Faith when God seems to be very far away

Faith when God seems to be very far away

Some weeks ago, my family was praying for three children whose mother died about a month before. My wife shared with me what one of the girls said to their teachers. She said something like, “Before our mother died, I had a dream where she died. We prayed and God did not answer us, she still died. Now, I’ve had another dream where my elder sister died. Does God love us? Why does He not want to answer us?” she is about twelve years old.

Often times in the journey of life, especially when tragedy strikes, it seems as if God has failed. Hope is seriously wounded if not completely shattered. Understanding hits a hard wall because we cannot see any reason behind why God allowed the situation. Sometimes, it’s not a hard wall that our understanding hits, it just gets lost in what seems to be ad infinitum. It comes back with nothing and starts afresh and wander away again in that cycle. We wonder whether He loves us. It suddenly occurs to us that we are so small on this earth and wonders whether God notices ordinary people like us. In fact, we even ask questions that we know no human can give us answers to - difficult life questions that seek to redefine everything that we seem to have known before now. When God seems to be far away, we ask a lot of whys with exactly the same relative silence. What happens to faith in this kind of situation?

Daniel was taken captive along with other young men from Jerusalem. Apparently, he was from either the royal family or from one of the noble families in the land. The record in Dan.1: 3-4 shows that they were selected from these special and privileged classes of families from among the exiles and were intelligent and well-educated with good prospects for leadership positions. In fact, they were perfect specimens. He was a young man full of aspirations which were cut short by Nebuchadnezzar who invaded Judah and took them captive. In spite of these qualities of Daniel, what distinguishes him is that he has a relationship with God and is living a righteous life when all these things were happening. We normally just read through these passages without stopping awhile to think. We seldom put ourselves in Daniel’s shoes. Often, the very thing that distinguishes us can be the very source of our crises in life. How can you explain the fact that a young man who is serving the Lord with all his heart is carried captive, displaced because of the sins of their leaders and fathers? Daniel’s life changed forever and he never returned from this journey. Right before his eyes, the articles and utensils from the temple of God are packed into the sacred treasury in the temple of the god of Babylon and the God of heaven keeps quiet. (Dan.1:1-2). You know what that means? Where is God when His holy vessels are desecrated? What happened to Daniel’s faith? It is amazing to see in the eighth verse of that same chapter that Daniel’s faith is still intact in spite of the emotional wounds he must have suffered. He was making a commitment to God not to defile himself with the King’s meat.

What do you do when God seems to be very far away? What do you do when the enemy’s attitude is that of pride and arrogance, giving the impression that your God cannot save you, in fact, that He has failed you? If you were Daniel, can you wake up in that foreign land, in what seems like a defeated state and still make a costly commitment to this God?

There are three things we can do when God seems to be far away:

1. Remain committed to God the best way you can. Keep doing the things that are clear to you are God’s will. It is true that you may not understand what is going on now however, you have to hold fast to the things you have known about God before now. Like Daniel, when there is the challenge to sacrifice, go ahead and do it. Leave the result to God. Many a times, what you do next may determine whether you will experience God where you are or not. Remember, life is a test.
2. Trust the character of God. He is good and He is perfect love, hence you may not understand your current situation, but you know that whatever is happening now, God allowed it for your ultimate good. We must be able to distinguish between our emotion and our faith in the God that loves us with steadfast love. Faith forges ahead even in the midst of confused emotions and when our human understanding shows limitations. We must accept that we are human and finite but God is infinite. We do not have all the pictures but God does. Though I do not understand but God understands.  Trust His heart even when you cannot find what His hand is doing. Real faith does not struggle when understanding is limited. Faith just believes and does not question how.
3. Finally hang your life tenaciously on the word of God that you know. At the back of Daniel’s mind, he knew what God had declared through the prophets, “The Lord sent Babylonian,  Aramean, Moabite and Ammonite raiders against him. He sent them to destroy Judah, in accordance with the word of the Lord proclaimed by his servants the prophets.  Surely these things happened to Judah according to the Lord's command, in order to remove them from his presence because of the sins of Manasseh and all he had done, including the shedding of innocent blood. For he had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood and the Lord was not willing to forgive.” “Nebuchadnezzar removed all the treasures from the temple of the Lord and from the royal palace, and took away all the gold articles that Solomon king of Israel had made for the temple of the Lord.” “It was because of the Lord's anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence.” 2 Kings 24:2-4, 13-14, 20. Their suffering and punishment have nothing to do with how powerful their enemies are. They have nothing to do with the ability of God to save. God just allowed them for a purpose, and in this case, to fulfill His words through His servants the prophets and to punish Judah because of their sins. God is still able to save even in the midst of what you are going through right now. He will come to you right at the appointed time. Daniel believed in the word of God spoken by the prophet Jeremiah and hanged his life on it, in fact that was even why they surrendered to King Nebuchadnezzar in the first place. 2 Kings 24:11. If you hang your life on God’s word, be sure that it cannot land crash.

