The Ninth Hour

By Odon Bulamba

The purpose of the Word of God is to teach you and when you are taught by someone, you have to listen and also to learn and gain skills and knowledge and then you have to apply it.  Without learning and being taught, Robbie could not be an engineer or Ange could not have become a nurse.  The job of the teacher is to bring the message and it’s up to you now to read and re-read and memorise so that when the test comes, it is time to prove to the teacher you understood what the teacher taught.  If you didn’t learn or prepare yourself, you will fail the test. 

 

Sometimes we blame teachers for being harsh markers but we have to accept that if we fail that is because of our own failure which comes from us and not the teacher.  The teacher expects you to do your own research so you when you sit the test, you won’t only give what the teacher said but you will show the teacher you went deeper with research.

 

The HOLY SPIRIT is a teacher who teaches us the Word of God but after you have received it, what have you done with it.  A good student will read the notes throughout the year but a bad student will try to read all the notes at the end of the year and try to cram all the knowledge into one day.  A bad student will fail the test due to lack of preparation.

 

Don’t fail the test.  Your time on this planet is short and limited and every day God takes us through an exam, a competition of knowledge.  When I open Genesis, I have to ask myself what does it mean?  It means life.  What does living mean?  Exodus means exit, so I ask myself, to exit what?  What has to exit my life?

 

The book of Acts is talking about the acts of the disciples and we are also disciples and those acts are for us, not only for Peter, John or Nathanael but for you and me.  Act 3:1, here we find the story of Peter and John walking together going to the temple.  What for? To pray.  What time was it?  It was the ninth hour which is 3pm.  There they found this man who was lame, he couldn’t walk or move and he was sitting there begging.  What was he begging for? Money, so he could survive.

 

He wasn’t begging for the message of God to be preached but for cash, “offer to me something”.  He sat there until Peter and John arrived and he asked for their help.  They said our pockets are empty, we have nothing to give to you but we will give to you what we have, in the name of JESUS CHRIST stand up and walk.  He didn’t stand up immediately but Peter went close to him and helped him to stand up and then he could walk. 

 

The Bible has been telling us a lot about the ninth hour.  When Jesus Christ passed away, it was 3pm and when the curtain broke, it was 3pm. 

 

The temple was built by Solomon but a few years, the Babylonians came and destroyed it and then Nehemiah decided to rebuild and then it was destroyed again and this temple where the lame man is sitting is a new fresh temple built 20 years before Jesus Christ was born.  The lame man was 40 years old (in that time 40 was old) and for those family members they had a burden to take care of him. 

 

Those who had looked after him from the age of 0-20 years had most likely passed away so a second generation picked up and that burden of waking up every morning taking him to toilet, to the temple, to the store, feeding him etc.

 

Have you had to take care of someone 100%?  It’s not easy.  Even at the hospital, they have a rotation so they could have a break but in the old times, you had to take care of your own people.  If your son was sick, that was your responsibility.  Here, those people must have thought to find a way for the man to produce instead of sitting at home doing nothing.  “Being lame, people outside the temple will feel sorry for you and give you money”.  “We should take him to the temple because those that go to the temple will be nice people”. 

 

His family believee that if we take him where nice people are, he can make money.  Maybe they taught him how to beg and what position to sit in so people can feel more sorry for him and give a lot.  Begging became his job.  Every morning they carried him there and sat him down to work.  While others are entering into temple to worship, the man is outside waiting, for years, begging.

 

Those people who were carrying him had to pick up at evening time and maybe they asked, “How much did you earn today?  Show me because I’m the one who brought you here.  We have to share or I won’t bring you here anymore”.  Maybe someone claims their portion because it was their idea to take him there.  Believers of that time who were coming to the temple will give as they pass him and enter the temple.  I haven’t read that anyone spoke to him or shared the gospel with him.

 

When Jesus Christ visited the temple there, that lame man would have been there but Jesus passed without healing him.  Now it is the time of Peter and John.  How often do we initiate ideas in order to earn money, success, glory and use other people to represent us so we can earn something?  Very often people want to please their bosses and you want to hear how happy they are with what you have done.  We sometimes forget that God is the boss of bosses and we should be happy to hear that we have done a good job for God.

 

The lame man was expecting to get something from Peter and John.  “I don’t have gold or silver”.  Maybe I could say, “next time because I don’t have anything today”.  But Peter and John remembered that although they don’t have gold or silver, they have something else, something different, something the world doesn’t give freely to people.  When we walk around the city seeing beggars, what do we do?  Do we complain and say, “The police should pick them up, they make our city ugly,” or do we say, “they should join the Paralympics”.  Many people sometimes feel angry because disabled are begging.

