LOVING IN A WORLD THAT'S FORGOTTEN HOW TO LOVE

Ever wondered why people always take advantage of your good nature? You try to help people or do something nice and you end up being reaped off. You sometimes feel used. People know you as a nice person and end up turning you into a paycheck. Maybe you are beginning to consider changing your ways.  You are beigning to wonder if the preachers were right when they told you all you have to be is be a good person and bad things will not happen to you. Maybe you're thinking of locking up your heart and refraining from caring about others. Before you make that decision, please take some time to read this blog. I'll attempt to explain the dynamics of living any life resembling the Christ life in this present age. 

God is Love, so God’s power is love power. He operates by Love, nothing he does is motivated by anything other than love. In the same vein, he created the universe that operates on community and humans that were made to love and be loved. However, due to the fall, we have been conditioned to be selfish. We have created a world system where it is the survival of the fittest. We have abandoned the original design of this universe and designed a world in the image of Satan. People are generally seeking ways to dominate each other, to be at an advantage over others. Even in loving relationships, we can’t resist the urge to have our way and win arguments. Seldom do we see people who lay down their lives for their loved ones on a consistent basis. I for one am just learning to do that through the Holy Spirit. With that being said, it means that in dealing with a people who have been conditioned to be mostly selfish (remember, it’s a conditioning and not our nature), the person who walks in love on a consistent basis will eventually clash with the world. They will inevitably suffer some form of backlash from the world. There are circumstances where people will take advantage of the person’s good nature and cheat or try to dominate the person.

“if you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own, but since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you…” John 15: 18-19

This is just the reality we find ourselves in. For a variety of reasons, to let Jesus live through you is to court conflict with the world. There is no way around it. Contrary to some modern popular Christian beliefs, reigning in life does not equate a life where everybody likes you. The poor and downtrodden might like you, but not those in power. Not the people whose power structures and means of survival is in jeopardy by our very existence and lifestyle. We will talk more on these people as time goes by.

If you are in the midst of such persecution right now; maybe you’re suffering for doing the right thing or you feel hatred coming from your friends and colleagues or family members for deciding to walk in love, take heart. Jesus says further:

“When that happens, remember this: Servants don’t get better treatment than their masters. If they beat on me, they will certainly beat on you. If they did what I told them, they will do what you tell them...”  John 15:19

Jesus was constantly barraged by the disdain of the world, especially from the powers of his day. He was constantly being tested, scrutinized and abused. But he never lost his cool. He was so anti-world that he ended up getting killed in a conspiracy by the Sanhedrin (the religious establishment of his day) and the Roman empire (the political establishment of his day). Jesus knew things like this would happen, so he prepared his disciples for it. He constantly reminded them that to follow him was to go against the tide of the generation. In doing so, the world would react in one form of violence or the other. That to me is the definition of Christian suffering. It is to suffer loss or injury for following Jesus. Not arbitrary sickness and loss. If we suffer those, it is simply a result of living in an imperfect world. While lessons might be learnt in those circumstances, it is not God’s will for us to experience such evil

I don’t know about others but I’ve realized that I cannot turn back. I cannot stop wishing to live like Christ. My eyes have been opened to the truth of the love and Grace of God and it has become extremely difficult to turn back to the world. The moment I caught a glimpse of God’s vision for the world in the person of Jesus, I was drawn in and couldn’t help myself to further probe into this. To be arrested by love is to find yourself compulsively wishing to love others. Sometimes I succeed in it, many times I don’t, but I can never say I’m no longer following Christ. Whatever may come from that decision, I know I’m not alone. I’m simply experiencing a small portion of what the Lord experienced.

“For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. ¹⁸ For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit” 

1 Peter 3:17-18

In the passage above we see a clear result of walking like Jesus. To suffer like Jesus and to reap a reward too. We will discuss this further in the next post.

THE GC PODCAST EPISODE 2

On this episode, me and my brother discuss the just concluded elections and the judgement of God

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WE HAVE A PODCAST!!!

So me and my tribe; Grace Community have launched a new podcsst. It's titled The GC Podcast. For now it includes me and my brother having discussions around pop culture, life and how it intersects with our faith. This is basically a peek into thee conversations and fellowship that makes us Grace Community.

