THE RESTORER OF ZION

 I am with you always even to the end of the world Mat 28:20.

What shall we the say, If God is for us, who can be against us? Romans 8:31

Jesus promised to be with his disciples always even to the end of the ages. This word of promise is yea and amen as long as we remain disciples of the master and in this status, the enemy can only try but in vain to stop us in our Journey simply because God is with us and God is for us.  For proper understanding, we must appreciate that a disciple of Jesus is the person who daily follow the master, hear His voice and respond to His dealings as a life style with the whole aim of pleasing Him, having accepted Him as Lord. So, it is in following His discipline that His presence is guaranteed.

Practically, we must admit that adversities are normal in life. The presence or absence of it in our life is not a confirmation of God’s presence or absence. However, when facing adversities, you had better be sure that God is with you as this will certainly make a difference between victory and defeat. How do we ensure that God is with us? The first rule is that, we must not assume, as He may have left us at the curve of disobedience and we may not have known.

“Go not up, for the LORD is not among you; that ye be not smitten before your enemies”. Num 14:42

…..and said, which way went the Spirit of the LORD from me to speak unto thee? 1Kings 22:24

As believers, we often fall to the mistake of thinking that, if we are opposed by unbelievers or those we perceive as less righteous than us, God will not be on theirr side but on our side. The truth is that God is on the side of those who are in His will and we can sometime find ourselves standing against an unbeliever who unknowingly is fulfilling the will of God. Where we are confronted with adversarial situation and circumstances, we should rather seek God and ensure that we are in his will rather than making empty and presumptuous confessions in the name of faith that, God is always with us.

The lesson here is that in our pursuits, transactions or dealings with men, we must never presume that God is on our side but must seek to ensure that we are on his side by seeking to know his ways and walk in it as true disciples. Disciples are commanded to deny self and follow the master, despising the shame and carrying their cross. The anointing and calling of God is not a permanent guarantee that God is with us neither is it an excuse to walk in our ways. The story of Josiah and Jehoshaphat are tragic stories of righteous Kings who presumably went into war to support friends under the assumption that God was always with them as the anointed of God. The righteous King Josiah who restored the celebration of the feast of Passover to Israel was slaughtered by the King of Egypt at Megiddo for standing on the way of a heathen king sent on a mission to execute judgment. In the case of Jehoshaphat, he was spared by the mercy of God as he cried out. Those whose goal and vision is to solve people’s problems outside the ultimate call to grow into his image must watch out lest they be found against God. Our call is to bring people to God and assist men to learn his ways that they may find rest for their restless souls.  True rest comes when we are walking in his ways for then he will be with us and if he is with us, who really can be or stand successfully against us?  Nobody!

THEREFORE, ENSURE THAT YOU ARE WITH HIM

The Mighty King Jeroboam who ruled for twenty -one  years was called of God with a promise of divine establishment of his Kingdom for all times. He was favored and empowered, defended and instructed of God in respect of his divine mission. No sooner than he settled down into the business of governance that “the desire for self preservation’’ and “the fear of tomorrow’’ which are the pre-occupation of the   soulish man whose identity and root is not found in God.

So he offered upon the altar which he handmade in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, [even] in the month which he had devised of his own heart; Iking1: 33

Motivated by fear of tomorrow and strong desire for self preservation, King Jeroboam mind (flesh) came up with several innovative, strategies, a creation of the natural mind whose origin is not from above. It is portent wisdom with a religious semblance that guarantees the political future of his empire. He created an alternative worship centers in Bethel (the house of God) and in Dan that diverts the Children of Israel from the true worship of God to the worship of the golden image (money). In the spirit of rivalry and soulish lawlessness, he for personal gain anointed and ordained soulish men to the ministry and preoccupied the people with unannointed programs, rituals and empty ceremony that lack spiritual potency necessary for spiritual transformation.