 

If yourself was disabled, and you were in that position, how would your life be without the support of others?  If you were put outside the temple while others are inside and they tell you, you must do this, sit outside and beg. How will your life be?

 

This disabled person wasn’t born lame because he wanted to be, it was God’s decision. Sometimes you are in a position that is not your fault.  Peter said to the disabled man, look at me.  Most of the time beggars will look at you with sorry eyes but this one wasn’t looking at Peter and so they are now forcing him to look at them.  “We have nothing to give”.  Imagine, you are begging for something and someone says they don’t have anything.  Maybe he felt his heart broken, you have nothing to give to a poor person like me but maybe you have $5 for your offering in the temple.  Maybe he was disappointed but then they said, “In Jesus Christ’s name, stand up”.

 

When you see those outside begging and in trouble, do you use the name of Jesus Christ, this is the ninth hour, in Jesus Christ name receive this.  I once challenged myself and asked myself how many times do I pray for the beggars and disabled in my community.  I don’t.  We can pray for our government, things that are coming but not the disabled.  They are in need, physically and spiritually.

 

We might think, if I give him money, he will just use it for alcohol and we judge them but we don’t know.  If I say, I have nothing to give you but let me pray.  Pray for 2 minutes, may God bless you and walk away but if you leave the person there and complain about them, you will change nothing. 

 

We, as disciples of Jesus Christ, God is sending us to walk around our streets.  Those people have been waiting since the first hour and now it is the ninth hour and you have the power of Jesus Christ in you with the gifts, anointing and ministries, why don’t you share it with these people?  “I have nothing for you but let us pray”.  If you say, I want to pray for you, will they say no?  Maybe, maybe not.  Maybe they will say yes and these are my other prayer requests. 

 

Most will say I was here for money, I don’t need your prayer but you can say, yes but in Jesus Christ stand up and leave this place because this is not your place, come inside the temple and join the crowd of Jesus Christ, satan is trying to keep you here but come with us. 

 

Others want to stay lame because that is their source of income.  Some don’t want to leave where they are but to remain lame.  We go together to church to pray but they stay outside the temple, they only come to pray for their interests (material things for themselves) and when they receive what they want, they go back with happiness and say they are blessed but when they receive spiritual blessings they are not happy because it doesn’t help them physically.

 

I’ve heard a prayer request by one person who asked God for $40,000 to celebrate a birthday and they needed a miracle but when you are talking about spiritual life, they don’t accept that is a miracle.  They will glorify the birthday party and sing but no glory to God for being there or being alive.

 

Those who tell God, I am one of your people but I don’t want to stand up and be part of your temple.  You don’t want to come inside yourself and ask who you are for God.  Maybe God will stop listening to you because you are invited in but you don’t want to.  Most of the time we talk about things we have heard or seen but how often do we talk about God and his Word.  In 20 of my words or 20 of my actions, 0 involve God and all that I do is for myself and me alone.  In the same way this person was only begging for himself.  Sometimes we beg for ourselves and pretend that if you give it to me God, it will help my family.

 

At the ninth hour, John and Peter were going to pray.  Do you have a specific hour when you pray?  When you come closer to God?  You can have time for a television program.  Do you have an appointment for your God?  If you don’t have that time or appointment for God, start to think about it.  The Bible says that every morning, Jesus Christ came to the mountain to pray.  Daniel prayed five times a day at specific times.  Do we have a specific times to pray or do you just wait for Sunday and do you really come here to pray?  Maybe we come to church just to sing or to socialise with others or we don’t know where else to go. 

 

We need to find some time to pray and before coming to the church to pray to God and be with Him.  It doesn’t matter your topic but come and have a conversation with God.  On your way in, you might find circumstances with people begging for something different, give to them what God has given you, pray for them, in Jesus Christ’s name, this is what I give. 

 

I went to Frankton market with my girls and Levi yesterday.  In my mind I said, every fourth person I meet, I will stop them and talk about the gospel.  The fourth person was a disabled person playing the harmonica and begging.  He was large in size with people around him.  This is a test, I thought to myself.  I came to him and I said, “Hi”, and he pointed to the bag.  I stopped him and he said, “what?”  How to continue?  “I want to talk to you about Jesus Christ,” and he said the f-word and “If you have something to give to me, give it but if not, go away”.  I replied, “I want to give to you something bigger than what you are after” so I put my hand in my pocket and his eyes followed and I said, “you need Jesus Christ and your life needs to be changed but that can only be done if you and I pray now” and I started to pray and he started to play the harmonica and then he stopped and listened and then he hugged me.