Remember to hold fast the confession of your hope without wavering because faithful is He who has called, who will also do it. Do not throw away your confidence in the Lord, it has a great reward. God bless you.

Irreverence and our warped view of God. Part 2

...Continued from last post here.

Irreverence and our warped view of God. 

Oftentimes, we forget from where God picked us up. There are sinners today who will become saints tomorrow, whether we like it or not. All these details are things hidden from us as humans but because we want to have our way by all means, we throw prayers to the god we can control to do our bidding.

It is not only in our prayers that our irreverence shows, it also shows in our preaching. Many of us no longer lead people to faith in Christ; we lead them to faith in ourselves. We no longer point men to Christ, we point them to ourselves. When we speak, we do not speak as servants and oracles of God, we speak as gods. We no longer lead men to worship God, we lead them to worship us and other men. We make all kinds of claims and erroneously quote Scriptures out of context to buttress what we are saying. However, when we do all these, it only shows our level of irreverence.

It equally shows in our lifestyles. We just roll with the worldly tide and live lives that have no checks and balances and still think that it does not matter. We live as though we are the ones that will be on the judgment seat on the last day and not God. We behave as if we are the ones that set God’s judgment standard. We do whatever we want to do with all liberty, without any recourse to God and His word and do not care. People cheat others and exploit only to bring their tithes to church with the mindset that they are doing God good – He needs money so they give Him the money He needs. We dupe people in business, lose all integrity and it does not bother us. In our families, work and business places, we hurt people and do not have good testimonies before people and we seem to wear the seal, “whether you like it or not, I’m born again”. Our attitude is as if there is no day of reckoning.

The truth is that we create the image of the kind of god we want to serve and worship, and set out with the kind of lifestyle we expect him to accept. We pray to him the way we want and tell him what we want – a god that has no reverence. We indeed preach about the god we have created and we rightly live as those who dictate to him what happens. The truth also is that this god we created in our minds and psyche must be an idol and not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So, are you serving the God of Israel or are you serving an idol you have created?

If you want to serve the Living God, let His fear show in all you do; “as he said through his holy prophets of long ago,…to show mercy to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham: to rescue us from the hand of our enemies, and to enable us to serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.”  Luke 1:70-75 NIV. Serve Him all your day. God bless.

Irreverence and our warped view of God. Part 1

Irreverence and our warped view of God. 

Over emphasizing an attribute of God at the expense of His other attributes does not make God better. The bible never uses a comparative word on God’s attributes. They are absolute and definite. For example, singing about God’s goodness and confessing that He is love cannot make God good or better. It cannot make God to love more. He is good and He is love essentially. We cannot add anything to God neither can we subtract from who He is. When we make confessions and sing certain songs, we help and edify ourselves and not God, no matter what we do. He rejoices in our fellowship not because He has a need; not because we have made the fellowship meeting sweet or decorated the place to look nice but solely because He has chosen to dwell in the praises of His people. Fellowship is very important to God. The gathering of His people is a special convocation. This is because it is in such a fellowship that God dwells.

