CHRISTIAN LIFE (Part II)

By Odon, 27-04-01

Jesus told us that the Word we read is Spirit and life. And me, Jesus, I am the bread of life. How can we eat this Word.

1 Kings 17:1-6
And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As Jehovah, the God of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.
2 And the word of Jehovah came unto him, saying,
3 Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before the Jordan.
4 And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.
5 So he went and did according unto the word of Jehovah; for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before the Jordan.
6 And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening; and he drank of the brook.

Amen! We see that a servant of God, Elijah, was someone like you and me. He had the same skin as you and maybe the same height as you. The only difference between him and others was the Spirit dwelling in him. As we read that the Word is Spirit and life, Elijah was in the Word and the Word was in Elijah.


Remember Elijah’s life, and tell me how many times Elijah’s spirit came back on earth.
- In the verse 1, Elijah is just there.
- In 2 Kings 2:9, we will see that the same spirit, Elijah’s spirit, came back with a double portion
9 ¶ And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I am taken from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.

So that’s once plus twice making three times.

- The same spirit came back in Matthew 11:14 in John the Baptist
14 And if you will receive it, this is Elijah which was for to come. He that has ears to hear, let him hear

And lastly the same spirit is in Revelation 11: 3 when Moses and Elijah will be back.
3 ¶ And I will give unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.

In all these verses, we see that Elijah was a great man in God’s eyes. This doesn’t mean that at that time there was no other servants of God but people didn’t pray as Elijah used to, people would pray not knowing the will of God. They pretended to know but they didn’t know anything. They thought they were on the right path when they were following the wrong one. God was against Ahab and the kings of that time. In all generations among the kings of Israel, Ahab was the worse king of all. Among David’s sons, and apart from Solomon, there was not one king who respected the Word of God. They knew God’s Word and his laws but they didn’t practise it.

Today, you are Christian and you know that lying is a sin, but you lie anyway. You know that stealing is a sin, but you think it’s okay to take just a nail, because my stool is broken at home. You take the nail and put it in your pocket, and in God eyes you are a thief, whether you like it or not. And this is exactly what the Christians did long ago, and God was against that.

He sent Elijah to see King Ahab and everything he said to him, God will make it happen. Imagine today you are invited to see the Queen Elizabeth and you get ready to see a queen. In front of the queen you might not even say a word because you are scared. Although you have an appointment, you might not even make good use of it. But Elijah didn’t have an appointment with Ahab. He was just told to leave Samaria and go to the king. Elijah didn’t argue with God how he could see the king without an appointment. Elijah didn’t take time to think whether this person will accept to see him or not. He just said: “Let it be as the Lord said.” He just said an Amen! He said that because the Lord said it, I will do it.

But for us today, when we are in a situation and we don’t see things clearly, doubts come, “How will I go and see the queen? Who will give me an appointment? And I don’t have a passport and it’s a problem to get a visa. Thirdly, it is impossible to reach where she lives. So I’d better not do it.” And you completely lose your faith.

The same happens with the Word of God. When God calls us to do something after we have learnt something from the Word of God, let us always be optimistic, and always say, “Yes. Let it be.” Don’t leave room to negative thoughts. If you do, your faith might die.

Elijah went and reached the king, he said, “I know you are the king, but know that there will be no rain for 3 and a half years. Because of your sins, God will punish this whole country”. And God gave Elijah a promise: where you will be, I will protect and feed you. So, the whole country went though a drought, and people starved to death, but Elijah ate and drank. What an astonishing thing! One man ate and drank and the rest of the population was starving to death.

God uses us in the same way in churches. Some people are taken away by God to be isolated and He feeds them where they are as others go through a famine. Today, the church of God suffers from hunger, today the church of God is walking through a desert. People can read the Bible without understanding what they are reading and people can pray without receiving any answers. And to be comforted, they say that the gift of prophecy doesn’t exist anymore. God hasn’t answered this lately, so this gift doesn’t exist anymore. And to be comforted, they always claim they are right, instead of asking for what to do, to also eat this food God gives us.

What does the Bible say about Elijah? He drank water, and this water would come from the brook. So, what is a brook? A stream of water. Amen! Jesus Christ is the source of life. And when this source runs, it runs forever, as He said to the Samaritan, He will give her water and she will never thirst again.

So Elijah also drank water from the same source. The brook we have today is the Word of God and it is anointed. A word without anointing is dead water, and this one will never give life into people’s life. Preachers in front of churches have a pile of paper and read from it. They just have stories and when the preaching is finished you ask yourself why you came to church. You want to talk to me about David who killed Goliath. I learnt about that from the age of 3 or 4 years old, and today I hear again that David killed Goliath, what difference does it make in my life? I wanted the preacher to go in depth in that story to understand what it really means.

Once my Mum gave me a banana and I asked her:
- What is a banana?
- Just eat it and you will know.
- No, Mum tell me what is a banana.
- That is exactly what you have in your hands.
And I was not satisfied, I knew it was a banana. She said:
- Eat it
- I am not opening my mouth unless you tell me what it is.

