Everyday Christian Life

By Odon Bulamba

We are going to talk about everyday life of being a Christian, and after this we’ll look at a few signs Jesus gave us to get ready to welcome Him on His day back.

Each Christian must realise about his everyday life that there is a difference about being a Christian and a non-Christian. A Christian will think about what he does, but a non-Christian doesn’t. Everything a Christian does, he will compare it with God’s will. How does he compare? He will ask himself, ‘what I did, was it according to Gods will or not?’

A child wakes up in the morning and wants to eat, he’ll disturb his parents and always ask for food, ‘I want to eat.’ The parents might say, ‘this is not a good time to eat.’ The very first thing you do when you wake up, you brush your teeth, have a shower etc, and this becomes an everyday thing, a teaching. If you don’t teach your child from child-hood, you can be sure he’ll ridicule you in front of everybody.

I have lived with a sister in my country, she got married and didn’t look after her body. When her husband would come home she would dress up and be pretty for him, and this pleased him to see how nice she looked. But there was a secret and he couldn’t see it, the secret we knew because we lived with her, and we always warned our brother-in-law, be careful, do not be deceived by the appearance. Our sister could go a whole month without a bath, she would just wear perfume. When we would ask our sister, “why don’t you wash this”, we would become her enemy and she’ll start crying, as women do.

Then she got married. The first night with her husband she woke up, around 11am, as you know sometimes people dribble and she would talk to people and her breath would stink making you feel uncomfortable with her. First day it was like this, second day her husband came back to see her with the same clothes, also the bed wasn’t made, after two weeks the sheets hadn’t been changed. The husband observed her then asked her, “my dear, it has been two weeks and you haven’t had a bath”, and she answered, “do you love me or only when I have a bath?” It was hard for the husband.

I give this example because of our everyday Christian life; if we are not careful with our everyday life we might start living in immorality and live an impure life thinking it is normal. This is just because of our teaching from child-hood. I know a two year old boy who was told something that wasn’t correct; someone told him that this part of the body [the arm] was a duck. When my aunty asked him something he said, ‘do not touch my duck,’ ‘what duck?’ she replied. This is what happens when we learn something wrong, we put them in confusion, and when we have learnt something wrong, we insist we are right.

As for us Christian we must weight up things with what the Bible says, this is what Christians must do right from the morning. Try this programme I have for you, and we’ll see if we have positive results.

When a Christian wakes up, when you open your eyes before getting out of bed, you must thank God, just say ‘thank you Lord because I’m alive, I know how the devil puts traps around a Christian’s bed,’ Satan might tempt you during the night, and if he can’t find an open door, he’ll do it around your bed, if you get up and don’t pray...you have already fallen into a problem. You must first say, ‘Lord thank you so much because you protected me, because some people wanted to see this day but haven’t, a few people are not alive but I am, and for this I praise you O Lord’. On top of this pray for the whole family, ‘thank you so much for each member which I haven’t seen yet, and I do believe they are alive like me, so take care of me and them throughout the day, so from this step on lead me.’

Many Christians when they get up, a wife will get breakfast ready for her husband, and the husband will eat or drink, then he’ll have a shower. The wife who had strength to get up and make breakfast hasn’t prayed and her husband who just got up, hasn’t given thanks for the food or drink. In the world of darkness magicians use food we eat, they can use food to hypnotise people. Ebola is a sickness that started in Congo, nobody knew how it started but it was an epidemic. Sorcerers got together and decide to shake people, how will this reach each one, it goes easy through food, for everybody has food in the house and by this way everybody will be reached.

Only through prayer could doctors find what this disease was, so Christian mums, when you wake up, pray for your husbands, before touching food pray for it, take authority over it, if there has been any power that touched the food you must cast it out, encourage your husband to pray with you before doing anything, and husband encourage your wife to pray. We are not like sheep or cows that eat in the morning, we must be conscious with what happen during the night.

I know people who use talismans to protect them, and each morning they pray earnestly because they know that this talisman protects them, and if you don’t pray, you’ll lose protection. As for us Christians God gives us protection for free and we don’t even have the time to pray.

After praying in the morning with your husband or wife, pray for your children, and if it is possible wake them up and teach them how to pray, it is not about praying for 10 minutes, but only 3 minutes is enough, so that they will say with their mouth, ‘thank you God because you look after us,’ and God will protect us during the day.

It is difficult to look after your own spirit if you are unable to look after other people’s spirit. In some families the parents aren’t able to look after their own house. In the morning for example Sylvie starts putting away chairs from the meeting last night, she only puts them away because she has a visitor, she’ll say ‘I was busy reading the Bible and praying a lot this morning, and this is why I haven’t organised my house,’ the first day you might say this but what about the second day, the third etc. she’ll say ‘Nathanael cried a lot, and we didn’t sleep.’ Because someone may see that your house is a mess, you’ll start making excuses and may begin to lie, and the lie is a sin, if you don’t give a true reason you have lied.