Having said that, it is good for us to note that there is nothing we do in this life that is doing God a favour. Many of us live as if we and God are in a game of chess. Doing what we ought to do is seen as if we are only being kind to Him, as if without us He cannot be God. We live and talk as if God is God only at our mercy; as if we and God come with our bargaining chips and trade on what happens in our lives and the lives of others; that is, God places His cards on the table while we come with our own too. In fact, we even behave as the side that has the upper hand. God must bow to our pressure and do what we want Him to do for Him to remain God.

It shows in our prayers. Do we really pray? What is prayer? When we pray to God, what do we tell Him? Do we speak like children in the presence of their Father and King or do we speak like kings on our thrones who demands God to do whatever we want Him to do? Do we show reverence in our hearts, bringing our helplessness, hopelessness, limitations, needs, challenges, uncertainties, fallibility and incompleteness to Him who is enough for us and without whom we are nothing? What is prayer and how do we pray? Do we just come and throw words at Him, exercise ourselves and sweat and come out with the feeling that we have prayed? Is that really prayer? A brother once was coordinating a prayer session and asked the people to repeat after him, “my father, my fire…”. I later asked him, “why are you saying ‘my father my fire’? Where did you learn that from? What do you really mean?” He couldn’t proffer any answer. I discovered that because he shouts and encourages the people to shout in their prayers under an emotionally charged atmosphere, he feels good and satisfied that he has led a very hot prayer session. We feel good but do not care how God feels. What we easily forget is that our declarations in prayers are never towards God but towards Satan and his cohorts, our lives, circumstances.

You know, the environment many of us come from is still affecting us. We view God the same way a native doctor views his god, because of our idolatrous backgrounds. A native doctor can use his god or ask him to do good or to do bad depending on his mood and what he wants. Oftentimes, that is our approach to God when we come to the place of prayer. We have a God we use and not a God we fear and worship. We have a God we send on errands, who serves our interests and not a God we serve and who is sovereign. We come to Him with our shoulders raised high instead of bowing in humility. 

He has promised to answer our prayers not at the expense of anything. He answers our prayers because He has promised to do so and delights in our fellowship. We cannot even explain that but He has chosen to relate to us that way because He loves us. There are no specific words that impress God. There are no holy places anymore, where you must go or face for Him to answer. There are no postures that give you an express ticket to His presence. That is why it is not in our eloquence or crafty use of words that make Him answer.  I have seen God answer prayers even though the person praying used bad English. Our motives, intentions, hidden agendas and life follow our prayers, hence God looks beyond our good and nice and correct English words.

Now, are we really praying when we ask God to kill people? This high hand with which some of us come to God only shows our pride, ego, bitterness and unforgiveness. We curse in prayer and send out arrows to harm people in prayers and still think that we are fellowshipping with God. We see ourselves as very special to the extent that we can use God to achieve whatever we want to achieve. We think that we can move God to show one of His attributes over the others just because of us. Unfortunately for us, that is impossible. It is having an incorrect view of God. For example, God cannot, because of His children, be unjust to the unbelievers.  Furthermore, some people we see today as unbelievers are tomorrow’s saints...

Continue to read!

Obeying God in difficult times

Every believer needs to take the decision now and resolve to remain obedient to God even in difficult times.

Oftentimes, I have asked myself whether there are times when obedience to God is impossible. I have wondered how those that find themselves in situations of war and chaos manage to obey God and keep clean. I have equally wondered how believers manage to obey God in situations where they are alone, in situations where everybody around them is comfortable in unrighteousness and yet, the saint has the imperative of obedience. Does obedience to God often hurt?

A well-known believer was recently screened by the Nigerian Senate for a ministerial position and he said during the session that the political landscape of the nation is littered with banana peels and that he’s got to thread very carefully. In situations where obeying God means swimming against the tide and walking literary on banana peels, what will the believer do?