Highlighted below are the sins of Jeroboam representing illegitimate soulish operations are as follows:

1. He built high places in Bethel and in Dan representing impartation of attractive but dead philosophies  and principles of living that eventually constitutes destructive stronghold in life and society. Some of our motivational messages fall into this category if we scrutinize them through the living truth of God’s word.
2. He set up golden calfs representing the promotion of the worship of money and the gospel of consumerism pervading the nations.
3. He ordained  natural and ordinary men as ministers creating personality cult round himself
4. He ordained himself as a priest, making himself uncontrollable.
5. He instituted presumptuously an alternative feast in the 8^th month contrary to the ordained feast of Israel in the 7^th month.

It is interesting that God visited King Jeroboam in Bethel with a powerful sign which brought down the altar in Dan and paralyzed his hand but he remain incorrigible under the control of selfishness and a heart that is devoid of the fear of God.

With absolute pre-occupation with carnality and dead works, it was easy to predict the end of the mighty King Jeroboam who was looking for identity and a future outside his creator, even the God of Israel who lifted his head and brought him into dominion.

After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became [one] of the priests of the high places.  And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut [it] off, and to destroy [it] from off the face of the earth. I King 13;33-34

If we are to be establish in kingdom of our God and of his Christ, we must purged ourselves of the sins of our souls from the corruption of self in our souls and connect the life of God by constantly seeking to know and do the will of God through humility and prayer.

Arising and Moving Forward

The Christian experience is designed to be a journey, an adventure into divinity, a pursuit of godliness, a press into perfection from the elementary and human dimension. The Christian life is far from been a series of attendance of endless meeting that brings no re-configuration of our content, character and lifestyle. It is a call to an exciting world of daily growth, transformation and maturity.

To press into maturity as instructed by the inspired words of Hebrew 6:1, we are advised to leave the elementary principles and press into perfection. This is call to get dissatisfied with our spiritual status which portrays glaring limitations. This is not a call to abandon truths which stand for ever but to grow in the level of understanding and become mature and grown up in our perception of things. It is a call to leave the realm of mixture into the pure realm of God where we see things from the eye view of God having been anointed with eye salve of the spirit which allows a clear 360% degree perception.

Leaving a comfort zone of understanding does not come easy to man as it confronts the pride of the natural man and the foolish presumption of the religious mind that  wallows in the “we know all” deception  contrary to the truth of the scriptures that we only know in “PARTS” and that we  have not pass “ this way before”. The reality that assists lovers of truth and sincere men is that we are as free as the degree of truth that we know. The bondages  evident in our lives reminds us that we are yet apprehend enough revealed truth necessary to become the liberated sons of God which we are called to be experientially and not just legally.

Isaac Newton’s first law of motion is as true in the physical as it is true in the spiritual, everybody continues in a state of rest or uniform motion unless it is displaced by an opposing forces. The forces of truth of God’s word is what is needed to break the evil inertia of negative  religious, social and cultural yokes  that holds man captive. Many times, friends and colleagues were found to have applied extra application of words of encouragement or rebuke to wake us up or align us in a direction of truth we ordinarily would not want to go until our eyes popped open.

A man pre-occupied with the present leaving no room to think of the future is trapped and this represent the condition of the most present day earth dwellers and believers whose thoughts are limited to “what shall we eat and drink” or like David, the number and the size of our churches or the people that we rule over.

God’s ultimate plan is to express himself fully in the tabernacle call “MAN” and to achieve this, he has instituted a seven day program of transformation described by the seven feast and the seven days of creation. Each day releases a daily deposit of divine substance, the daily bread which represent the truth that takes man higher in the process of   becoming like him until “we all come to the measure of the stature of Christ” .

It behooves of us therefore to hunger for our daily bread or word of revelation from God whereby we may continually receive, digest and progress in our journey towards maturity.

It is in from this place we receive strength and energy to arise and move forward, it is from this place of revelation we become empowered with the light and direction, creativity and courage to adjust, leave what should be left behind and move in the right direction. Failure in the place of dieting and feeding on daily bread brings paralysis and hinder us from moving forward. It will take personal individual effort to desire the sincere milk and meat of the world and not just a collective bandwagon operation of religious programs and nothing is too important to deny us of this GREAT opportunity and privilege of a daily communion at the Lord’s table where his truth is exchanged for our foolishness.