Someone can read and pray and forget to clean the house, but if you see that you haven’t cleaned up because you are lazy, you only justify yourself. A Christian must have his Bible by his side, you must always sleep with your Bible. In Kenya sorcerers would come at night and beat Christians up, people would scream and cry. The first thing sorcerers do is to lower your voice so that no one will hear you being beaten up and in the morning you’ll feel tied or wounded. This has happened to many Christians only because they didn’t pray, they would pray but in a lazy way, so the devil took the opportunity to punish them.

The Bible is very powerful and people would sleep with Bibles around them to protect them, it is more powerful than the power of darkness. When you sleep, know where your Bible is, it shouldn’t be on the shelf and if you are ashamed to carry a big Bible around take a small one.

A Christian must also know to read at least one verse in the Bible, and he must ask himself questions, what does this verse tell me about God? What does the verse tell me about my Christian life? What does this verse tell me about my life with others? Is this verse necessary for my life? What do I have to change in my life according to this verse? This will help a Christian change his life. Once you have read this verse you will practice this verse all through your day. What you read today, will you put it into practice, and what I’m doing, does it please God? Will it please me and the people around me? Will it please my Christian life?

Can someone give me a verse, any verse. Job 8:11, “Can the papyrus grow up without a marsh?" What does this verse tell me about being a Christian, because when I read this I can’t find any meaning, but there is a meaning, everything that is written in the Bible has meaning and life, and everything that is written in the Bible is for you and me, so now we will ask ourselves what is a papyrus? A papyrus is a plant and this plant was very useful in the Bible, for the first time this plant was used by Moses’ mum to make the basket (Exodus 3). Papyrus was used because crocodile’s flee when they smell this plant, so when Moses’ mum made the basket she thought “I don’t want the crocodile to eat my son, so the papyrus will protect him.” This plant will always float on water.

If I compare this verse with the Spirit of God who was above the waters and thinking of Jesus also walking on the lake, also the ark Noah built was on the water for days. As you can see from this verse we can find one thousand preachings, so what is it about God? What is it about me? What about the people around me? You can draw a teaching for everyone, so with each verse there is a lesson, even 20 lessons. It is all about concentration, understanding the words and you will find God’s glory

This is what a Christian should do every morning, when you do it yourself you must look at your husband’s life, your wife’s life, and your children’s life, and you’ll see where you and your family are up to compared to the verse you are reading. After you find time to read your Bible and pray, you then can have a shower and do what you want and try to remember the verse you read and where it’s written. If someone comes to visit share this verse and this person can give his explanation and this might help you more, if you haven’t understood it is time to ask questions.

As the bible says in Timothy 4:4, we must give thanks to all that we eat. For us Christians we must get ready, and take time to share with others, and we must be ready to eat something and give thanks, if you haven’t said thank you do not eat it. One day I was with Pete and he was eating muscles, he took a knife, he opened the muscle and ate, I observed him, second muscle he also ate, he completely forgot to pray. People pray only when there is a big meal, but when they eat little things they don’t realize, when we eat a biscuit we don’t even have the time to say thank you.

Someone gave my mother a biscuit once and it had poison in it, if she hadn’t prayed she could have died. The Bible says in the gospel of Mark that if we eat something that has poison in it we will be protected, but if you don’t pray you can see the danger. Servants of God, before giving a lolly (candy) to your children, pray for it because you don’t know who prepared it, many people use magic so their product will be brought. Do not be ashamed to pray for even a lolly and when you pray say, “oh Lord I want to give this lolly to my child, bless it and I take authority over forces that can affect his health,’ and give it to your child and God will do something.

2 Timothy 2:22, Now flee from youthful lusts and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.

How can we do this throughout the day? The Bible gives us an answer; we must seek righteousness, that’s all. You must think if I do this will it please God and others, if I do this thing to my neighbour’s child will I be pleased if someone did it to my child? If you think no, then do not do it. This is what righteousness is, you already know love is above all these things, the very last thing is to avoid discussions, the Bible says from verse 16 you must avoid discussions and people will be saved. We must try to live without arguing because when we argue we sometimes fall into anger, sometimes we lose self control and might abuse people. As human being’s we must realize everybody has been created differently and the devil uses some people to be a temptation for you, he uses people so that you will lose the faith, you must be very careful, control your tongue as it is written in James, weigh up all your words and be careful with your words.