By Odon Bulamba
A very short and simple verse to
understand, “Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything
out of his house”
Here we have an idea of a house. In the Bible, you can learn a lot from
houses. People, kings and God lives in
houses. When you think about a house,
what comes first in your mind? Is it
just the place where you spend the night or to be sheltered from the heat or is
it a special place for you? When we talk
about your home, what does it mean to you?
I think it means a lot
In your house, you will keep all your
secrets, all your treasures, you can walk naked, you can sing and scream and go
to bed when you want in your house. There
are things that you can only do in your house and you can’t do elsewhere and if
there is any secret about your body, your house can be the first witness to say
exactly who you are.
Your neighbours won’t know who you are
exactly while you are inside your house.
For that reason, God has chosen your body to be the house of your soul
and spirit. Your body is a temple for
the Holy Spirit, a house for the Holy Spirit to live.
Jesus said that someone built a house from
sand (parable) so that when a storm came, he lost the house because the
foundation was not good. There God
wanted to teach us, you can have a beautiful, great house but you must consider
the foundation of your house. In
topography they will advise you to study the soil before to build a house. Is
your body a good foundation for your house?
When you stand around, do you remember that your house stands on a
foundation? If not, if a storm comes,
your soul/spirit will collapse like in the sand.
Rahab was prostitute in the Bible and she
welcomed the servants of God and she said to them, “you can not stay at this
level because someone is after you, I will keep you in the roof of the house”. You can have a house, your body, mind, your
belief but you should know where to keep your soul/spirit in your life. What level is your soul? Is it on the ground level, first level,
second level or the roof?
When we book a room in a hotel, you can
choose the level you want. The UN
workers choose the second or third floor just in case there is fire you can
escape and if there are terrorists, they will come in through the first floor. When you work for the UN you have to be
careful that someone is watching you and if you feel suspicious you change
rooms.
For Rahab, those men were in the house safe
but when those who came to find the servants, Rahab decided to hide them. When satan is after your soul/spirit, what do
you do? Temptation will come to look for
you to see if there is any opportunity to kill you spiritually. That is why we must
know how to protect our gifts. E.g.
someone can tell you that they have the gift of kindness or peace but when
anger strikes, the person with this gift can become angry. How to protect this gift of peace in your
life?
I might have a gift of hospitality but when
a visitor comes while I am eating, I feel annoyed because I don’t want to stop
eating. We push the visitor to go
away. For God to visit you, He will come
to see where you put more valuable. If
you have five gifts, how important are they to me and to my soul? Those gifts are not only for God but also for
others and for ourselves.
If you have a gift of singing people,
others will say, that person is a good singer.
They will recognise that gift. It
is your responsibility to protect it and to protect it you must know where you
are up to with your gift.
When you are in the roof, don’t come
down. I have given you all the gifts,
you have priorities in your life. Maybe
priority number one is to go out, to buy a house, to have money and very few
will say my soul is my priority or to one day be in the heaven. When I pray to God, I try not to forget to
ask God to make sure I am ready and that I will be in God’s kingdom when He
comes back and then I will pray for my family, friends and others because I
want to see each other in heaven and I ask God to let my little gifts be in
action.
I’ve seen people kneel down for a nice job
telling God, “I will serve you for the rest of my life” but once job is there,
they tell God, “goodbye, I have to focus on my job”. Other activities can be our priority. Jesus tells us, “you as my child, although
you can be in the house, I God have put you above and you don’t need to put
yourself down again.” If you are raised
up, be there, why are you tempted to come down again?
If Jesus gave you the gift of praying, keep
praying, don’t give up now, don’t go back down to your old way of living. This is how we fail to serve our God and
please Him. He tries to put us up but we
bring ourselves down because we want to be like others.
Kiwis love to watch rugby and all young
people in New Zealand have touched a rugby ball and know how to throw it. It is the dream of children to become rugby
players and they can even name themselves after famous rugby players. Whenever New Zealand will be defeated by
another country, we feel sick because we lost the game and we are
disappointed. This is just a simple
physical game.
For women who play netball (kiwis are good
at netball) when we lose, we feel bad.
How do you feel when you fail your own soul, or your spirit? Some will say it’s a mistake and move
on. I have seen in New Zealand, once a
team fails the people of New Zealand will say that the couch must resign. Does the coach play? He/she doesn’t even play. They will tell the coach to resign because
the team did not perform well.
You are responsible for your soul and
spirit, when your body fails, you are the coach and you have to take care of
your soul/spirit/body. Many will tell
you it’s God’s plan but God has given you a big responsibility.
Another example in the Bible is the
coins. God says, “You will return to me
the benefit of the coin, not the coin itself”.
We all have gifts, we can all read and see. Is there is any benefit that I give to God
with my eyes? What does God get back from
me because I have hands? We should ask
ourselves these questions. God wants us
to be different but we don’t want to.
Children can fight to become a famous
person. Why do they want that? Because
they believe they famous people are models for us, we should be like them. Once you are like Helen Clarke (previous
prime minister of New Zealand), you should remember that you are not allowed to
do what you want because people will talk about it. A simple mistake that you do will become a problem.
God has been raising us up. Maybe the position that God has given us is
higher than Helen Clarke but we forget about our responsibilities and act like
others. A few years ago, Jacinda Adern
(current prime minister of New Zealand) and Simon Bridges (current leader of
the opposition) would talk on morning tv.
Now Jacinda is the leader of the country, she occupies the position is
higher. Paul Henry used to mock them and
ask them foolish questions but he won’t ask them those same questions
today. Although Jacinda is the same
person, she has another level in politics.
You are a Christian for many years, your
level shouldn’t be the same as a new Christian. Your answers and actions should
reflect a mature person.
In the story of Rahab, they searched for
the servants but they couldn’t find them because Rahab hid them. The level God has put you is secure and satan
can’t find you because you are covered by the blood of Jesus but if you leave
that place to do your own things your own way, you will be exposed. If you resist satan, he will run away from
you.
We are not only to be called Christians but
we are supposed to know where is our place in the house of the Lord and
secondly decide, make a tough decision not to come down. I have given my life to Jesus, I am known as a
servant of God and I am not going down even if it is for money or anything that
you want. The decision is yours. Jesus decides that it will be good for you if
you want to be in Kingdom of God to stay at the level God has put you.
The sign of the end of times is that
Christians will act worse than pagans.
We all live the same life as the world.
The church is dying day after day.
Those that do medicine will know that some parts of the body die first
when a person is dying. The last thing
to pull out is your breath. You can talk
to someone breathing but they can’t hear you and then finally they will leave
us. What part of your spirit is leaving
you?
How many gifts do you have and how many do
you use? If you have five gifts, do you
use all of them or not? Are they alive
or not? Then you will be ready to
welcome your Lord. Only those that are
sealed by the Holy Spirit will go with him.
To be sealed with the Holy Spirit, those gifts have to be operational in
your life. If not, it will be difficult
to meet with your Lord.
Pray for yourself and tell God, “put me at
the level that you think I should be and restrict me from going down to find
something else”.
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