Lot

By Odon Bulamba

Luke 17:26-30

The Bible continues to remind us that whenever 2 or 3 gather together, Christ is among them.

Today I’m going to talk to you about Lot.  Lot means “veil”: what you cover your face with.  You can see through it and see faces but people may not see your face.  Lot was the nephew of Abraham. 

Luke 17:28 will be the main verse for today.  In the days of Lot people were eating, drinking, buying and building.

Last Sunday, we talked about the time of Noah where people were eating, drinking, marrying and giving their sons and daughters to marry.  Jesus has been telling us that this is a reminder, “When you start to see these signs, remember I am coming back”.  When you observe these things, it is an alarm, wake up.  As I said last Sunday, to eat is not a sin and to drink is not a sin and to marry or give your daughter to marry is not a sin but God was angry to the point that He destroyed the people of Noah for those mistakes.

Why was God not angry with those who were killing, or those doing prostitution, or liars.  Why not all the sins that we know?  He continues to say that at the time of Lot people were eating, drinking, selling, buying, planting and building.  Many people will tell you that Jesus is coming back soon, we can look at all the signs.  Are you ready to go?  We believe that what the Bible calls sins and that is the only thing that can stop us from pleasing God.

However, in the beginning Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden.  God told them live here but the first warning to human beings was to not eat the fruit from this tree, “By eating you will shock Me Your God and I will become unhappy with you.  You can eat everything else but not this one”.  If to eat is not a problem, why did God tell Adam not to eat the fruit of that tree?  We only know that eating in excess is sin.  Whenever you envy food or desire it more than God, God becomes jealous and unhappy.

For example, I watched children one time when we bought fish and chips, around 2003.  All our kids were there.  It was time to pray for the food and Lebon prayed as quickly as possible in order to attack his food.  I was maybe the same when I was a child.  I knew food wouldn’t run away from table but I would rush.  When I cook it might take 2 or 3 hours to prepare the food and I do that job with strength and courage.  I want that food to taste good.  Onions and tomatoes make it smell good and when I taste it, I think oh yes, this is going to be good.

As I cook it’s not only for me but for those that will share with me.  Many will come and taste it and say, its yummy, we appreciate it.  They eat with appetite and enjoy.  Although you spent hours in the kitchen, it will only take a few minutes to eat.  Then sometimes people leave some food on the plate.  You wonder how you can spend so much time to cook when they don’t even eat it.  That is where our teaching is today.

What are we investing in today for our spiritual meals for our family, friends and colleagues?  We are distracted with restaurants.  They have big signs, cook food, have a menu and when we look at the menu and we don’t know what kind of food is there.  I accept to spend money in order to try this and you buy it.  How often do people visit you and they see something in you to attract them to try your food?  The Word of God is food.  When you talk about a verse from the Bible or experience what God has done for you it is like a menu for others to look at. 

If I start from January to now (December), God has done a lot for me.  Free oxygen, health, protection, I can walk, talk and God has responded to all my needs.  In the same way God gave all the fruit to Adam and Eve but one exception to not eat this fruit.  Today our exception is to remember what we shouldn’t eat.  Does food in the first rank or last rank in your life?  Do you love food more than your soul, God, yourself?

I might love sausages more than God, or I might love cookies more than Jesus.  When I see pizza, I see myself in heaven.  Your soul, what does it say?  When you eat food you enjoy, how much do you feed your soul and with what do you feed it?  Very often, we feed from the food that we shouldn’t just as Adam and Eve ate from the “food of knowledge of good and evil”.

To drink is ok and the Bible doesn’t say alcohol, it could be water, juice just remember that whenever your drink holds highest rank in your life, God becomes jealous.  God doesn’t hide it, He says, “I am jealous.  I love you so much that I feel jealous whenever I see your love is put in something else”.  E.g. a husband that loves his wife who loves someone/something else instead that husband won’t be happy, he will be jealous.  God is the one who gives us thirst and the One who created the drink to quench it but we adore the drink more than God and put it in the first rank.

