og and the people of Bashan. So the Moabites are afraid, and their King, Balak is also afraid. So he sends for Balaam (a prophet-albeit not a very truthful one) and Balaam makes a series of prophecies to Balak with false motives, which leads to Israel sinning with the people of Moab and becoming “yoked with their false God Baal of Peor” (verse 3). Phinehas was a priest and his actions, the execution of the man who slept with the Moabite woman, was deemed to have turned back God’s wrath.

Verse 11 says Phinehas was zealous with “my Zeal”. This is God’s very own zeal which comes from his holiness, since he is absolutely set apart from sin and evil. God’s holiness (his completely distinct nature from creation and sin) is what Phinehas is zealous for because without holiness no one can please God (Hebrews 12:14). This rather dramatic portrayal of zeal shows the passion for holiness and the desire for God’s will to be done amongst the people of Israel. Phinehas had an intense yearning for God’s holiness because he wanted to see God increasingly in his life whilst also maintain the purity of the Israelite community.His zeal was a godly one. If it wasn’t Phinehas’ action would not have glorified God; instead it would have dishonoured God.

So why do so many of us often generate a zeal towards God that doesn’t come from God? As we’ve established,  zeal is a godly characteristic so our own zeal is bound to be different. The Pharisees are the best examples of this. On many occasions they were blinded by their “zeal” for God so they couldn’t see God for who He really was.

Though their actions appeared to be zealous, they weren’t looking for the holiness of God but only focusing on their own “good deeds”.

Though their actions appeared to be zealous, they weren’t looking for the holiness of God but only focusing on their own “good deeds”. Isaiah 64:6 tells us that even our good acts are filthy rags. The truth is, like the Pharisees, our zeal can often be because we are looking for people to see us, rather than us looking to see God. The intent behind our actions determines whether the zeal is godly.

Reading the Bible, for instance, is something that should show our zeal for God. If we study it meticulously God should be pleased with us right? Well John 5:37-40 suggests otherwise! Even with supposedly “godly” activities, we can completely miss the point! The Pharisees diligently studied the scriptures but they missed Jesus and apart from Jesus we can do no good thing (John 15:5). We must, therefore, desire a godly zeal (Isaiah 59:17), not just a zeal towards God, otherwise our zeal will be misplaced. Our aim must be to want to know and see Christ increasingly each day. The Pharisees thought that by their zealous works they would be justified and rewarded. How often do we think this too? It’s the complete opposite! We work from God’s approval, not for God’s approval. We rely on his righteousness and forsake our own.

Taking it further we see that the Pharisees were eager to be rewarded for their works. Real zeal makes you understand that the reward of what you do is God himself. Matthew 6 is a chapter filled with godly acts that we should all pursue but the rewards for each are different. How many times have we shown zeal for God in evangelism or giving and told the world but deep down looked for the praise of man? Matthew 6 tells us we’ve received our reward. How many times have you shown zeal for God and no one has seen? Matthew 6 tells us our reward comes from our Father in heaven. God sees our hearts (1 Samuel 16:7) and nothing is hidden from Him (Hebrews 4:13)

Let’s not be Pharisaic in our approach to God and perform zealous acts for our vindication and acceptance, void of intimacy. Let us be like Phinehas, as New Testament priests (1 Peter 2:9) who love God wholeheartedly which overflows into a zeal for God’s holiness and the purity of His people.

(To be continued…)

The Opposite of Faith is not Doubt

M.T. Omoniyi
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The Opposite of Faith is not Doubt

Recently, I attended a church service where the pastor asked us to pinpoint our individual levels of faith on a scale of 1 to 10.

To no one’s shock, nobody raised their hand to say they had no faith, and equally, no one raised their hand to say that they had the greatest level. Everyone seemed to think they fell somewhere in the middle. Why?

This is the problem. Often with faith, it isn’t a binary choice of faith vs no faith (doubt). Instead, our Christian lives lie somewhere on the spectrum

 

The opposite of faith is not doubt (where you question Gods ability or existence entirely), but instead self-sufficiency … because sometimes you think you’d be better off just handling ‘it’ yourself.

Although the Bible tells us that faith isn’t the result of hard work or diligence because it is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8-9), it also tells us that God “rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6). In other words, God blesses those who in focusing on Him, listen to Him for His instruction, are obedient to His word, and who then depend on His word for guidance. This is faith; acting according to the belief in the certainty of what we hope for, and then being certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1).

So how does self-sufficiency fit into this Well, when we act contrary to our trust in God, who we cannot physically see, what we are actually doing is taking it upon ourselves to bridge the gap between our own calling and capacity; means and dreams; prayers and answers.We end up not needing God to intervene because we have reduced the success of situations to be dependent on resources we can produce and use as a matter of our own immediate reality. You exist without addressing Him; you don’t need to experience Him as your provider and He becomes an optional add-on to a life you already believe you have covered.

Faith in God as saviour, like a flame without oxygen, gets smaller in size until it exists no more.

When there’s no gap between your goals and your ability, there’s no need for faith which means there’s no room for God to move in your life. Of course, what I’m not saying is that it’s impossible to achieve physical things without God. There are many non-believers who have accomplished great things without any belief in Him. But Christianity is about more than just ‘success’. It’s the belief that God is the source of all things good and so He is worth putting our entire existence in His hands.

I think it’s very easy to misplace our thoughts, forgetting that as Christians we’re not first and foremost ‘students’, ‘entrepreneurs’, ‘extroverts’ or ‘introverts’. We’re citizens of heaven, and that always has to be our driving force. Unfortunately, we’ll all find that it’s not just ‘worldly’ people who are enemies of God, but even those Christians who are fixated on the ‘best’ things this life has to offer and in striving after them, failed to make the ‘why’ for doing it a God-oriented purpose.

Remember, the very basic notion on which man’s sinful nature rests is shown to us in Genesis; the idea that man can do it better for himself. This is human nature, and Adam and Eve were its first “converts and victims” (Dr. Frankie O. Phillips). Trusting God in His word and thereby having faith, requires us to abandon all notions of self-sufficiency and sources of help outside of God. To walk in faith is to become God-dependent which may mean you have to take risks. Because if self-sufficiency is the enemy of faith, then risk is faith’s catalyst.

The Bible makes it very clear that only two options exist in relation to the directions which life can take. We either feed on the tree of life, or we take sustenance from the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:9). The end of one direction is death while the end of the other direction is life everlasting, but both cannot be eaten simultaneously because we’re told that no one can serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). The ‘knowledge’ the Bible speaks of is not telling us that we shouldn’t learn or seek wisdom, but rather, it’s a warning that what we are actually seeking is a way we can ‘do’ by our own strength, and this will have consequences on our dependency on God as our source and as a result, our faith

“I have failed, what do I do now?”

On Mission
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Let’s be honest, failure is bitterly painful.

Have you studied really hard for an important exam, done a long run of all nighters, attended every class, made notes on the notes of your revision notes, walked into the exam believing you understood everything required to ace the test – only to get the mark back and it is much less than you hoped for, or worse – you didn’t pass?

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No Telly No Twitter ?

On Mission
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No Telly No Twitter ?

 

Fasting, typically in the form of food deprivation, is purposed by God according to Isaiah 58:6 to loose the bonds of wickedness, to let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke.

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Are you really BOLD in CHRIST?

On Mission
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Are you really BOLD in CHRIST?

Have you ever had that opportunity, that moment to boast about the Lord but you crumbled and were crippled by the fear of what others might think or say?

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