I woke up this morning reflecting on the issues of the past few days as it has affected and involved me. The nation and its leadership and the church and its various issues. Somewhere there I found myself getting angry something I'd long decided against because I want to be happy. I love to engage joy and live my life in peace and love. I would have preferred to stand aloof and look, pretending all is well and trusting things will go well even when not in tune with the Word of the Omnipotent. It's no faith that trusts in what God has not said relying on pillars not built on what has been heard and done from His sayings. Such is disaster in waiting be it in a life or in a nation. I was at a conference and heard about the church as designed. How the Maker had tampered His thing to accommodate diversity, to accommodate The rich and the poor, the comely and the less comely, the the honorable and the less honorable. The body exists only because the diversities exist and no one can say I need not the other and upon the less priviledged more abundant care is placed so that the members can have same care one for another. Well, that's the church. But I have come to recognise that when the church gets it right the nation will get it right. But when the church sucks from the nation the pollution is total. A church that segregates has set in motion apatheid in the nation. A church of class has condemned the poor in the nation. An unjust church empowers injustice in the nation, a corrupt church makes thieves of national leaders. What the church defines success to be is what the nation sees it to be. When the church abandons the virtues of love and kindness why should I expect national leaders to be compassionate. When the church rejects its own why should I expect the nation to accommodate them. We are the light of the world, I beg your pardon, I am the light of the world when I shine the world sees and when shut down the world go blind and gropes. If the culture in the church refuses to change for what it was designed to be, the blind will lead the blind and the ditch will receive everyone. Will my church accommodate and celebrate the poor? Will I keep them out only to visit them once in a while? It is cultural to put the blame of being weak on the weak and tell the begger to go work and learn to believe God. It's easy to preach up a storm to the sick and more convenient to tell the indigent to open his bible to 3rd John 2 and teach him under a great anointing, it sounds sweet to give sweet counsels to the frustrated and pray and declare 'be warm' upon the naked with the authority in the name of Jesus and move on without lifting a finger and worst still to make it a preaching resource for the next sermon from the pulpit. We have not so learned Christ if so be that the truth is in Jesus. Well many got to the pulpit and to influence not having learnt Christ except being apprentice to others who knew Him not and should they be blamed, for doing ministry as taught? Our culture has taught us only to bestow honor on the honorable who came in with gay clothings and we must sit him at the special places prepared. But who isn't desirable of honor? So everyone struggles to become honorable and to avoid being the runt at the last rung of the ladder and there we form a pecking order and woe betides the one at the lower end of the food chain. This culture must change to that of the Bible and we all learning to bestow more abundant honor on the less honorable members and giving more comeliness to those members without it. Otherwise biting and devouring will continue until there is total consumption. The nation needs this light from the church but the church need to vomit the poison and I must do it first. I must start with learning the truth about where the abundant honor and comeliness must be bestowed. I must come to see what Christ sees in the poor that makes him love them that much, I must close my eyes to the gay clothings and the flashy cars and give honor to whom the word says its due, I must know that a man's life does not consist in the things he posseses, I must know that where you live has nothing to do with your eternity, I must make an avatar of the avorton, see the incarnation of God in the living and respect the personification of the human concept as expressed in man as the image and likeness of God even if naked. Didn't we come into this world all naked? We all came poor with no silver spoon in any mouth and so we shall all go even if buried in a golden casket and that is the level of man and no achievements or possessions would ever change that. I then need to shift my personal culture not to disrespect the rich and the wealthy but to give more abundant honor to the part that lacks it. Its awkward for now but that is the eternal truth, the Textbook tells us so. I must learn to identify and recognise and then I can accommodate the weak. I know of man's tendency to fear the different and to attack it. When twins come different from the norm we killed them being afraid, when the color goes black and we are whites we set up apatheid for fear of pollution, and when we see him poor we fear, he must be dangerous and so we deal with him roughly, their protruding bones must not spoil my fattened and freshly flesh but we forget that light is commanded out of darkness and the treasure is kept in pots of clay and there lies the excellency of the glory and of the grace of God and not in man. Here the church must return and stop the profiling, let the people take the centre stage and let God be seen in the least of men. When the poor is treated as less than humans and the rich is exalted above God we follow not Christ and there will be schism, not political but of caste and class, and so the table of the Lord is made contemptible and so defiled. And who can survive it when the backlash comes? Who can endure the everlasting fires when it's kindled? The nations shall be judged but the judgment shall start from the household of God because in its lights the world sees light. I have made up my mind on what to do? I shall not oppress the poor nor ignore when he cries, my eyes must be open to see the brother in need and good must reach all men starting from the household of faith. I will shine this light and change the culture, minding not high things but condescending to men of low degree and being the change I want to see, not only living above sin but actively doing righteousness even when sacrifices are demanded. I won't be quiet when the poor is oppressed nor pretend that he deserves what he's got. I won't make the fruitless run to avoid them for the poor we always have around us, I will stretch my hand to its length even if not too long to help someone and accommodate within my space. My pastor once told me, my space is never too small to accommodate if my heart is big enough to take in but no matter how big your house is it becomes too small to take any if your heart is too small to take them. But I have a big heart and I can take in and accommodate all. I have the heart of Christ. That's you I speak of...let's change our world because we can! Good morning!
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