The verse says that the people in the time of Lot were buying and selling.  Why am I wearing this suit while it is a hot day?  One day I was walking in china and I saw this suit.  They put it on a mannequin and I thought, wow it looked good with all the colours.  I must buy it because it looks beautiful.  My heart was pumping, “you have to have it because if you don’t, you have nothing” while I have many at home.  Why do I need it?  The desire of my body was pushing me to buy it.

When I wear what I am wearing now, I cannot look at myself but it is just to impress others = pride.  Then, I approached the owner of the shop, how much for this suit?  I love this brand Giorgio Armani, and I knew it would be thousands.  Owner said, $200 and I bargained down to $25.  Now I have this suit, what is next, I have to wear it.  Who gave me the health to wear it?  Today God could make me sick and I can never wear it. 

I can easily spend $25 to buy this jacket but it is impossible to give $25 offering in church.  I can spend money to buy shoes but hard to give to the poor.  Pastors, prophets, men and women of God are all putting our eyes on buying now.  On Sunday I have to wear this to look more beautiful than others.  A matter of competition in church now so we buy not for the glory of God.

We have to think about what we will wear to work in order to be appreciated.  If you don’t get told, “nice blouse”, how will you feel?  Many will feel bad.  We need glory and God who deserves glory is becoming more and more jealous.  Why do you want to take my glory because of what you wear?  If you do a small task in the church, you want people to notice and appreciate it.  Saying thank you is not bad but once received, do I also present the thanks to God and say because of You, I did this.

Sometimes I do the dishes and people thank me and I also thank God for giving me the hands to do it.  Those who serve and don’t do things for glory will be raised up by God.

Pastors write books and you have to buy it.  CD’s, you have to buy.  In order to join conferences, you have to pay.  We are selling business in church.  Business in church is greater than supermarket businesses around New Zealand.  If you buy this, this person will be able to do this.  We are doing fundraising.  People are supposed to give and give and give.

Today, we can see these signs inside the church.  We buy and sell.  We want to become rich and very rich quickly which to us is to earn a lot of money.  Recently, I watched tv about the bitcoin.  8 years ago, someone rung me about the bitcoins and I mocked the person over the phone.  Those who received them, are now millionaires.  This is like a dream, I was proposed to do this and I thought it was a scam but it has made others millionaires. 

Because I didn’t have the lust of money, I put it aside.  If I could give that money away and have millions today, maybe I wouldn’t be here today in church but instead I would be running after money.  I would put my Bible aside, God give me wisdom to know how to manage my money, to know how to get more interest.  After getting more money, I will kneel down and praise God.

Will I give 10% for tithing?  If I earned $30M, how will I give $3M?  It’s a lot.  I sacrificed my money, my time, and the time I had with my children, you don’t need $3M God.  God will take it away.  Take that jacket off, and it will be taken away.  Take your tie off and it will be given away.

My computer crashed, my interest is gone, my $30M has dropped to $2M.  You lose your password with Bitcoin and someone steals your money.  God will take your income.  God will tell you is that you are only building your finances.  Building money is priority number of 1.  I will accept to wear jacket of problems in the middle of summer to earn money instead of trying to earn God’s love.

God says I am here and we say, I don’t have time for you, God can you wait until next week.  I just want to live longer to be able to enjoy what I have earned.  Those who sell know how to attract you. Sellers don’t know you but they will put things in the store so your eyes will say, this is what I want.  They take money from you.  What do you buy from your God?

When you open your Bible, there are a lot of things that attract you from your Bible, what do you buy?  Those in Laodicea were told to come and buy what I can put in your eyes so you can see.  What do you buy?  What do you sell?  For those who want to buy from God, what attracts people to you?  What attracts you from the Word of God?  What did you go through in 2017? 

In the end at the time of Lot, the angels came and said, it’s time to leave.  Lot was living in Sodom and Gomorrah.  People couldn’t know who was lot because his faith was hidden behind the veil.  You have to leave now, no time to pack.  Whatever you have, the food that you used to love, your drink, what you sold and bought will stay behind and only those that will come with you will come.

