THY KINGDOM COME (8)

“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15 NKJV).

The Rt. Hon. Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the late Owelle of Onitsha and the first president of Nigeria was one of the outstanding figures of history that I liked and celebrated. I bought any newspaper that had the picture of Zik or that published anything he said. I purchased any book of his I ever saw and read them. I defended him at all times and was ready to part ways with any person who spoke ill of him. His name was a melody in my ear, but I never really knew him. I only saw him once in his lifetime in a public event in 1992.  We never corresponded in any way. I never met him in person nor had any form of relationship with him. I was a zikist without knowing Zik! I was merely his fan and nothing more.

Several of us believers are fans of God and not His sons and friends. He longs for our filial friendship but we are satisfied being His fans.  We like Him and celebrate His miracles, yet we do not know Him. We have read His books and have some understanding about some of His likes and dislikes, yet we do not know Him. We can fight on His behalf and would part ways with people who do not regard Him, yet we are ignorant of Him because we have not met Him in person and may not easily recognise His voice. We are merely His fans and not His friends. Our Lord says of His disciples,  “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John15:15 NKJV). Good servants are fans of their masters.  The apostles were evidently committed fans of Jesus; that’s why they served Him with much enthusiasm.  A friend is different from a fan because of the level of communication that is available to them. Our Lord said of His friends, “...all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”  Our Lord keeps no secret from His friends. Friends of God hear and recognise His voice.

Apart from describing us as His friends, our Lord described believers as His sheep and Himself as a good Shepherd. The sheep has an incredible ability of recognising the voice of its shepherd and not that of the stranger.  In the time of Jesus, a community has a common place where they keep their sheep for the night. In the morning each shepherd goes there and makes a sound, which only the sheep belonging to him will recognise and respond to.  Our Lord used that analogy for believers, “The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him... and they follow him because they know his voice. They won’t follow a stranger; they will run from him because they don’t know his voice.” (John 10:3-5 NLT).  Every sheep of Christ must be able to recognise His voice, otherwise it will be difficult to follow Him. How then can we recognise the voice of God?

The voice of God inspires hope and not hopelessness.  The Scriptures are given to inspire hope in believers (Romans 15:4).  God’s voice will always inspire hope in the hearers. Therefore, Paul prayed,  “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13 NKJV). God’s voice communicates strength,  encouragement and comfort (2 Corinthians 14:3, Acts 27:23-25). God’s voice  does not condemn, frighten,  or threaten  people (Romans 8:1, John 8:10-11). God speaks to relief burdens, reassure the doubtful , and steady the double-minded (John 20:26-29, Matthew 12:19-20).  To learn to recognise the voice of God, look closely at how Jesus spoke to people in the gospels.  The way He spoke is the way God speaks.

We don’t normally hear the voice of God  with our physical ears even though in some rare occasions it looks like we do.  Usually, His voice comes as a flowing stream of unpremeditated thoughts  coming out of our spirit. The Spirit of God resides on the inside of us and not outside,  so we must expect to hear Him speak from within our hearts.  Mostly, the voice that comes from outside is usually the voice of the enemy who lives outside of us. I  pray that God will enable us to grow in recognizing His voice so we can participate fully in His kingdom in Jesus name.

THY KINGDOM COME (7)

⁵“A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. ⁶Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. ⁷And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. ⁸But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”(Luke 8:5-8 NKJV)

Effective communication is one of the key fundamentals for smooth transaction in any kingdom.  The citizens of any kingdom are required to speak the same language with their king; otherwise, it will be difficult to have effective communication between the king and his subjects. People from countries with colonial past will appreciate this truth easily. When Britain for instance colonised Nigeria, the colonial masters had to impose their language on us so that they can communicate with us.  This is why the official language of Nigeria is English. Similarly, in the Kingdom of God, it is imperative for the believers and God to be able to communicate; otherwise, the kingdom will not function properly.  This provides the backdrop to understand the declaration of Jesus; “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me” (John 10:27 NKJV). Only the sheep who hear the voice of the Shepherd can follow Him. The sheep that cannot hear the voice of the shepherd is bound to stray away. It is becoming increasingly important for believers to learn to hear God for themselves. If indeed you are a citizen of the Kingdom where Jesus Christ is the King, then you must hear His voice. Our Lord promised His disciples, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God...” (Luke 8:10 NKJV).  The mysteries of the Kingdom of God are learned through direct communication with the King (Galatians 1:11-12).

