Sunday 27 December 2015

Salt Changing the Earth (Part 3)

Where did Jesus get His power? It was not because He was God. He spent His nights in prayer, hearing from the Father about how to deal with the issues awaiting Him. Then during the day, He did exactly as He was told. He said in John 5:19, “‘I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.’”
Where did Jesus see what His father was doing? Can it be that He saw it while He was in heaven? I’m convinced that He saw His Father in the Spirit while He was praying. God then illustrated what Jesus was supposed to do during His ministry the following day. He probably would have heard something like: “Jesus, today you will meet a blind man. You must spit in the sand, make mud and put it on his eyes. It is imperative that you tell him to go and wash his face in the Pool of Siloam.” Had Jesus have done it in a different way, it probably would not have worked.
He also said in John 5:30, “‘By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.’” Where did Jesus hear? He heard through prayer during the night.
How did Jesus pray? We find the ultimate example in Luke 22:44: “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.” This prayer was in Gethsemane and certainly was the ultimate of prayers, but I believe it was typical of all His prayers: earnest and heartfelt.
Jesus could do nothing without relying on His father. How about us? “‘I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing’” (John 15:5). As Jesus needed His Father, so we need Him. As we remain in Him and He in us, what fruit will we bear? The fruit He bore, the same power He exercised, the same difference He made. “The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working]” (James 5:16b Amplified Bible). That is how we should pray.
Some issues can be resolved only through prayer. We couldn’t physically do much about the falling airplanes. Concerning certain other issues, though, James said in his epistle that faith without works is dead. Jesus did not only pray against the deception of the Pharisees and teachers of the law; He also confronted them, exposing Himself to persecution and the risk of being killed. These confrontations eventually lead to His death. If we want to be like Jesus we must also be courageous and confront the wrongs in life. This means we have to risk unpopularity, even within the church.
The Bible says in 2 Timothy 3:16, 17: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” And in 2 Timothy 4:2: “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction.”
I have lately become increasingly aware of the words “correct” and “rebuke” in the above passages. How much of these are still being done within the church? If good works demand holiness, then people, who are being prepared for good works, need teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness. This will bring them in line with the Lord who is the author of good works. “For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:10).
Correcting and rebuking is not nice or easy. We fear rejection, but if we don’t rebuke and correct, people tend to compromise. Many people live in sin and are not confronted any more. This result is that the church is weakened because of unrighteousness.
The fear of persecution and rejection causes the church to live in compromise with the world. She became acceptable to the world and even to the enemy, since she does not make people aware of sin and holiness anymore and is therefore not a threat to anyone. The Holy Spirit wants to convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment (John 16:8), and needs the church to work with Him.
The same applies if the church does not correct or rebuke the government. Without correction, the government tends to be led by the carnal nature and evil forces. Our battle against sin and corruption must be intense and focused.
As a family, we love watching movies and have often found great spiritual lessons in them. One day we were watching an action movie involving spies. My wife commented, “Despite the danger and against all odds, these heroes just don’t give up.” How many of us resist evil passionately, against all odds, until we accomplish what we set out to do? The general approach seems to be “I’ll do something as long as it doesn’t affect me personally.”
We need always to work with the Lord under His direction. If we rebuke because the Lord told us to and we do it the way He directs us, it will bear authority and manifest change. The Lord wants us to be channels of His power. If we are available, He is more than willing to teach us how to be different, how to swim against the streams of popularity and accepted behavior, even of popular Christian beliefs. He would love to raise a salt army that would make a sick earth whole through his power. During the storm Jesus told the disciples:

“You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm” (Matthew 8:26).

Jesus made two points in this passage. First, by saying, “You of little faith,” he implied that they should have spoken to the elements. They should have commanded the storm themselves, giving Jesus’ power a channel to work through. He expected them to exercise their faith and the spoken word so that He could solve the problem through them.
The second thing Jesus did was to command the wind and waves to calm down. Everything Jesus did was through commands, from the creation until the end of His ministry. He prayed through the night to get rhema; the living word or revelation instructions from the Father, and then He gave His commands. This means that He received the instructions from the Father, which gave Jesus the faith He needed that the Father will back His commands with His power, simply because it was the Father in the first place who told Him what to do. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17 KJV). If we hear from God what He wants us to do, we will have the faith that He will back us up and do what we ask or command, since we do what the Almighty expects of us: His will.
How can we be salt on the earth and clean out its sepsis? First we need to become aware of God's concern for this sick earth. We need to focus away from our carnal thoughts, doubts, fear, and hatred and adopt His compassion and thoughts.
Then we need to have faith. We need to believe that He can and wants to deal with this sepsis. We need the faith to believe we can be His channels. Then we need to spend much time in prayer and fasting to bring every situation before God and hear from Him how he'd like to deal with it. Last, once we know how to deal with it, we need to command His will into every situation as Jesus did.
There is no record of Jesus publicly begging the Father to heal somebody. He rebuked and commanded. So if the sepsis of this earth becomes a concern to you, isolate yourself to God, get the rhema solution to the problem, and then command it into the heavens and onto the earth. “‘What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.’” (Matthew 10:27).