We are living at the end of the time when the master will come and ask you to leave this world.  When he comes, he doesn’t have to ring the bell to let you know he is on his way.  What are you taking with you?  Your nice jacket, tie, shoes, your good/bad actions, your food you love?  What will you present to God?

Those signs are a wake up call for us.  If I am a veil, my role shouldn’t be to cover the faces of others so they can’t be seen but we should be a light of the world.  We shouldn’t cover the hs in me so he can’t act and hide the fruit in me.  our role is not to hide that we are saved.  One brother who did a mistake was moses.  He came down from mountain and he was shining so he thought the solution was to have a veil so people couldn’t see it.  He lost that light and it disappeared.

When God gives you something, let others see it, don’t hide it so you can be the light for those in darkness.  If you put a veil to hide what God has given you as gifts then you will make many to die and they will vanish.  You may be beautiful and it attracts people.  In 2005, I saw a very beautiful girl in Uni of Waikato and all people would look when she passed and make comment.  God knows how to create people and who to give the beauty.  The girl didn’t care about her beauty but it attracted men and women.  You have many things in your life that attract others, what do you do with them.

Your eyes, hands, voice can all attract others but how do you use them to attract them for the glory of God and not for your own glory.

A man was given $40, as your birthday is coming take your friends out and enjoy.  $40 is not enough, and the young man was only 11 years old.  Mum, please can I have more.  $100 all up was given.  He called a few boys and they went to BK.  Money wsa still there and boys ate and they were happy and they had icecream and enjoyed.  6 boys came back home.  BK was so good, we ate, drank, we played and everyone thanked the child but no one thanked the one who gave the money.  The child took all the glory.

Imagine God, when you take glory he will say, hang on, I am here too.  When pete finishes work in a good way.  God waits for the glory to be passed on to him.  We have to tell those people, thank you to you too and I thank God also.  When we forget, God becomes jelaous and because of that, God burned the entire city.  Children and animals, plants were innocent but all were consumed by God’s fire because of jealousy.

If I give you the entire world, what will you gain if you lose your soul.  I am jealous of your soul.  Nothing equals your soul.  God is jealous about your soul and he wants it.  You can feed yourself and wear what you want but you have to remember to feed your soul and clothe it.  Most of our souls walk around with shame and heads down, naked and malnourished – no one takes care of me while our physical bodies are enjoying.

We have to build, buy and sell but we need to do the same for our souls.  If you don’t invest in your soul, no one will do it for you.  You have to make an effort to prepare yourself.  We thank God for 2017, we will never see it again.  Where we made mistakes or didn’t please God, this is the time to ask God to forgive us, to get strength to do better.  We don’t know what we will face in 2018.  We may ask God for protection, help, support and pray for others because we don’t know the surprises of 2018.

I once bought a house for my mum of around $900K, I was rich at that time but the following day it rained and the house was at the top of the mountain and the beautiful house eroded down the mountain.  It was completely destroyed.  Our country didn’t have insurance.  That was my xmas surprise.  You don’t know what 2018 will bring you.  You might be breathing now but in 2 mins the ambulance may be called for you.

Pray God to protect you and your family and to settle all your problems in 2017 to start 2018 with joy

"Ewe" Focusing on Rachel

By Odon Bulamba

Once again we are facing a new year coming and 2017 is vanishing and coming to an end.  If days can end, if months can pass by, do you also think about our own lives ending one day?  Normally we don’t.  We go to bed tell people, “I’ll see you tomorrow”.  We tell people, “I’ll see you after work”.  We don’t know if we will see people tomorrow or make it to our appointments because our time is passing and the more we are alive the closer we come to death and the return of Jesus.

What does the morning remind you?  When you sit in church, what do you think about?  Preparing your soul for Jesus?  Or yourself because you are going to die soon.  You can’t bribe death or ask it to wait. 

Why am I saying this?  Because I have to share with you about the God of Rachael.  When we talk about the God of Jacob, we also see the God of Rachael.  Rachael was so beautiful and was the first woman in the Bible to be declared beautiful.  Her name means “Ewe”, a female sheep.  Rachael was the first person to be named after an animal.  Imagine being named dog or pig?  How will you feel? Embarrassed.  “Hey, Mrs Cow”.  You will want to change your name.  “People are mocking me, I need to change this name”.