 

The next fourth person was a lady eating a kebab.  I said, “Hi sister, can I talk to you, do you know Jesus Christ?”  She said, “Yes,” and I asked, “How do you know him, how long have you been Christian?”  She replied, “I’m not but my parents used to take me to church”.  I told her, “Jesus Christ loves you and He wants you to be your friend, can we pray”.  She said, “No, Christians are hypocrites”.  I answered, “I’m not talking about Christians but the love of Christ,” and I started praying but by the time I finished, she was gone.  Some will listen to you, others not but don’t let the opportunity pass without giving because the more you give, the more you will be given.  If you bless, you will be blessed. 

 

Give the Word pf God to others but we only want to give the Word of God to Christians.  When we meet non-christians, we lack courage.  At the ninth hours, what do you do?  When someone has been begging and shouting for help, what do you do?  3pm is when all activities in city are coming to an end.  The children leave school and those at work think in one or two hours our office will close. 

 

The church is around 3pm now when all work is about to close down where Jesus Christ will come back and judge all our communities.  Imagine if your neighbours tell you, “Robbie did you know that Christ is coming back, why didn’t you tell me?”  How will you feel? 

 

I’m sure that the lame man was full of joy to see himself on his feet, maybe he shouted with joy and rushed into the temple and forgot about the money he used to make and I’m sure he didn’t worry about the lack of skills to make a new job.  He was only concerned about walking.

 

Do you have a gift that you have given to someone that they have never forgotten?  He couldn’t walk and then he could walk.  If someone asks you now, what is the precious thing God has given you, we will all say salvation.  What is the best gift you have given someone?  Maybe money, a birthday party.  You have prayers, blessings, Word of God and plenty of things the HOLY SPIRIT has been giving to you to give to others. 

 

Although Jesus Christ is dead, the name of Jesus is still alive.  Just use the name of Jesus Christ and see what will happen, it’s not you but the power in that name.  Many Christians will only use that name when they are casting out demons and sickness but when we are blessing others, why don’t we use it or use it when we want to see other’s lives changed.  In our letters we say be blessed but not in Jesus Christ’s name be blessed.  Jesus Christ loves glory so use it.  If you use the name of Jesus Christ, that person will be blessed.

 

I want to paint a wall so I can pray, “In Jesus Christ’s name, let his wall be painted perfectly”.  I need to get home quickly, “In Jesus Christ’s name, I will go through the traffic and get home before 4pm,” and you will experience the power of the name of Jesus Christ.

 

One time I was traveling in an airplane with 60 passengers and only one pilot who was drunk and said, “you people have faith, we will be ok and get there”.  In the air we felt something was wrong.  There was no cabin crew.  The pilot again said, “Don’t worry, we will get there,” but then he started to fall asleep due to the alcohol and we started to fall and then he woke up and rose the plane up again.  We screamed but couldn’t do anything because we didn’t know how to fly a plane.  I said, “In JESUS CHRIST’S name, let us get there safely,” and I shouted it without knowing.  When the plane landed, I left the airplane without picking up my bag. 

 

The name of Jesus Christ is so powerful to even change our minds and even the mark that your lecturer gave to you.  I have had 100% without knowing how.  Pray for your children in Jesus Christ’s name to be successful in school.

 

To say God bless you isn’t bad but what God are you talking about.  The ninth hour is coming in our life. Nothing will change a situation in our life a part from the name of Jesus Christ and the Lord will never let you down. 

 

Money and all that you have comes from God.  All your possessions comes from God and giving it back to God will make him happy.  “You give me this tool which is Your Name, let me use it”.  Then others will discover the power of transforming lives and miracles.

 

Michelle used to drink a lot of coffee in the past but she wanted to stop so we prayed in Jesus Christ’s name to stop drinking coffee and the desire to drink coffee stopped.  It wasn’t her or me but it was God and whenever she tried to drink it, she couldn’t stand the taste of it.  That name can be used in any situation.  Use that name for all situations. 