Our Lord told the story of a farmer who was scattering seeds in the farm to illustrate the heart conditions that can hear the voice of God.  He ended the story with the warning, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”  Hence, the main thrust of the parable is about developing the capacity to hear voice of God and profiting from what He says. Every radio has the capacity to receive and interpret sound waves, but to listen to a particular station of interest, you must deliberately tune to the right frequency. Likewise, every believer has the capacity to hear the voice of God, but the sound would be muddled unless your heart is properly conditioned to discern His voice.  In the parable, Our Lord identified four heart conditions and their relative receptivity to His voice.  As the sower went about sowing the seeds, some seeds fell on footpaths; some fell on rocky ground, some among thorns, and some on good ground. Here is the way the Master explained the parable.

¹²The seeds that fell on the footpath represent those who hear the message, only to have the devil come and take it away from their hearts and prevent them from believing and being saved. ¹³The seeds on the rocky soil represent those who hear the message and receive it with joy. But since they don’t have deep roots, they believe for a while, then they fall away when they face temptation. ¹⁴The seeds that fell among the thorns represent those who hear the message, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life. And so they never grow into maturity. ¹⁵And the seeds that fell on the good soil represent honest, good-hearted people who hear God’s word, cling to it, and patiently produce a huge harvest. (Luke 8:11-15 NLT).

In explaining the parable, Our Lord identified the seed as the word of God and the soil conditions as the attitudes of hearts and how they receive the word of God.  The footpath represents close-minded people, who have no time to listen to God. Their hearts are hardened by pride, fear, bitterness and unforgiveness.   The rocky soil represents shallow-minded people who enjoy the word of God for a season but quickly forget it and compromise in face of little challenges. They lack the spiritual depth to withstand the wiles of the devil.   The thorny soil represents the encumbered minds who are easily distracted from focusing on God by the busyness of life. Worries, riches and pleasures draw them away from God. The good soil represents the heart that is open to God’s voice and cooperates with what God says. God speaks to people whose hearts are prepared to receive and obey His word.  Those who will believe the word and refuse to give up on it until it produces the desired fruit in their lives. Are you one of such? May the Holy Spirit help you to prepare your heart to hear the voice of God in Jesus Name.

THY KINGDOM COME (6)

“²¹But after long abstinence from food, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me, and not have sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss. ²²And now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. ²³For there stood by me this night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve, ²⁴saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed God has granted you all those who sail with you.’ ²⁵Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me.” (Acts 27:21-25 NKJV).

The greatest service human beings can render to God is to prepare for Him a heart on which He can implant His word. It was said of Ezra that he “prepared his heart to seek the Law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel” (Ezra 7:10 NKJV). Whenever God sees a heart in which His word can incubate, germinate, grow and blossom, He bypasses a million others to bless such a person.  I strongly believe that was the one reason Mary held such a strong attraction to God’s heart. Her heart is very fertile for the word of God. After the Angel announced that she was to become the mother of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit, she made a declaration that revealed the nature of her heart, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38 NKJV).  Mary received the word of God with joy and believed it with all her heart. There was no vacillation on her part inspite of the obvious risk accepting the word of God would expose her to. Her heart was ready for the word of God. She had the habit of pondering the mysteries about Jesus in her heart (Luke 2:19, 51). God designed the human heart to hold and meditate on His word day and night.

Mary’s proneness to receive and believe the word of God with no reservations was the obvious reason for her blessedness. Elizabeth affirmed this truth when she said to Mary, “You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what he said” (Luke 1:45 NLT). The Kingdom of God became an experiential reality in Mary because she believed that God would do what He promised, notwithstanding the practical impossibility of that promise. It was and still is, and will always be practically impossible for a woman to become pregnant without the involvement of a man.  When true faith is in operation, impossibility becomes illogical. Impossibility made no sense to Jesus and the early apostles. It should not make to us either, because of the commission of Christ on us to do greater works than He did.

To believe is to be persuaded about the absolute truthfulness of God and the infallibility of His promise.  It is to place unwavering confidence in God, assured that He will never retract on His commitments.  Such trust comes from well-grounded intimate relationship with Him, and not merely from head knowledge of the Bible. Paul spoke from such a relationship to encourage His fellow sailors in the midst of catastrophe, “Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me.”  Paul had a rock-strong confidence that God will do what He told Him about the difficulty they were facing.  When God commits His word to a believer, the believer must declare such Words with faith for them to effectuate.  One has not truly believed a word from God until he or she boldly declares it publicly.

To believe effectively, the word of God must saturate your heart and overflow from your mouth.  Without the synergy between the heart and the mouth, believe becomes a mere wishful thinking. “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10 NKJV). What is believed in the heart and declared with the mouth becomes a reality. When you believe and fail to declare what you believe, your faith becomes a stillbirth.  When you declare what you have not believed in the heart, your faith becomes phoney.  Paul reveals the right combination that births the miraculous. “And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak” (2 Corinthians 4:13 NKJV). Speaking your belief is God’s way of unleashing the creative force He has endowed us with. Make a habit of believing the promises of God in the bible and boldly declaring them until they become your experiential reality to the glory of God.