Whose Fool Are You?

There's something I've noticed about people in general. Most people, on some level, think they know better than everybody else. Everybody thinks they have been freed through their education and through their accumulated wealth. But you can never fool yourself. No matter who you are, you are somebody's slave. No matter how smart, eloquent ar educated you are, you are somebody's fool. You might be a slave to money or sin, as it is usually preached in the church. Or you might be a slave to politics, to the news, to your spouse, to your dismal or non-existent love life. You might be a slave to your job, to your imagination, to your sickness. You might even be a slave to yourself. But now, here's the thing. You choose who you can be a slave to. You have that power, and most people don't understand that.

If you don't lack understanding, then you will know that being a slave of the Almighty is the best decision you can make. Because God doesn't treat His slaves as most masters do. He makes them His partners, not just servants. He takes a vested interest in your life. He doesn't want to see you survive, He wants to see you reach for the stars, and indeed, go beyond the stars. He wants you to shine brighter than all of them. He wants you to rule with him. This is BEE on the highest level.

But this is where people flounder. They want to have a partnership with God, but they are not prepared to stick to the conditions of their contract. God made so many promises to us, but all those promises are conditional. Conditional on your zeal towards Him, on your obidience, on your faith. He is prepared, and is able, to make you exceed your wildest dreams. But He wants to be your partner. And you can't serve two masters, you will love the one and hate the other. But it is all your choice. The ball is in your court.

Now I leave you with this parting shot: I'm a fool for Jesus, whose fool are you?

Like Buffalo

Ever heard of the Buffalo Theory? Of course you haven't, I've never told you about it.

It's not as much a theory as it is an observation. It's quite simple really. In any herd of buffalo, there will be the strong ones, and inevitably, there will be the weaker ones, the older ones, the sickly and the very young. And being out in the wild, there will always be predators looking for their next meal from among the herd of buffalo. Lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, wild dogs, crocodiles at the watering hole. They're always on the prowl, waiting to devour.

Naturally, the herd sticks together, moves together, migrates together. And when a predator strikes, it is natural for them to defend each other. But most times this is not possible, and the animal is faced with a "fight or flight" situation. Most times they choose the later. Even then, they run as a unit. Well, almost. As I noted earlier, there are always the weaker ones in the herd. And these are the ones that predators target. The rest of the herd will try and defend them, send them to the middle of the pack, while the grown males stand on the outside with their horns towards the predators. But inevitably, one will always let slip, and casualties will occur, more so among the weaker, the elderly, the infants, the injured, the sickly.

But these casualties also have a positive effect. See, with the weaker members of the herd still around, the herd as a whole is not operating effeciently. They are slower than they would be if it was just the strong ones around. But, as the weaker buffalo fall prey to the predators, the herd as a whole is left stronger than before. They can run faster, go further, until they reach the greener pastures they are searching for.

That is the essence of the Buffalo Theory. As the weak members fall by the wayside, the unit is stronger as a result. They also learn from the misfortune, and are more the wiser. I'm reminded of this theory as the church is going through the present period of persecution. We may lament the loss of our brothers and sisters, but we can look at what has occured and learn from it. And we will come out stronger as a result. You'll never know, maybe they were the ones holding you back. It's like we've shaken off the weights on our backs, and we can run faster and go further.

At the end of the day, the work of God doesn't stop. The men and women of God are still there to run with the baton and pass it on to the next person. We will walk on.

Repentance

Last night I started reading the book Are We All God's Children by Bishop Macedo. Although I've only read a few pages and I haven't finished the book, there's something in there which caught my attention already and I just can't seem to shake it. He's talking about how Adam and Eve gave their authority to the devil through disobedience. Now, what got my attention is that he mentions that after committing their sin, after disobeying, instead of humbling themselves, going to God and asking for forgiveness, Adam and Eve chose to hide. After realising that they were naked, they chose to take weak, temporary fig leaves and hide their shame. And when God finally came looking for them, again instead of being humble and repenting, they started pointing fingers and shifting the blame.