Power: Mathew 5:7

By Odon Bulamba

 

You can’t know the quality of a cake until you have tasted it.  I have seen people holding a board with a picture of a burger on it and when you see the picture, you feel attracted to it and you can’t resist buying a burger.  You expect the big mac to look huge like the poster but it is small.  One day I asked why the picture looks more attractive and they said, “sorry, next time but give me your money in the meantime and next time we’ll see”.  In my country, they say, tomorrow never comes so when someone doesn’t want to give you something, they will say tomorrow so when you go back the next day, they will say, I told you to come tomorrow not today.  For God, He is talking about today and not tomorrow so we have to focus on today.  We have to follow God today and ask for forgiveness today, we can’t wait until tomorrow because tomorrow never comes.

 

Today I want us to chew on the Word of God and eat it.  The message today is about mercy. Everyday people talk about mercy and we hear people cry out to God to have mercy on them. What does mercy mean for you? What does mercy mean for God?  This word mercy starts from the beginning of the Bible to the end - the Bible is full of mercy, every verse and chapter. 

 

Before to eat the cake, normally we look first for the knife to cut the cake but our fingers could break the cake or we could just pick up the entire cake and put it in our mouth.  We need a knife so we can make the cake into nice attractive pieces that people can easily pick up a portion.  If I ask you to bite this cake and then I ask the next person, we won’t be comfortable to bite the cake after someone else has already done it – we might be afraid of germs etc.  In the Kingdom of God there are things that God wants in order.  We have to take the knife first before reading Word of God. The role of knife is to cut and once the knife has cut, the food has a good shape that is easy to eat.  We have to cut the Word of God into portions we will be able to easily undertand.

 

Mathew 5: 7, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

Are we merciful?  If yes, then we obtain mercy.  If not, we should never expect mercy from any person or from God.  What a condition, what a tough game – to be merciful.  Someone killed your mum and now you have to have mercy and let it go.  Someone hit your car, or stole from you but now you have to have mercy and let it go.  How often are you ready to be merciful?  How ready are we to make it one of the qualities in our lives, to be a character of ours, to make it be a part of our behavior?  I hear people say, I’m so angry, I’ve given you too many chances so no mercy now.  How often should we be merciful to others?  70 x 7.  That’s a big mathematics.

 

Mathew 18: 21- 35, “Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”  Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.  “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.   As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him.  Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.   “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, cancelled the debt and let him go.  “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins.  He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.  “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened.  “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I cancelled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.  “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

 

This story is a good example of mercy.  It started with a character called Peter (there is no character in the Bible like Peter – he is really a character).  Jesus is telling them they have to live in unity because you are all like one body and so you all have to stay together, work with one another and love each other.  Peter was like, “how can I be in unity with x person because they keep making mistakes, should I tolerate them more and more?  Should we only forgive 7x?”  Peter had already forgiven someone 7 times and now he wanted that person to be removed.  Jesus replied saying, not only 7x but 70 x 7.  Meaning that if someone does something wrong, we don’t’ have to say, “I’ll give you one more chance,” but instead we have to keep forgiving that person and keep having mercy.

 

Jesus came with a different angle and said, look at the Kingdom of God, I want you to be in unity because of the Kingdom of God, he secret of the Kingdom of God is like the following:  a king woke up one morning and checked his books, like an auditor.  Auditors don’t tell you when they are coming, they just turn up and they use their intelligence and calculator and go through all your items.  If you sold two boxes of chocolates, you write it down in the book and the auditor will ask for that book, he will ask for the record.  The king decided to have an account with all his servants. 

 

The first man was to be audited was a servant who was given 10,000 talents which equals 344,000 kg of gold.  1 kg gold equals US$38K so 344 thousand kilograms of gold equates to millions of dollars.  The king trusted that servant with a huge amount of wealth.  The servant did not use it properly - maybe he was taking money from it to organize a party, to travel and he didn’t keep his records clean.  When the auditors came, they took the servant to the king and said, “he doesn’t have your money”.  The servant begged the king and promised to pay back that HUGE amount of money.  How long would it take to pay all of that back?  The servant fell at the king’s feet begging for patience. 

 

God has trusted you and me and given us more than 10,000 talents.  First, you are alive.  You have your family, you can see, touch, move, and it is all at zero cost.  Many will tell you they wish they had eyes, others wish they could have legs.  How many people in this world wish they could be the way you are?  Do you know? 