What do you think will happen to this sick earth if all the millions of Christians do this on a daily basis? (To be continued)

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Sunday 20 December 2015

Salt Changing the Earth (Part Two)

If one studies the efficiency of Christianity in the past twenty centuries, she sees the discrepancies between Jesus’ intentions for us and the reality of the world. Christians seem to have been losing all the way. Countries that Paul evangelized are now largely heathen, everywhere the earth is in chaos, and a very small part of it is truly evangelized. Even in Christian countries, a vast majority of the nation has little or no knowledge of Christ and the Bible. Secularism and other religions have overtaken Christianity in popularity. Christians rely on doctors rather than on Jesus' power for healing, let alone driving out demons and raising the dead. There are many other things Jesus did that we do not touch. Why? It is because today's disciples don't have faith in Jesus.

            “‘I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, “Move from here to there” and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you’” (Matthew 17:20). And in Luke 17:6: “‘If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, “Be uprooted and planted in the sea,” and it will obey you.’”

I have heard many spiritual explanations of this passage, but I think Jesus meant it literally. It fits the effect we should have on the earth. But many of us don’t even have faith as small as a mustard seed. We often pray with a “what if” in the backs of our minds. We are afraid of making fools of ourselves. We simply don’t trust God. If we did, we would see a much different earth. We rely on our own resources, so occupied with ourselves that we simply don’t bother. The condition of the world doesn’t affect us in our comfortable, materialistic cocoon, so why would we worry about being salt? In many ways, the church has become a social club, a controlling power to manipulate people, a moneymaking business or emotional showbiz.

Jesus said in the John 14:13 that anything we ask of Him, He will do. What is this “anything?” Is it our personal wants and needs? I don’t think so. These will be cared for automatically if we get busy with His Kingdom issues (Matthew 6:25-34). If we, however, identify a situation in the earth that needs changing, we need to go before Jesus in prayer and fasting and ask Him what we should command. Once we hear from Him how to go about it, we need to take authority over the spirit behind the situation and then command that which we have heard from God. He will then solve the situation. Obviously, this would demand from us dedicated prayer and separation for God. Believe me, I have seen many issues resolved as a result of taking authority and have also heard testimonies to that effect.


Some years ago my wife, Julia, and I became aware of a number of airplane crashes, one after the other, within a few weeks. I asked, “Why this trend, Lord?” I then saw a vision of a cloud of demons forcing an airplane down as if playing games. The devil’s purpose is to kill, steal, and destroy (John 10:10). We decided to take authority in the spiritual realm against these activities, and the accidents stopped. Then we started to look for other trends to pray against. There are many such issues that God can deal with in the natural, political, and social realms. What about the political situations in countries like Zimbabwe, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the health situation in Zimbabwe, or poverty in many countries? When we pray for them, how do we pray?  (To be continued)

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Friday 18 December 2015

Salt Changing the Earth

Good day dear friend

If you would kindly forgive me for not being active with this blog I would really appreciate it. The reason being that the Lord asked me to start publishing and marketing the books I'm deriving from all my writings. This is what kept me busy all these months.

It is, however, time to start getting active on the blog again, so I will work hard at getting a post at least once a week.


Salt Changing the Earth

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. (Matthew 5:13)

In this passage, Jesus spoke to His disciples. In John 17:20, He also prayed for His disciples,
but not for only them. “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.” We can therefore assume that these teachings are for all who believe in Jesus—that’s us. We are the salt of the earth.
We know that salt makes us thirsty, so our lifestyle and speech should cause people to become thirsty for our life and our Savior. Salt also gives flavor to food, so our lifestyle should have such a flavor that people desire it.
There is more to it though.

Salt serves excellently as an antiseptic.

As a pharmacist, I have recognized the antiseptic properties of salt. If you swim in the sea with a septic sore a number of times, it usually heals. Saltwater rinses help to cure some mouth ulcers. Sniffing a solution of saltwater rinses the sinuses, clearing away mucus and disinfecting the sinuses, thereby getting rid of sinusitis in no time. 
“You are the salt of the earth.” Notice that the passage includes the word “earth,” not “world.” I believe the Lord wants us, His disciples, to be the antiseptic of the earth. It is the purpose of Satan to make the earth sick, to cause sepsis in every possible area of the earth's set-up or mechanism. I don't have to tell you how upside down everything is on earth, from the politics right down to nature. The sepsis of the earth needs salt as an antiseptic to cure it, and we as Christians are that salt.
Jesus said three interesting things on the topic:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18, 19).
“All power” means He has power or authority over every other power or authority in heaven, which is the sky above us, the universe, and God's dwelling, and the earth. Because He has that power, we must go and make disciples who can be channels of that power. We must channel His power to rule over corruption, crime, unstable families, political violence, natural disasters, and so forth. Mark recorded Jesus’ final words as follows: “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well” (Mark 16:17-18). I believe that if Jesus had time, he would have listed all the powers that believers would be able to exercise.

I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father” (John 14:12, 13).

Jesus exercised power over sickness, political leaders, nature, and finance. He promised that anyone with faith in Him would do the same and even greater things than He did. The examples in the Bible such as the calming of the storm, Jesus walking calmly through a crowd about to stone Him, and His wisdom in shutting the mouths of the political and religious powers of the time are all examples of what His disciples can do in a much greater measure.

(To be continued)

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