Now, this raised two concerns within me. Firstly, had Adam and Eve rrepented, would the result have been different? Would God have forgiven them? I'm sure He would have. If they had just gone to Him and admitted their sin, would we still be in paradise today, having dominion over all creation as was the original intention? Of course, these questions are all quite pointless really, because the damage has been done. All we can do is live faithfully so that we can go back to the place that was created for us, instead of the place that was created for the devil and his demons. So I'll leave this matter at that.

The second, and much more relevant point, is how many people, even servants of God, act like Adam and Eve when they are caught in sin? How many people, instead of trully repenting and admitting their sins, choose to rather hide their sin? How many servants fool themselves everyday by living as hypocrites? How many servants fall into temptation and then, instead of going to their respective pastors and telling them, choose to hide because they fear losing their uniforms, along with their titles? How many servants out there are more afraid of the eyes of the people than they are of the eyes of the One who sees all?

For me, the fig leaves represent the lies that people tell to make excuses for their faults. I include myself in these group. And what we don't realise is it's all so futile, so useless, and yet so weakining and heavy. It's like if your roof is leaking, instead of fixing the roof, you keep putting bowls under the leaks. A temporary solution, weak and brittle. And tiring too. Most servants are more concerned about how people view them, their public image, instead of how God sees them. It's the reason why a number of assistants have become employees of the church instead of servants. They are more concerned with hiding their shame than with repentance. Or have I got the wrong end of the stick here?

Another thing is, why do we keep going back to the same sin? Look at any former servant, and you're likely to find that what made them fall was not something new that they came across. It's more likely to be something that they were never quite able to let go of. It's probably something which they repeatedly "repented" from, but went to it nonetheless. Is this normal, or is it lack of total repentance? I believe it's the latter. Most people never fully repent. They are never really sorry, for lack of a better word, for what they did. They just get on their knees, "My Jesus, forgive me, it was my flesh, wash me in your blood, in Jesus' name, Amen." Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. It's done, I'm forgiven, happy days. And then we forget. It becomes a routine, like a nursery rhyme. Have we become too "used" to God? Have we started treating Him like a school principal? This is probably why Solomon said the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.

Take it to the specialist

If you owned a car and it was giving you problems, who would you take it to to fix it? Would you take it to a car mechanic or would you take it to a plumber or carpenter? Unless you belong in the loony bin, you'd go to the car mechanic of course.

And if you did go to the mechanic, and assuming you drove a Mercedes-Benz, who would you rather take the car to? A qualified, certified Mercedes-Benz car mechanic or a corner mechanic somewhere in your neighbourhood? The qualified dude, of course!! And because you know he's qualified and you're paying him top dollar to work on your car, you expect perfect results. You expect him to fix whatever problem you may have with the car, because you know he's the best man for the job. You demand results!!

I started thinking about this when I considered all the sick people that we have in this world, and particularly in our churches. We all know that we were created by God's own hands. He created everything else by the power of His word, but when it came to mankind, He actually took the time to create us with His own hands. To me that means that nobody, NOBODY, knows me better than He does. Not my doctor, not my GP, not some anatomy professor, nobody. So whatever affliction I may have, He knows best how to fix it. Even if doctors say I have an incurable disease, they do not know how I was created. They were not there when my bones were connected together. They were not there when the blood was first pumped through my veins. They were not there when the labyrinth that is my nervous system was laid with an impossible attention to detail. They were not there when my skull was toughened up so it could protect my grey matter.

They have just spent years learning what God Himself created, and they still don't know enough. They'll never know enough. He knows everything. He created everything. Therefore He can fix EVERYTHING!! I think about this when people believe that God can do something only when man can do it as well. What an insult this must be to God. To be judged as less capable than His own creation! You go out there and ask a Christian, any Christian, if they believe that God can heal all diseases, even the incurable ones, and you're not likely to get a straight answer. And when you do ascertain that God can heal all, you'll be accused of deceiving the people.