 

Someone was created crippled or blind just because God wanted to be glorified.  How will you feel if God created you blind just for His glory compared to those who see.  When my father became sick, my family took thousands of dollars and begged doctors to keep him alive, “if he stays alive, all this money will be yours”.  Doctors could not keep him alive.  We breathe freely and breathe as much as you want but my father who was paying money to keep breathing could not.  Doctors fight to keep their patients alive but when the breathing stops, there is nothing more that can be done.  But God who is the supplier, keeps giving you the free oxygen everyday and we are to keep notes in our books.  The supplier will come one day and ask what we did with that oxygen.  What will you answer? I was playing soccer?  God will ask you, “Did I give you that breath so you can misuse it?”

 

Because He is a God who trusts us, He gives us everything we need and trusts when He comes back there will be a good record of how we used what He gave us.  He gives us the body shape that others can appreciate.  I saw a man in Asia who looked so terrible – a very deformed face and we can’t look at him twice because it is so hideous and this man was proud walking around.  God created him that way and people stared at him.  We stand in front of the mirror and the ladies will trim their eye brows, apply powder and turn around and around looking at themselves in the mirror and people appreciate the way they look.  Have you seen someone refusing to look in the mirror?  I have seen someone smashing a mirror because he believed he was ugly.  So when you look at yourself and you see you are so good just remember that all the wows from others are glory that belongs to God.

 

When people comment and say how good you are at something, just remember that you didn’t buy those talents with money - God gave them to you.  When He comes back to audit you, he will say, I trusted you with these qualities, what did you do with them?

 

At night we sleep for free but many people can’t sleep and require medicine to fall asleep.  You have nice dreams but others can’t even sleep.  The first thing in the morning we do is to look for breakfast. You can have eggs for example, but how many chickens have you created to produce those eggs and God supplies everything for you but you don’t even think about it.  One chicken gives one egg per day and only for a period of time.  If you take 30 eggs, you take the lives of 30 chicks.  Some people complain about the price of eggs or the price of milk.  How much effort does the cow do for the milk?  God keeps trusting you and making people and animals work for you to buy a tray of eggs for $5.  Sometimes we are even picky and we don’t want to eat that.  God looks at us and wonders why we don’t stop and think about how blessed we are.

 

The servant lost the 10 thousand talents and he begged the boss for patience.  The king forgave him and said don’t pay anything to me – be free.  Imagine buying a car with finance but when you ring the finance company and tell them you can’t afford to pay and you need time, they say, “you don’t have to pay it back, keep the car.”  Imagine if it were a house. What will your first impression be?  You’ll be confused.  Imagine you miss one payment on your $600,000 house and the bank tells you that you don’t have to pay the loan.  Will you cry? Smile? Say thank God or will you doubt and ask the bank to put it in writing. 

 

This man was forgiven and the Lord had compassion on him.  He was full of joy because he was told that that the servants should take him and sell him and sell his wife and children and everything that belongs to him. 

 

Have you heard about the selling of human beings?  Slavery: people would come by force and take you somewhere and you become a product that they will sell and trade.  You will be given to someone you don’t know and normally they will treat you as a slave and not as a free person, they will be harsh to you and if you attempt to escape you might be beaten to death.  I have seen in Africa places where they used to store slaves and it was a very tall building with one small window and people were packed in the room and no chance to go out of the room for the toilet. You might be allowed out of the room for a toilet break once every three days.  Once the room is filled with slaves, the ship will come and take you to the US.  It can be hot or cold but you have to wait in that room.  Many people lost their lives.  They stayed in that room for montHoly Spirit until it was filled.  They will put a choker around the neck and a rope to stop you from running because it will choke you if you tried to run away.  No matter how strong you are, if someone touches your throat, you are nothing – it is the weakest part of the body.  This man in the bible knew that his wife would also be sold and now his relationship with her would be over.  Imagine how much his wife was in love with her husband and now she will be separated.  How will you feel if your child has to be sold into slavery?  That is so very hard and all because the servant didn’t keep his book in order.

 

Your weaknesses and sins can have an impact on those around you, your family and nation.  Today the church doesn’t want to recognize that.  After forgiving the man, he was free and shouting and then he sees one of his servants and tells him he is owed 100 denaries which is about $700. He jumped on him and attacked the neck and strangled him, he wanted to kill him.  Because of that action of attacking someone else and not listening to him the other servants went back and told the master, “that same person you forgave does not have compassion”.  Here God is teaching us the power He has given us.

