JUSTIFICATION – (Part III – Dog)

By Odon Bulamba (21 March 2003)

There is another animal, it’s a dog. I have learnt a lot because Steve had a dog. I learnt a lot about this dog whose name was Joy. That dog I saw many times, I loved to observe it; it was a small dog. One day it taught us something. We went to his place, and Guillaume was with us, and he wanted to joke with Joy, Joy said, “no I don’t want your joke leave me alone”, Guillaume said, “come on”. Joy changed her face, “leave me alone”; the situation changed completely. Because Joy accepted and accepted and tried to get the message through but Guillaume didn’t understand it, at some stage Joy got furious. I really thought about God.

As Christians, sometimes we really play with God. God is like our grandfather for us. When God says don’t do that, that’s exactly what we do. When God says, “this is serious don’t touch it”, this is when we say I want to attack. When God says, “no, stop”, and he’s furious, we are the first one to scream help. But who will help you if God attacks you? We must think who will help if God attacks us. If Satan attacks you it’s okay because God will protect you. If a man attacks you God will protect you. Why play with God if you know you cannot be protected.

So this dog was full of life in Steve’s house. One day I talked with Amber and I asked her to tell me about Joy’s life and Amber told me everything. I could write a book about what she said because I learnt a lot, not only physically but spiritually also, it helped me a lot. As we all know, many people love dogs, this animal has a good education - if you teach it well. But if you don’t teach it well, it will behave badly to the point that he might not respect you, his master.

Sometimes after eating or playing the dog can throw up and then it will go back and eat up what it’s thrown up. You are his master and you can say stop doing that. The dog will look at you and say leave me alone. It can eat up everything. If you persist the dog will attack you and forget you are his master. It will be furious. For us, we are Christians and not dogs. We are not people who must go back to our sins all the time. Today you say, “Jesus I’ve sinned, forgive me”, and tomorrow you will go back and eat up your sins again.

We are talking about justification. The same sin you threw up yesterday, you eat up again today. One day it will be before God and everybody, and this sin will justify you. So as Christians we are called to have a good justification. Jesus is the only one who will justify us. It’s better for you if Jesus justifies you than if the world justifies you. It’s better that the fruit of the spirit justifies you, unless you are a Christian like a dark spot on a white sheet, and you will say maybe my life or my money will justify me. You have given your life to Jesus and this life you have received as a present because you said Jesus take my life, take my families lives, take my studies, everything I have I offer it to you, except that. Jesus will justify your life. Give to Jesus the chance to justify your life, because you gave him everything. Don’t say on one side I will justify myself and on the other side Jesus will be with me.

When I worked with the refugees in Mangere, a refugee would come and tell everything to his lawyer that happened in his life. The lawyer would say, ok you can do this and that; ok you cannot do this and that. The refugee would put his trust in the lawyer knowing he can defend him/her. “I’ll tell him all my problems; even if I get a letter I will tell him”. During the interview the lawyer would be there.

Jesus is our lawyer; he will defend you on that day. Who will defend you if Jesus is not there? If you haven’t given Jesus all your burdens, if you haven’t given Jesus all your life, who will defend you on judgment day? Do you want to go on the scale? I think it will be dangerous for you. Maybe you don’t know the secret of the law but Jesus knows that because He is the law, he’s more than the lawyers that we have on the earth. Let’s give him all our lives and he will do something with it.

If you read in the Book of Mark chapter 5, one day Jesus was walking, and there was a woman. She had suffered for a long time. She had been losing blood for 12 years. She saw the crowd and deep in her heart she said I think only this Jesus can give me life. She thought about it, she made her way into the crowd and she could reach Jesus and she could touch him and by touching him she was healed. Jesus felt the strength that had touched Him. Who touched me? Everybody was watching. Who touched me? Peter said, “Oh Lord, have you looked at all these people here, how can you say who touched me?” This woman felt deep in her heart, ‘this man knows that’s it’s me’. She started shaking, she said, “it’s me, and I touched you because of this and that”, Jesus said, “your faith will save you”.

Imagine someone has lost blood for 12 years. Imagine a human being has 5 or 6 litres of blood and if you lose it for 12 years how will you survive? We know blood is life, blood is what keeps life. If you want life then go and find it in the blood. This woman had lost her life little by little for 12 years. You Christians and me altogether, when we accept Jesus today we receive the Holy Spirit. We receive the power of God in us and if we don’t carry on and do Gods will we start losing our life. This is how you see a pig coming in your life, then a peacock and after that a snake, and after that a leopard. So as you lose your life death comes closer. This woman in the Bible she did everything she could. The Bible says she wasted all her money and belongings, but she didn’t find healing.

Today with anger many Christians when they have a problem, they say I want to go and see a psychologist to help me and I want to see this doctor, help me. But their problem is a spiritual problem. Do you think that the psychologist will give you salvation? Do you think that the psychologist will give you the gift of the Holy Spirit? Never! Some psychologists when they see that your problem is a spiritual problem they will ask you to pray with them. That will be the solution. Others will keep giving you appointments and appointments and you’ll keep wasting everything you have. When Jesus is just beside you, it’s just about kneeling down for two minutes, two minutes only and you call Him and He will answer you.

So this lady was losing her blood, she lost her blood and her belongings. How many things have you lost in your spiritual life? Maybe you had joy and this joy turned into anger. Maybe you were someone who welcomed people and now you don’t welcome anymore. Maybe you used to worship with joy and now you don’t worship at all. All those animals come into your soul to get closer to death. Today I tell you my brother and my sister, take courage like this lady, wake up your conscience. Tell your conscience Jesus will come tonight; I want Jesus to justify me only. I lost my time trying to find a solution here and there. I lost my time trying to find some advice that is not good for my spirit, so my conscience wake up I want to see Jesus, I want to touch Jesus. Try to make your way through the gospel and you will get closer to Jesus, you will touch Him.

Get closer to God and God will draw nearer to you. But if you go away from God he will also go away from you. So wake up your conscience and tell your conscience, what do you want? After that be strong in your decision. Say, “I want to go to Jesus and that’s it. Goodbye to the counsellors, goodbye to the doctors, goodbye sickness, goodbye everything that can ruin my soul. Goodbye the suffering. Goodbye the failure in my studies. I am going to the King of kings, the victorious one to find complete healing”. Jesus will welcome you. When you touch Him he’ll never forget. He’ll stop and say who touched me? When you say, “it’s me Lord”, exactly at that moment Jesus will say your life is safe. People around you will never have this free gift. So we must make an effort because Jesus is the one who will justify us one day.