Truth is, God is more powerful than we can imagine, and He can do the things that we can't bring ourselves to imagine. He is THE God, there is no other. And no matter what man may say, He is still the Omnipotent God. And if you trust Him fully, and approach His throne with confidence, there is absolutely nothing that He cannot do for you.

I rest,

Mzwandile

Gluttony

I've been thinking about this subject a lot lately. I don't know if it's my conscience putting it at the front of my mind. I suppose it's because I'm a heavy eater. Anyone who knows me knows that I can eat. Even at the office, at 61kg I'm the light-weight of the dealing room. Nevertheless, I'm still the only one with the proven ability to finish a 600g steak without taking a break to digest it in parts. Yes, we have actually proven this, I am king of the steakhouse.

Thing is, in my view, this is one of those subjects where there's a lot of grey areas. Most people cannot actually tell you what gluttony is. Some will say it's the love of food. Show me one person out there who doesn't love food and I'll show you a liar. Granted, some of us love it more than others (hey), but we all love food. Does it go beyond that then? Another will say it's when the love if food gets in the way of your relationship with God. Personally I have never missed a day at church solely because I was getting food at that time elsewhere. I can site a few times when I've been fasting, and then someone put a fresh chocolate cake or mutton samoosa or pork ribs in front of me and I quickly forgot my fasting. K, so I'm not perfect.

I do believe that maybe this subject should be investigated more. I mean, what are the limits? Is gluttony eating more than 3 square meals a day or are there individual limits based on the person's abilities? Are there any limits at all? Are there different limits for vegetable dishes than there are for meat dishes? Or is it only a sin as far as it affects my health? When Jesus died on the cross and fulfilled the Law, did He fulfill this particular law as well? Should I have my lunch right now or should I wait for someone to respond first and then dig in?

I rest,
Mzwandile

I'm Older Than You!

The other day I was chatting to a man from the church. There was this man, myself and another assistant. I was asking him why he hadn't been seen in the church since the festive season began, and had only come back after the first week of January. No, I wasn't interrogating the poor man, I was just asking out of concern, because the last time I checked, he didn't have any living family or relatives, so he doesn't have many places to visit during the holidays. So I was wondering whether there had been something wrong with him or something.

Turns out the old man never went anywhere. He was right here in Clermont, Cape Town, chillin'. He just decided that he wasn't gonna come to the church for the entire festive season. Which, to someone else, might not seem entirely wrong in itself. But it's the reasoning behind the man's christmas break that caught my attention. When we asked him why he decided not to come to the church for so long, he said he needed to rest. Hawu. Kanti lo muntu unjani madoda? Of all the things you could "rest" from, how can you take a rest from the presence of God? The more logical thing would be to rest in the presence of God, not so? I mean, it's the safest place to be, especially considering all the things which happen during the season, especially in this lovely country of ours.

So we posed the question to the big man. How can you rest from the presence of God? Which was when the conversation almost turned violent. He started telling us how he has been in the church longer than all the assistants in our branch, and probably longer than the pastor himself. He started recalling all the pastors who've ministered to him, all the people who've come and gone and he's still here. Apparently his longevity in the church makes him more of a spiritual authority than everybody else.