 

When you are someone somewhere, how do you use your power?  How do you control yourself in order to not harm yourself or others?  How many times do you hurt your heart, your Holy Spirit, your Christian life, your personality and you make yourself look stupid.  Some get drunk and they make themselves look so foolish by banging into things, or beating people.  Where is compassion on your behavior, your personality, your Christianity and after doing all that rubbish, they will tell you that they will never do it again but they do. The Lord told the bad servant, I forgave you but you didn’t forgive so for that reason, give back what you owe me.  You lose the blessing of God sometimes when you don’t have compassion on others, He reverses his blessing. 

 

Because you didn’t have compassion on your life and the people I gave you, you have to pay back the blessings I gave you and they will all be flushed down the toilet.  We want so much to get glory and money but many don’t want to be known as Christians – they are ashamed because they want to live their own life.

 

Jesus said, this man was given to those who know how to torture until he paid back everything.  Imagine having a conflict with God because you didn’t want to have compassion/mercy for others.  You tell others, “You keep doing the same thing so I break the relationship”.  The solution is to break the relationship rather than having compassion.  You tell them to stay in your corner and we will go somewhere else. 

 

We always meet here to pray because we are preparing the way to the Kingdom of God.  We need to know the rules of Kingdom of God to enter it.  We need to understand the rules.  When we became citizens of New Zealand, we had to repeat what we needed to say and once making the oath, it is a big engagement.  When you became a Christian, you told God that you now live for Him and you took a big engagement with God.  That was the beginning of accounting and God is looking at you.  I give God false promises but live my own life and still want God to bless me.

 

Some people have lost their sense of taste and everything is tasteless but those with a good tongue will know how tasty the cake is.  Have you lost the taste of the Word of God in your life?  Does your tongue feel that you really belong to Jesus?  If not, now is the time to fall at the feet of God and cry out for mercy and then change your life. What you are living now is yours but after tomorrow you don’t know.

 

Lebon and I were watching the news yesterday and in Hamilton, after celebrating a party, a house caught on fire.  Three people died.  They were sleeping and then fire.  Although the house had windows and doors, they died.  We don’t have to be foolish and think that we will jump through the window when the time comes.  Don’t think you still have time to fix it.  God is not our friend in the world’s way of thinking of friends.  We don’t have to tell Him to wait until we are ready.  The auditor is at the door and He will ask you, “what did you do with your hands, feet and everything you have?”  It will be a shame if you have to use excuses because God will tell you, “no you should first take care of your soul”.  You might say, I didn’t do your work God because I was sitting next to someone who is sick but He will tell you, “being next to the one who is sick cannot stop him from dying”.

 

When Lebon was in hospital I remembered how he always talks about being strong and fit which he is but now he is in hospital.  He was talking about how cold he felt but why couldn’t he run and warm up his body to remove the cold?  It was serious.  A girl came with a blue shirt and she had to take blood sample.  Lebon has very big veins and when the lady tried to take blood it was impossible.  No veins.  Lebon was suffering.  After doing that, another nurse came to try to get blood and Lebon started to shake.  The body that you believe is yours puts you in trouble.  You look after your body but it doesn’t look after you.  You wash it and put on make-up but it doesn’t look after you.  You have to look after your body but you need to also look after your soul because your soul will look after you.  If you don’t’ look after your soul, you will lose.

 

I used to drive Lebon every day of the week to his training like a taxi driver and I had to pay sometimes for his accommodation and then suddenly he had to go to Japan to represent NZ in his age group for soccer.  The trip cost $10,000 for one week.  All of that money?  And you give and give to the point that I started to forget my other responsibilities and praise God he grew up and can now drive himself.  Lebon’s soccer boots were around $350 and he needed about 5 per year.  I was investing time, effort, energy, brain etc for Lebon to be on a soccer team.  We need to remember that we belong to God’s team.  We have a role to play and what are we doing as parents for our children, what are we doing for our neighbours, our friends our work collegues?  We do our physical exercises but do we spiritually run and walk or do we say we are tired?  We should be active spiritually.  Give to Cesar what belongs to him and to God what belongs to God.  Do we only give to Cesar or do we give to God as well?  

 

Let's help our brothers and sisters in need

Open Doors in Ethiopia: Oct 17 2013

“That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God ….” 1 Timothy 4:10

The child was inconsolable. “They stabbed him to death,” the words rolled off his tongue. Wasihun is just seven, but seemed like an adult. He attentively listened to every word the adults were saying, breaking into tears often. Many children, who have faced similar circumstances, will cry when they see their mothers cry, without really understanding why they were crying. But not Wasihun… He understood completely. During the conversation, he repeatedly interrupted his mother to explain exactly how they had killed his father. His eyes were screaming in grief.