First, we have to be aware of not only the joys of living in obedience, but also the challenges it poses to us because we live in a world that is rebellious to God and His ways. We have to internalize this fact that Obedience to God does not always make us popular. It does not always make us look humanly sensible. Obeying God often hurts us temporarily. It often interrupts our ambitions and plans, makes us look like an enigma because most family members and friends may fail to understand us and it often attracts sufferings. Sometimes, a believer has to walk alone for a while. Now, does God vindicate His people? YES, He does! Sometimes, He does it immediately in the believer’s lifetime. Other times, He does it when the believer is no more. Sometimes, He vindicates and brings explanations to a watching audience while at other times He gives His reasons for His demand upon His own to the next generation. It is also very important to note that there are sometimes understanding is kept until when we get to heaven.

During the Kidnapping Crisis in the Southern Nigeria, I heard a sad story of a pastor’s family that the kidnappers visited. They wanted to carry the pastor himself but he was not around. They then asked the first son to sleep with their mother, but he refused and was shot. When they asked the second son to sleep with their mother, he hesitated but was persuaded by their mother, the pastor’s wife. He slept with her and they still carried her away. Unfortunately, the boy committed suicide the next morning.

It is true that this is a very extreme case, and we pray that God never allows us to be pushed to the wall like this. However like i have already noted, every believer needs to take the decision now, what to do in difficult times, for it when we resolve this way that grace and help are released. We need to take the oath of loyalty and allegiance to our Lord, to obey Him both in good and bad times. What will you do when obeying God means to put your life on the line? What will you do when obeying God will bring about some hurts, not just to you but also to those around you, who you love? What will you do when obeying God will make you look foolish? You look for explanations to give but cannot find and no one understands you? What will you do when to obey God means to suffer loss?

I am well aware of the fact that this is not an easy terrain. Some people may term people like us alarmists and believers that always look at the negative and bad side of everything about Christianity. For example, some time ago, I shared about the coming persecution that might come upon the church, and a brother asked me to remove his name from the Evergreen Word of Life Mailing List without any explanations. I equally believe in the goodness of God. My problem with those that see only the good things that come with salvation is that they do not want to accept the lordship and sovereignty of Christ. 

When God moves on to implement His sovereign plans, will our response be that of obedience and submission to His eternal will or will it be that of rebellion? Who are we to question God in the things He allows and not allow in His eternal will which He mapped out before the world began? I agree that some things that happen also are caused because of the Fall of Man and the presence of sin. However, will everything always work for our pleasure or God’s pleasure? When God’s pleasure clashes with our own pleasures, are we ready to submit and obey?

The more I read the Bible the more I see saints that denied themselves, the more I see believers that obeyed God even when the times were very dangerous. As I read stories of men who God used, I see men who were totally sold out to Him and damned the views, values and opinions of the world around them. The more I read the Bible, the more I see men that obedience to God landed them into 'trouble'; men that obedience to God was very costly both to them and those around them. It cost them cherished relationships, material things, positions and comforts of this life. For some of them, they came out like Joseph in Egypt, Daniel, Shedrach, Mishach, and Abednego in Babylon, and received deliverance and were promoted in life. Meanwhile for others like Isaiah, Jeremiah, many old prophets, James the brother of John and others listed in the later part of Hebrews 11, obedience to God meant suffering and death.

We need to look at our lives and those around us. Are we ready to be all that God wants us to be? Are we ready to obey God even if it hurts? Are we ready to remain loyal to Him till the end?

I am not a hero yet. As I pray for others, I equally pray for myself. God has only laid a burden on my heart to challenge His people. Life is a test. One of these days, your loyalty will be tested. One of these days your obedience will be tested. For some of you reading this piece, you are already in the middle of your test and you do not know what to do. Please make sure you pass the test. Make sure you obey God at the end of the day. May grace and help not be far from us in difficult times. But your victory in tomorrow’s test starts with today’s decisions. Start taking steps to obey God in little things today. God bless you.

Obedience to God has no alternatives

Obedience to God has no alternatives

We are close to the end of the month of January. Many of us have made resolutions and taken further steps to ‘order’ how we want the year to go for us. Most churches had one week of fasting and prayers. Others took fourteen days, twenty one days and so on while others are yet to round off because they want to reach the last day of the month. In fact, I once heard a brother in one of the churches, while leading in a prayer session, said that he would continue in fasting till the end of the first one hundred days of the New Year. Let us assume that the reasons and motives behind these efforts are correct, the activities are good spiritual exercises that will help one to focus and develop his spiritual strength.