The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud and Podbean. So please search for it. We kick off on Monday,
the 1st of October



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AFTER GOOD FRIDAY

In the last post, I wrote about how walking in love can lead to unfavorable consequences in the face of a world that does not necessarily  operate on that basis. Many people suffer persecution, rejection and loss for choosing to follow the way of Jesus. The world powers tend to react in one form of violence or the other to a person whose lifestyle threatens their existence. But we also closed that post with 1 Peter 3: 17-18 where Peter states in verse 18

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit”

Resurrection of Christ by Noel Coypel (1700)

It is this last verse in this passage that I want to bring to your attention. Walking with Jesus entails facing what Jesus faced. Suffering like he suffered. He then follows it up with the fact that though he was killed, he was raised from the dead. We also reap a reward like he did. To be clear, we live this higher life of love in the Holy Spirit because we cannot help it. Whatever happens, we have been convinced that this is the Way. We have the nature of Love in us by the Holy Spirit. His love has been poured into our hearts and so we cannot but live like this. Regardless of our knee jerk desires to be selfish and violent, walking with God reprograms us to choose the path of love. However, we can still rest assured in the fact that our actions of love, have an impact and will be rewarded in some way.

I remember listening to Brian Zahnd preach one time and he made a profound statement; for every Good Friday, there is a resurrection Sunday (or something to that extent). What he meant was that, every time we suffer for taking the path of love, we also experience victory at the end of the day. Love always wins. We cannot tell how, or when but somehow, someway we are justified for following the way of love. We will find out maybe in this age or the next that our actions had impact and thus we have won. Consider this:

⁵ In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature^[a] God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father. (Philipians 2: 5-11)

I believe Paul tells the Philippian Church this passage for two reasons:

·         To help them focus on Jesus and his work in order be transformed into humble, self-sacrificing lovers of each other like Jesus.

·         Also, to highlight to them the direct consequence of Jesus lowering himself in love. Which is his ultimate exaltation.

Like I said earlier, we are not loving others because we want to reap rewards, that is backdoor selfishness. But our actions of love do bring rewards for us. it could just be in the sense of our personal development or the ripple effect of our actions in society. Sometimes, we are lifted higher than our persecutors. Sometimes, the loss leads us down a path to gain much more. We can’t tell. Even when it seems like love has lost, love still wins

I BELIEVE, HELP MY UNBELIEF

¹⁷ A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. ¹⁸ Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”

¹⁹ “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”

²⁰ So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth.

²¹ Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”

“From childhood,” he answered. ²² “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”

²³ “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

²⁴ Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

²⁵ When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”

Many of us who were brought up in the Charismatic and Pentecostal stream of things have been taught a Christianity with an overtly unhealthy fixation on our faith. In the midst of all the good that came with believing that God actually still worked miracles; he still healed, he stilled provided financially and he still casts out demons, a little error crept in. We placed too much emphasis on how strong the individual’s belief is.  We are constantly reminded to be strong in faith. That we should not waver in our belief that this miracle or healing will happen. If it doesn’t happen, it simply means there is something wrong with us.

To me, this has built an unhealthy fixation on faith amongst Christians. We are more concerned with how much faith we display than in the goodness of God. It is a subtle reversal to the works mentality that is prevalent in most human religion and we allowed it to creep it in because we all love to boast about what we have done to earn the blessing. In this case, we have believed properly and unwaveringly.

Don’t get me wrong, I do agree that the belief and assent of the believer is key to living and enjoying the relationship with God. But I believe that Faith is a natural response to the goodness of God. We are not saved by Faith, we are saved by Grace. Faith is what happens when we find out what God has done for us. it is the hallelujah we scream when we think of the goodness of God to us through his Son. It is the smile on people’s faces, the feeling of relief and joy that I see in people when they dare to believe that God is actually better than they think.

Nevertheless, there is an ebb and flow with regards to our faith. Sometimes we believe strongly, other times the circumstances are so overwhelming, we forget that God is bigger than the challenge and he is actually on our side. When the rubber meets the road, there are times when we forget who we are; beloved children of the most high God.

This is where the beauty of the Gospel lies. It was never dependent on our faith. Our faith did not save us and it does not sustain us. Even in times when we are unsure and full of doubt, Jesus has no doubt. Consider the passage above, the man believed in Jesus enough to bring his son to Jesus for healing, but even then, he still had doubts. That did not stop Jesus from doing what he wanted to do. Because he is a healer, he is Love. The cry of the man for Jesus to help his unbelief is the cry of humanity. It is apt because that is exactly part of what Jesus does for us in his vicarious humanity. He takes our feeble attempts at faith, repentance, and worship and presents it alongside his perfect representation of these things before the Father. At the end of the day we are all people screaming “I believe, help my unbelief”

The result of this is simple, we do not need to examine the level of our faith (the epistles advise us to examine if we are still in the Faith and not to examine how strong our faith is) but to continually trust in the one who can perfect our faith, however big or small. We are also to trust that he is always on our side, even when we seem unsure, he will always help our unbelief. When you do that, your focus goes back to him and God sees you in your faith

Thinking Communally

A few things have changed the course of my life forever and affected the way I think and live. The first is that God is Love. I have always known this; people preach it all the time. Mostly to berate us for not loving enough. But I’ve come to take this statement very seriously and to actually believe that God is all Love (not God is love and…. Or God is love, but…) everything about God stems from this nature of Love. Therefore, God does not engage in nor endorse actions that are not of love.