 

An Open Doors co-worker met with this family from the remote district of Hareto, Oromia State in Western Ethiopia, only two days after the tragic murder. This was a bereaved family – a mother and eight children aged 2 to 16 – completely spent by the trauma they had experienced and the bitter grief they were going through. When the crime was committed, there was no one to come to their aid. His wife and children helplessly watched Motuma Kemede die. Motuma’s day started the same as most other weekdays. He got up early and prepared for his job as casual laborer on a nearby farm where he worked throughout the rainy season. In the dry winter months, he worked as a merchant, travelling around to buy and sell items for a minimal profit.

 

Motuma’s family members are the only Christians in this Animist village. The increasingly hostile community knew Motuma for his dedication to the gospel and that he was a member of a congregation in a neighboring village. Like many other Christians in the area, Motuma received repeated insults and verbal warnings to renounce his faith. “It was in the middle of the night when they broke into our house,” shared his widow, Buze. “I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say or do. They shone their torches directly into our eyes, so that we could not see their faces. There were three of them in the house, but others were waiting outside. I heard them shout to each other, ‘Stab him!’ When I asked them why they were attacking us, they shouted at me to shut up. They first hit my husband with a spear over his back. Motuma was lying over Defary, our two year old, to protect him. But they dragged Motuma out of the house by his legs. Right outside the door they continued to hit his upper body with machetes. I was shouting for help, but no one came. They hit me with a stick on my right arm… We were alone... All the children were shocked to see how they killed their father.”

 

Open Doors remains closely involved with the local church in this and other regions of Ethiopia where persecution is intensifying. We helped cover immediate costs for Buze and her children, and have also covered the children’s school registration fees, uniforms and stationary for this academic year. In consultation with the local church, we are looking at ways to help the family in the longer term.

 

Let's take time to pray for those Christians around the world being persecuted for their faith that God will help them to keep their faith and give them the strength to persevere.  Let's pray for children all over the world (Christian and non-christian) that have lost their dad and/or mum and ask God to be their Father and their hope so that they may have eternal salvation.  Let's pray for all their material, emotional and spiritual needs to be met.  Let each of us think of how we can help.  What can we do?  We can write letters of encouragement, we can donate money, we can inform others. 

Click here for ways to be one with those who are suffering for their faith.  This website from Open Doors enables yous to pray with our brothers and sisters and to send them an encouraging message. 

 

 

Compassion on your gifts

By Odon Bulamba

Mathew 15:21-28, “Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to Him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.”Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to Him and urged Him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before Him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour”.

The lady was a foreigner but came to Jesus because her daughter was sick with an evil spirit. Jesus told her to go away because the food which He had prepared was for His children and not for dogs (imagine someone calling you a dog).

Psalm 127:3, “Children are a heritage from the LORD, offspring a gift from him” (children are a gift from God). The woman was protecting that gift day after day, a gift that can’t be bought. There is a process to becoming a mother. When you are around 13 years of age, your body will start to develop and at a certain age you are able to get married and your status changes; you are now responsible. A young girl who was once called a child will now be called a mother regardless of the age that she gives birth.

Sometimes people confuse the word compassion. Usually we only have compassion when we see the suffering in front of us but after saying sorry, we walk away and forget. Our compassion is very limited and it’s only for a short time. This lady’s daughter became sick and no one could help her.

Whenever you become a child of God, you are given the Holy Spirit and He becomes a part of your life and God gives you gifts and we are called to look after them as it says in the Psalm. In New Zealand if we don’t look after our children, the government can give the child to someone else while the new family can sometimes be worse than the first because they may not have enough compassion, or money or abilities. When God gives us gifts we have to take care of them properly because He can take them from us and give them to someone else if we are not careful.

There are steps we have to go through with our children; changing nappies, feeding them, taking them to the doctor and sometimes they cry with no reason. The gifts we have also cry and need to be assisted and put into action and motivated and taken to the doctor when they are sick.  No matter how old you are spiritually, you are still called to look after your gifts (in same way a young mother is still responsible for her children). Only a few people will pray for their gift or use their gift or look after it properly.

Satan looks at our gifts and he knows that these gifts will destroy his kingdom and he wants to make sure to destroy that gift. For example, if you love to pray, satan will make something nice happen so you decide to come back to prayer later (maybe the courier will arrive with a package for you, or maybe the phone rings and it’s a good friend you haven’t talked to for a while or maybe you get a new job that pays much better but the hours are long). This is the same with reading the Bible, and slowly, slowly, you will start to be possessed by that power of satan. You will be possessed to take a portion of your life so that it now belongs to satan (just like the daughter who was possessed by satan). Slowly, slowly, satan will take a piece of your life. When we sin, the Holy Spirit is squashed so He can’t move properly. This is why we need compassion on our gifts. The more we use our gifts, the more they will get stronger.