However, there is a deception I have a burden to address here and that is, the lie of believing that our fasting and prayers can buy us favours from God and make Him ignore His demand for total obedience and trust in Him which is the platform for good success. Throughout the Scriptures, you cannot clearly see any promise of God that is hinged on fasting. On the contrary, the Bible is filled with promises of good rewards when we give heed and do what is commanded. We also see the curses that follow rebellion when we refuse to listen to God’s word.

As I read Isaiah 58, I really wondered why God asked the prophet to raise his voice like a trumpet and shout His word aloud to His people. He said that “day after day they seek me out. They seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them” Vs 2. NIV.

Is this not our condition today? We run around doing all kinds of prayers asking God to avenge us of our enemies and prosper us. We look like those who are seeking God but our hearts are very far away from Him. We are not willing to do what His word says. You know, God’s people have a way of developing spiritual lethargy and hearing problems, especially the older we become in church. Hence God told the prophet, ‘shout it aloud with your voice like that of a trumpet. These people fast and seek me day after day as if they really want to know me. But they are stuck in their own ways. They continue in their rebellion and expect me to come down and answer them. No! They cannot be heard from on high’. Observe carefully that God did not condemn their efforts of fasting, but He frowns at their rebellion. Obedience has no alternatives.

There are people that do not have the intention to change their ways. They want God to do something for them but they ignore His word. Their attitude demands that it is God who should shift grounds and change His mind and not them. What they do not understand is that you cannot be living a disobedient life and enjoy blessings at the same time. You cannot sleep on the laps of Delilah and wake up in the bosom of Abraham. The two do not go together. Obedience to God is the key to a life of blessing.

King Solomon leant many lessons late while he was alive. In his old age, when he had lost it all, the little recovery he had just before he died, he concluded, “After all this, there is only one thing to say: Have reverence for God, and obey his commands, because this is all that we were created for.” Eccl 12:13-14 GNT.

King Solomon had blown everything before he came to this conclusion towards the end of his life. Just one thing to say, ‘fear God and obey Him, this is all that we were created for’. You were not created to live for yourself or someone else but to live for God. What God has asked you to do is more important than what you want to do for Him, no matter how ‘spiritual’ and noble. Doing what He tells you to do is more important than a sacrifice of a thousand rams. Taking time to note what brings God glory, what makes Him smile, and doing it attracts favour and blessings than fasting in the midst of a lifestyle that is contrary to Scriptures. Living a lifestyle that violates God’s word cannot bring us to a life of blessedness. In fasting we humble ourselves. It builds our spirit in our walk with Him but it cannot replace an obedient spirit. Please do not be deceived.

Like the prophet, I am shouting on top of my voice to all that care to listen, ‘obedience to God has not alternatives’. Decide to obey God this year in all that you know are His will. Walk with Him and you will testify at the end. Is somebody hearing me? God bless you.

Pastor Nadarkhani re-arrested on Christmas Day

Many of you prayed for the release of Brother Yousef Nadarkhani and as God would have it, he was released on bail September 8, 2012. We shared the joy here.

He has been re-arrested on Christmas Day and taken back to prison to serve the remaining 45 days of a three-year sentence for evangelizing Moslems. Over the years, the Iranian Government has charged him with many things including apostasy, banditry and extortion, and later acquitted him of all the charges. Remember his wife was once arrested in 2010 in their bid to put pressure on him to recant his faith but was later released.

Foxnews reports that since Nadarkhani's release, his attorney, Mohammed Ali Dadkhan has been imprisoned and remains in Iran's notoriously brutal Evin Prison where his health is rapidly deteriorating and is being denied proper dental care, according to his family. He has been incarcerated for advocating Nadarkhani's case and other human rights cases.

It's like the Iranian Government is just determined to hurt Brother Yousef. Please pray for him and his family that the plans of their persecutors shall not prosper.  Also, pray that the Iranian government does not decide to bring additional charges against him and keep him in prison for additional time.

For more information, please go here.