Breaking the hold of habits, routines and thought pattern will be realized by a resolve on our part to appropriate the sufficient grace of God available in the proceeding word of God to escape the inertia of our present circumstances and situation. We must remember that man shall leave not by physical bread alone but by the fresh and daily manna from the very presence of God.

Servants of God who therefore bring words from God’s e must desire to receive fresh and hot words to men and men must not be satisfied until they have lay hold individually of their daily allocation through meditation as we know that it is in the place of meditation that the   juice of revelation is assimilated.

The practical application of the truths of God in our daily lives will bring some pain to us but consistency and readiness to move forward is what we need to sustain ourselves through the pain and ascend to higher realms of rest.

Moving from the Pentecostal dimension into the greater feast of God requires humility. Those who will lead the move will be sincere and willing to make painful adjustment. Move forward for beyond you lies new realms of liberty, new heights of glory and victory, new depths of love, joy, peace and power and in the word of Achilles, the Great Greek warrior as he charged his soldiers to confront Troy, I will say beyond you lies (immortality) life everlasting, Press on in this path of life looking not to the left or right.

Scripture references::Hebrew 6:1,   2 Peter 1:19,  Proverb 4:11,   Psalm 16:11

GOD WEIGHS OUR ACTIONS

It is true that most of the time, the actions of man and the words of our mouth are reflections of the state of our heart and unlike man, God is interested in what goes on in our heart  as this is where the substance of our being and originality is.  This explains why God is interested in searching our heart by bringing unpredictable and unusual circumstances on our way to provoke involuntary actions which opens a door of opportunity to us in weighing and knowing our hearts .

David was confronted with the reality of the corruption in his heart when he woke up to the meaning of his action which portrays the wickedness of his soul. No wonder he cried “Create in me a new heart…”

If we say we are righteous, our actions and words will reveal it when weighed, if we say we are honest or humble, our action will reveal the truth about us if we sincerely weighed them. Words and actions are like smoke that will reveal the conditions of our inner being for us to seek transformation but not for condemnation or guilt. This underlines the wonderful opportunity we have in intimate relationships as in marriage for change.

We must remove the veil of our religious activities and wake up to how far we are away from the divine mark .The opportunity to do this comes up every day as we act and talk ,if we cultivate the habit of reviewing and weighing our actions with the word of God. The time beaten advice we have received from our elders that we should weigh our actions before acting is wise but it is most essential as well to create time to weigh our actions thoughtfully regularly not just in big matters but also in small things.  Weigh our actions under the light of God’s spirit is the path to learning and transformation but this path is difficult in a world of busyness where the mind of man is invaded 24/7 with all manner of information through various media including internet, mobile phones and television. The greatest need of the time is therefore the reflective quiet time that constituted the strength of many giants in history.

Hannah  gave us a powerful illumination to help us  in the book of first Samuel  stating clearly that God weighs our actions even if we do not weigh them. God weighs our words and can easily detect the foul odor of arrogance and pride and his judgment are consequently effected to raise up or bring down, to kill or to spare.

Wise men therefore will obey the advice of the Savior  that we should weigh our hearts by weighing our actions humbly, sincerely and by the spirit and afterwards judge our  self  to escape the judgment of the living King of the universe.

Weigh your actions before and if not before after. As simple as this injunction is, the more powerful and successful, you see yourself, the more difficult it is to consider, this explains why we see continuous foul utterances from the pulpit and destructive attitudes from the leaders, most of whom have positioned themselves in such a way that no one feel obliged to draw their attention to perceived faults. In many cases, such leaders have driven away voices of reason and aggregate sycophants around them who sing their ‘ Hosssana”

In pursuing the path of life, we must constantly weigh our actions, seek him for the necessary grace for adjustment and our path will shine brighter and brighter until we experience the morning in which the light of God fully manifests in us and Christ (Daystar) is fully revealed. Learn of him.