To change your body shape takes time. If I am fat today, it will take time and effort to become slim, it can’t happen in just a few days. Satan takes his time too, he attacks us when we start to practise our gift; I feel tired, I feel lazy, I’ll do it tomorrow. The reduction of practises will lead us far away.

The lady went to Jesus Christ because there was nowhere else to go. When you believe your gift is sick or things are wrong in your life….where do you go? We have to pray for ourselves and we have to pray for our gifts.


“Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!” When you go to God, say to Him, “have mercy on me, God feel pity on me, have compassion on me, look at my situation, look at my gifts, things are going rotten, please save me.

By giving us gifts, God knows that satan will attack us day after day but those gifts will also protect us. For example, a leopard is dangerous but if trained properly, it can also be a protector. First, we have to know how to train the leopard and we have to make sure to avoid mistakes because mistakes can be deadly. This is the same spiritually, if we sin, it can also be deadly (spiritually). How much training do you offer your gifts in order to make them perfect? God gives us gifts and behind them is a blessing but we don’t use them. One day God will ask us what we did with his gifts and what will we answer.

When the lady asked for Jesus’ help, He didn’t answer her, He kept silent and ignored her. Imagine if you call on God, praying for ten years and He doesn’t say anything. Because she loved her daughter she had to fight until the end.

Her second challenge was the disciples who wanted to send her away, ‘she’s annoying us, send her away, you are too soft Jesus’. That lady must have said it over and over for it to become annoying. Imagine you are asking God something and the church says, ‘go away, we don’t have time for that, you’ve already given that prayer request before’. Instead of supporting you and feeling compassion, they are telling God to send you away.But the lady didn’t quit. There is a time for everything and she knew that if she didn’t beg Jesus now, she might not have another chance to meet with God again.

Jesus answered and said, “I’ve only come for the people of Israel, not for you”. Imagine asking God for help and He tells you that you don’t belong to the tribe. When you know what tribe you belong to, you know your roots and this lady knew the root of her problem was the demon. Do you know the root of your problems? Is it the music you listen to, the tv programs you watch, the places you go to, the people you spend time with? Sometimes when we give all our attention to the things that are destroying our souls, we can’t hear the voice of God. It’s like when we listen to music with a headset on and we can’t hear what people are talking about around us.

When we are in sin, God considers us as sinners (in the same way that Jesus considered the lady as a foreigner). We have to become a part of Israel so God can give us what we need. The lady worshipped God after He told her that she was a foreigner. When you are in a disappointing situation, will you have the courage to worship Jesus?...when you have health problems, work problems, money problems, when you feel God rejecting you, will you make a step and worship God?

We don’t put effort into worshipping. In heaven there is a choir worshipping day and night, what will you do if you don’t practise? The more you practise, the more you will get in good shape. In order to get a good body shape, you have to set up a time for going to the gym etc, and you have to have the equipment and know how to use them properly and we accept that there will be pain the next morning. It is the same with praying for our gifts, we have to find the time and make the effort. If we don’t use what we have, we’ll go back to zero.

Jesus called the woman a dog. How patient are you with people when they are abusing you, don’t you feel angry, don’t you react, do you listen and continue to be by them. The lady said, “even the dogs have the right to eat, I only need the crumbs”. Can you be full with crumbs? Everything that is in the bread will also be in the crumb. Whenever you pray to God, when you are far away from Him, God considers you as a dog but remember a dog can be trained and remember what is in bread will also be in the crumb. If there is healing, blessing, salvation, it will be there; we might not be satisfied completely but don’t stay away. Read the Bible even at the level of a crumb.

“Your faith makes you well”. That is enough for healing. Whenever you feel your gifts shut down, ask God for crumbs, ask God for access to the crumbs, ask God for His cooking and for what He supplies to the church. If you don’t have the courage to collect the crumbs, your life will be miserable (as the woman wouldn’t have had healing for her daughter and her daughter may have been taken from her). God can take from us as he likes, we can’t stop Him so before He takes them away, use them, use your gifts. God will ask us what we did with our gifts, what will you answer? I didn’t have time?

Pray to God for your gift now.