And this is when it dawned on me. This is one of the things which hold a number of people back, people who have been in the church for years and years. Of course, it wasn't just dawning then, it just re-enforced itself in my mind. Sometimes, when you've been in the church long enough, the devil will try to trick you into thinking that you've learned enough, that it's about time you took a break. That's why we hear people saying things like "How can such a young boy teach me anything?" (I have personally had such words directed at me). People forget that God doesn't work with age or experience or knowledge. He works by faith. All of these other things might come in handy at some point, but faith nust be at the forefront. People easily loose blessings because they want to serve God as they want, because they think they have come to understand the mind of God because of the number of years they've spent in the church. But this is a flawed logic. This is exactly the kind of thinking which led to the fall of King Saul and the removal of his anointing. This is the reason why, every once in a while, the Holy Spirit uses our leaders to remind us to revive our first love. The first love is that faith which assumes nothing, which waits for instruction from God and then follows without question. The first love is the love that Abraham had who, even after walking with God for almost a decade, still followed His instruction without question. He never supposed himself to know the mind of God. He followed wholeheartedly.

If we should allow the spirit of pride to invade our hearts, we will also end up like Saul. We should remain children in our hearts, so that God can find the space to work there. If we lift ourselves up, then He can't lift us up.

Superman!

Lately I've made some not-so-nice discoveries about the men that I hold in the highest regard in my life. See, I was raised by a single mom, and I never had a father-figure in my life. No older brothers, close uncles, nothing. The closest thing I have ever had to a father figures are the pastors from the church. Over the years I've been fortunate to be relatively close to the men of God who work in my church. They have contributed immensely in shaping the man that I am today. From relationships to taking care of responsibilities to standing up for what I believe in, everything I know I learned from them. Of course, it was the Holy Spirit using them to teach me, I know. But He used them, and they allowed Him to use them to teach me.

As I result of this, I hold my pastors in very high regard. Giving everything up and choosing to devote your life to saving other people is a very noble act. It is, to me, the most important occupation (dare I say, job) on the planet and it's importance cannot be exxagerated. These men and women give their all everyday so that we can continue living our comfortable lives. Our lives are effectively in their hands, as they put their lives on the line daily for ours. I have great admiration for them, and over the years I have developed a sort of Superhero image of them. I view them as the lone rangers, seeking out evil and wicked men and fighting them off for our sake (you can tell from this that I watch too many cartoons).

But this view of mine comes with it's pitfalls, though. Because they're not superheroes, see, and they're definitely not invincible. And from time to time, one of them will throw in the towel and leave this most blessed of work fields. I have seen this happen time and time again, but none rocked my world as much as a couple of weeks ago, when the one man whom I hold in the highest regard also threw in the towel. This is the man who showed me that really all things are possible. That God does not look at your situation, or your past. If you devote yourself to Him fully, He will use you to His great glory. And all the other things you won't learn from the altar during the Sunday morning service, but which you can only learn from being in close proximity to a man of fire. He fell, and boy did he fall hard.

I won't go into the details of what happened, except that his past somehow caught up with him. So his ministry collapsed, along with his marriage. I was shattered. Of all the people who can fall. But then it dawned on me. You are only as strong as your connection to God is. Samuel was the first king of Israel, the anointed one of God. And God gave him victory in all he did, as long as he remained fully obedient to Him. The day he conceived within himself that he could go against God's commandements, he fell. He had been the most humble man in the land, the one God saw worthy to give the highest throne in Israel. And he allowed pride to contaminate his heart, and as a result he became the first recorded suicide in the bible.

Here's the thing. No matter how strong, spiritual or close to God you are, if you start neglecting your spitual life, you will lose out. No man is invincible, no matter how long you've known God or the amount of work you've done for Him, your salvation is still strictly in your hands. You have to understand that if you are a servant, then you are in the frontline in the war against evil. Some people believe that just because they come to church and tell people about Jesus, satan will leave them alone. On the contrary, we are the first line of fire. So we are the ones who have to be the most vigilant. We are the ones who have to be the most careful to obey fully. The devil is not afraid of people who pray. He's afraid of people who fully submit to God and obey His every command. That's the secret (in my view, at least). Superheroes don't exist. We are all human, and we all have our weak spots. Even Superman had his kryptonite. But the devil can only exploit these weak spots if we give him the entry point. And the entry point is disobedience. Submission is key, and if we have that, we will conquer all things in life.