Jesus will crack the whip again

Many rational people would react when they see that something isn't right. Whatever made Jesus to react this way might have been very infuriating. Jesus went to the Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover and ended up doing a clean up exercise in the temple. In the process many of the people gathered were whipped. Would Jesus crack the whip if he visited a worship place today? I would say yes. One may be tempted to say that wouldn't happen today because we no longer offer animal sacrifice. If you look at it that way then you've missed the main point of Jesus's action. It was a religious practice for people to offer animal sacrifice so Christ didn't have any problem with that. His protestation was against the businesses set up to exploit people on the way to worship and offer their sacrifice. The merchants were the ones directing the worshippers what animal to buy and the size. The value of the sacrifice had been lost. The merchants were doing everything they could to benefit financially from the animal sacrifice.

Fast forward that exploitation to today and you'll realised that the situation is worse. The level of exploitation that goes around in the name of Christianity and worship is unbelievable. Today church isn't just an institution preparing people for heaven. Church is now a multi billion dollar business with many stakeholders; pastors, musicians, authors all position themselves to gain as much as they can get. Today, people will package anything for sale; prayers, counselling, sermons, music etc.. I had an email from a pastor asking me to pay some US dollars and in exchange download "how you can make visitors stay in your church". I hit the delete button quickly. You can keep your master plan for making visitors stay in church. Sow a seed of $50.00 dollars and see your life transformed within weeks.What! Where do we read in the Bible that Jesus asked for anything in return for something? If he asked anything at all it was a simple question, do you believe?

I believe that churches and pastors must do everything they can to get the gospel message out but sometimes the extravagant and aggressive tools employed by some churches and pastors makes me wonder whether it's about themselves or the gospel. It seems pastors aren't happy with just being pastors. They want to be authors, councillors, musicians etc... The amount of money spent in publicizing their books, music etc. is shocking.  They move from one radio, TV stations to another publicizing their books and music. What happened to the good old gospel? Are we demanding these from our pastors; are church goers demanding that pastors become authors, musicians at the same time? 

While admitting that God has blessed some people with multi talents and therefore all must be put to good use, we need to check that pastors don't lose focus of their primary work i.e. to spread the gospel. Remember they get more money from the sale of books and music than from preaching the gospel. Sadly, the target audience of all the book and music sale isn't the unchurched (those not in church), but the people who are already in church.  So while they smile about their bank balances the average church member is struggling to survive. We spend our meagre salaries on their books, sermons and music.

The excessive advert and posturing of some pastors trying to out-do one another is worrying. Christians have to be discerning to identify people who are using Christianity to advance their own popularity and income. We don't have to follow pastors and everything they do or put in the market as if they're the convey-er belts the heavenly gate. Christ might whip those pastors who sold to us all the wrong stuffs but we might not be spared for buying them. We too would be whipped. Let's put God above everything else. 

The People in our Lives

There are times when we quickly  forget what the sermon was all about before we're out of the worship place. There are other times when the sermon will be on our minds on the way home, throughout the day, week, months and some times even years. I was very touched by the sermon preached today so much that10 hours after it is still ringing in my ears. The text was from the so much talked about story, Naaman Healed of Leprosy.
The sermon was about the people in our lives, and in this case the preacher identified the people in Naaman's life as; Naaman wife's servant (a young captive from Israel), the king of Aram, king of Israel and Elisha.

I was profoundly touched by the role played by the servant. She was the least of all the people in Naaman's life so her name wasn't even mentioned. Who cares about a young captive. Yet it was the insignificant young captive girl who initiated the process of getting Naaman healed from his leprosy, "If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy". Who are the people in your life and how do you rate them? There are some people in our lives whom we'll do whatever it takes to keep the relationship and others that you don't care what happens to them. It's difficult to tell how each of the people in our lives could effect us in the future. Since no one can tell what might happen in the future it's best to treat people with respect and dignity.

It's very easy to start a relationship be it social or business but how to nurture such relationship is the problem. Day after day people come to our lives consciously or unconsciously who might bless us today or in the future but we do dismiss them for variety of reasons, including real or supposed intellect, education, wealth, nationality, tribe, faith, stereotype, and past disappointment. Some wouldn't have anything at all to do with that person because they're not from the different country or tribe, religion or denomination. What is your attitude towards people of different nationality, race, tribe, faith? What is your attitude towards people in your household? You never know what you might be missing for being snobbish. Despite Naaman's greatness something about him needed to be fixed and it took the intervention of the least significant person in his life to get that fixed. Mind that insignificant person in your life.

His was an evil spirit- What is yours?

  Jesus and his disciples had just arrived in the town of Capernaum and gone to the Synagogue to introduce themselves to the congregation. Jesus was then consulting with his protocol officer Philip, and chief of staff Peter about  how to begin the public ministry when suddenly a a man with an evil spirit struck.

   Sometimes I wish the writers of the bible had told us everything that happened. I find some scriptures very humorous. I have a funny feeling that something more happened during this encounter than what is written for us. I have a funny feeling that there was a bit pushing  going on there. Evil spirit in people will usually like to put a fight. The man was probably throwing his hands all over the place and Jesus in an attempt to calm him down might have been pushed.It might have been hilarious seeing the man with an evil spirit having a banter with Jesus

   Talking about the state of the man, many people wouldn't like to encounter Jesus or for that matter Christianity not because they don't recognise Christ's authority but because they don't want to give up certain things. It could be your social life, workaholic. It could be the drinking, or the drug problem or some habits we have acquired over the years. It could be any of these; deceit, selfishness, anger, unforgiving. Such things can equally torment us or others just like the evil spirit did to that man. We like to convince ourselves that everything is under control. No it's not under control. Our family, relatives, friends, colleagues, church members and indeed the church are the sufferers of that thing. We think we control them but its rather those things which controls us thus preventing us to be the real persons we ought to be.  Don't let that problem torment you like the evil spirit did to that man. So go on and be a man or a woman and confront Jesus with that problem, allow him to deal with it and become the better person you could be.

   How does this scripture plays into the case of for or against the healing ministry? Recently I was in a meeting (i.e. a Methodist church meeting) when this issue was discussed. In the end most people were of the opinion that a healing worship should be arranged separately from the normal Sunday worship and be announced in advance which I agree. However, if in the course of a normal Sunday worship an incidence happen which requires some sort of healing are you going to say oh this isn't a healing worship and I haven't prepared for this?  Christ didn't put up  an advert that he was coming to the Capernaum for a healing worship yet when the incidence happened he dealt with it. If it brings glory to God I am up for it.