The second thing I learnt is that God is a community. This blew my mind. I did not know this before I got introduced to Trinitarian Theology. God is Father, Son and Spirit. Before anything was made, before space, before time, there existed a community in the Godhead. That community whose very constitution and nature is love decided to create a world in order to have a community of folks they can share this love with. They enjoyed each other so much that the idea came to them; “let’s make people that can enjoy this too”

This realization led me to only one conclusion. This Universe is built for Love and community. The God who is community can only design a world of community. Sin is the thing that pushes us to be more and more insular and self-centered. This is why the Church is a community, not a group of individuals that meet every week to learn how to better their personal lives. As much as it is important for us to know God personally and to realize that we house the Holy Spirit in our bodies, we cannot discount the need for brothers and sisters who we love and love us, and who can share their experiences and revelation in order to help us grow in our walk with God and for whom we do the same too. Our faith is very personal, no doubt, but it is also very communal. We cannot have one without the other.

It also means that people are more important than institutions and empires. Building a Trinitarian community involves a totally different set of dynamics from building a business or a religious institution. This is a community based on love and equality of all. It is based on people laying down their lives for each other as opposed to a power struggle. God’s vision is for a world filled with people who Love each other like that, from whole communities down to the family structure. We are not enemies of each other, or competitors in a game of money and resources, we are supposed to be partners in building the Kingdom of God

This, to me, is one of the major reasons for the inequalities, wars and degradation of the earth. We are not living according to the design of the universe; Love and Community. Hence, the results we see. When people, families and whole nations choose to ignore this way of life, it only leads to chaos and lopsidedness. This is a call for us all. Let’s follow the Holy Spirit as he leads us to live with this truth in mind. Let these truths influence your interactions and lead us to making the world a better place and a Godly life. To do otherwise is to swim against the tide of the Universe and to experience the pain that comes along with that.

LIVING IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD

One of the mistakes I make most frequently is forget that i'm living in the presence of God. As a matter of fact, I have filled my phone wallpapers with icons of the Christian faith to remind myself of this fact all the time. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work.

We tend to live life in a dualistic fashion; God is up there in the sky, sometimes interfering in the affairs of men, but essentially absent. Meanwhile I’m down here living my life, doing the "mundane" things; gong to work, eating, drinking, and occasionally loving those around me. The only times that these two realms intersect is when we are in the mode of worship or prayer, when we feel a presence or heightened emotions.

In actual fact, we serve a God who fills all things and encompasses all things. We learn that Jesus sustains all things by his powerful word and all things exist in him (Colossians). We are perpetually swimming in the ocean of the divine, we are drowning in the presence of God.  There is a scene in Erik Guzman's beautiful book "The Seed" where the Man is dying of thirst and hunger, while surrounded by clear beautiful water flowing from the root of the Christ figure. But his mind has been so warped by the distortion of Sin that he doesn't see this water, All he sees is this black soot. So while the woman is scooping the water and literally drinking in the Holy Spirit, the man is disgusted and cannot bring himself to drink the water/soot. That is the predicament of the Human race. Even we who believe are not always aware of the presence of God. We are too weighed down by the darkness, too invested in our self dependent life that we have forgotten to refresh ourselves in the waters of the Holy Spirit. We have even forgotten that the Holy Spirit is present, that we are in Jesus and he is in us and that we belong to the Father. In actual fact, as much as we would like sometimes, nobody can escape from the presence of God; not even the dead

“if I were to climb up to the highest heavens, you would be there. If I were to dig down to the world of the dead you would also be there” Psalm 139:8

.   And why would God be absent? He is the one who provides us with our emotions, gifts and the activities we like.  We like the things we like because he first liked them. We enjoy the company of our friends because he enjoys the company of friends. This is the beauty I try to remind myself of at all times. That in all activities, he is there with me. I don’t have to beg and scrape for him to come down. I don’t have to drum up spiritual energy on my own in order to do the work of God. Neither do I have to perform some rain dance or debase myself in a fashion that impresses him enough to come down and give me his blessing. He is always present, always blessing and always supplying everything we need for every challenge and every endeavor.