So, when us Christians read the Bible, when we, servants of God preach, we must explain the meaning of each thing so that we will be aware of our actions. As I was once reading the road code in New Zealand and I was learning about the orange light, slow down and the red light, stop. I asked myself why they chose the red light to mean stop and why didn’t they chose the black colour, a black light. So I asked an AA officer that question and she couldn’t answer me: I don’t know. It’s an international agreement. So what made people choose this? She couldn’t answer me.

I asked another pastor:
- Why Jesus was not a woman?
- I don’t know.
- Why was his name Jesus and not Steve? Why was His name Emmanuel and not Marcia?
- This was God’s choice.
And if my name is Odon today, is it God’s choice or my parents’ choice? And if some people have strange names in this world, Is it God’s will?
So, in everything, let us learn their meaning.

So Elijah was there, alone and the Bible says that a raven came to bring him bread, as we read in John 6 that Jesus is the bread of life, so Elijah was with Jesus. This example was displayed when Jesus was praying on the mountain, the disciples could see Elijah and Jesus together. So, Jesus told this same Elijah who ate the bread that it was not enough and he should take meat as well. In 1 Kings the Bible says that he would eat meat and drink water.

So what kind of water do we drink and what kind of bread do we eat? There are many kinds of bread on earth: there is French bread, square bread and so on. What kind of bread do you eat? Many people prefer one type or another: for example I prefer Ange’s and Sylvie’s cakes. Michael likes what Marcia baked last time better. But with the Word of God we must not choose like that, God gave us only one type of bread and we must eat this one alone. This is not the Bible plus another book.


There is a group in the States, in Canada and Africa, “The Assembly of the living God”. At first, these people’s leader was a servant of God, Marian Branham, who worked hard, but in the end his death wasn’t good. All his preaching were recorded, and transcribed. They produced thousands and thousands books. In this church, when the preacher prepares his message, he just pulled something from one of these books: he just talk about what the themes their prophet gave and explain his prophecy. They put the Bible aside and these books teach their people.

I know in some churches, the church’s rules have first place: they call it the church rules. What good rule could be against the Word of God? They might say, for example, they don’t want people to be filled with the Holy Spirit in their church, when the Bible says that the Word is Spirit and life. They keep saying they don’t need the Spirit. Others say that people shouldn’t pray aloud, they must pray quietly. And when you are invited to preach in a church, they tell you your limits: in our church, we don’t talk about this, or that or that. I know a pastor who smoked and drank alcohol and said one day to a servant of God:
- If you want to preach in my church, don’t talk about drinking or smoking. If you do so, you will be against our standards.
- What are God’s standards? God wants me to do this and you tell me not to do it.
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So, our church today must be isolated like Elijah was. We must know we have a hidden place where we are fed as God would feed Elijah alone. If you don’t have this hidden place, it is time to ask the Lord and find where it is. Always remember that salvation is personal. You will die and your church will stay. You will go alone one day and your pastor will stay. You will be judged alone and your pastor will be judged at another time. Never forget there is no denomination in Heaven. God will judge you according to the Word you learnt. The Bible says that only the violent will inherit the Kingdom of God. In Matthew 7:7, the Bible asks us to seek, and ye shall find. And if you don’t seek and always wait for other to carry you, you will never find anything. And if you don’t knock at the door, for people to open the door, you will never enter.

I loved my father so much and when he died, I wanted to be buried with him. I was still young, 10-11. Everybody was crying and I wanted to go with him. I didn’t know what was in me, I didn’t realise where I would go with a dead body. I didn’t ask myself why my Dad was in a coffin and I wasn’t. I would just see his physical body, his face and the rest, but deep inside me I didn’t know there was something missing in him, life.

Churches behave in the same way today. Sometimes we follow dead bodies, we say we are Baptists, when God doesn’t know this. He just says that you are His child. You might say you are not God’s child, you are a Baptist. What is it to be a Baptist? Does this give you the key of the Kingdom of God?

My Dad was buried. They built something on the grave and when his body decayed the whole thing collapsed and was destroyed. With fire, the cemetery was destroyed. They decided to build a new cemetery. As they were digging the ground for foundations, I helped these people and saw a bone, and I saw that too, and thought that my Dad was a bone. And I couldn’t forget it, it shocked me. “How can my Dad decay to have only bones left? It means that worms ate his flesh, they got fat and had joy eating his flesh. My Dad is nothing but bones now!”

My Dad was tall and handsome, and all this beauty was gone. Whether you are a giant or short, everything will be gone. From then on I started thinking that one day I’ll be just like him, so life has no meaning if I can live and the next day I am only bones, why should I live? But Jesus comforted me, He said: “After that, there is life.”
So us, human beings, we must think about life after death because if we see only this life, we will be sorry one day.

Look at a skull; is there any beauty in it? Even if you were given a child’s skull to keep home, you will not keep it. This child was someone like you and me, but you will be scared of that skull and your own children might be scared of the skull. This is how we must fear the physical life we have, because this life only leads to death. We must seek life, which is Jesus Christ. This kind of life, the one Nicodemus was looking for, is only given through being born again as Jesus said. We have already talked about being born again and you know what it is.