My son’s middle name is Brown and at school people would mock him by touching his skin and saying, brown and running away.  It was a mockery because of his colour skin.  When we are given a name that doesn’t match who we are, we are very often offended.  Rachael did not have a choice in her name, her father decided what she would be named.  Poor baby growing up being called female sheep.  However, that name has a meaning and that meaning was not useless.

Genesis 29:6, you can see Rachael coming with sheep.  She was the first female to be a shepherd and to look after sheep.  A mother of the sheep because she knew how to take care of them.  Male sheep have been talked about in the Bible, male sheep will be sacrificed and Jesus was referred to as a male sheep.  Rachael is the only place where the Bible talks about the female sheep.

Characteristics of Rachael is seen in her role as a shepherd.  Imagine someone gives you a flock of sheep.  Will you be able to look after 50 sheep?  You need skills and you can’t just collect those skills from trees, you have to train yourself with patience, endurance, perseverance because sheep don’t listen to human beings so you have to train them.  Sheep are not easy to look after.  Rachael gave her whole life to look after the sheep.

Nowadays we are lucky because farms have fences and dogs to help guide the sheep but around the time of Rachael, they didn’t have that.  Rachael had to run left, turn around, stop there.  Sometimes you can talk to sheep and they don’t listen.  Sheep can go in the opposite direction.  Having 100 sheep as a female, you can imagine how hard it was.  She will climb mountains, find green grass and water for the animals and she was the midwife to assist them giving birth.

Rachael loved what she was doing.  Do you love what you are doing?  When you do a job that is not yours (females are not supposed to be shepherds in those days), how do you feel?  Rachael’s brothers and father were just watching her.

One day Rachael found Jacob at the well and took him home to meet her parents.  She was promised to marry Jacob after 7 years.  She was there waiting for seven years for Jacob and then her father (Laban) gave her sister instead.  Not the Rachael that you love Jacob or the one who is waiting for you.  On the day of marriage, Rachael was shocked to find her father giving her sister first.  “Hey daddy, I am the one who brought him home, I came with him here and you accepted and promised he would marry me.  I have waited seven years and didn’t take any other man and you take him and give him to my sister”.

The Bible doesn’t say that Rachael complained.  It sounds like she agreed with the decision of her father and understood that it was fair.  How many times in your life have you come across a situation when you know it is yours and you have worked hard to gain it and waited so long for it and someone else destroys it or gives it away or doesn’t hold onto the promise to you. We call it disappointment, embarrassment and deception.

Rachael decided to stay with her family.  When God brings pressure in your family and you have been working hard and expect results but God doesn’t give it to you yet or changes the whole program are you able to stay in that situation?  You see someone who is weak and doesn’t try hard and God blesses them with everything.  You who work hard don’t have a small piece of land while others don’t work at all get a house.  Some who are intelligent can’t find a job and those who are stupid can find work.  Those who are lazy get children while those that work hard, can’t find children.

I saw a man who was rich talk to people and people offered him more things while no one wants to help beggars on the street.  When we need something and someone else takes it from us or it is given to someone else, what should we do?  If I were Rachael, I will say, “I will not look after your sheep anymore and I will move out of your family because I don’t know if you really love me”.  Rachael understood she was growing old and time was moving on. 

e.g. Kiara keeps growing and Shari her mother can’t stop her from growing.  She will keep growing mentally and physically and after some years, she will say I’m getting married now, I’m going to live somewhere else.  Regardless of how much you hold her in your heart, she will go.  The child who listened to you yesterday and couldn’t say no, will today say, “No, what you want to do dad is not correct”.  They will engage in a discussion with you and resist your proposition because they believe they are mature now and defend themselves.

Rachael didn’t want to defend herself.  She was mature and strong physically and mentally but she decided to listen to the voice of her father.  Same as Jesus, when it was time to be crucified.  Peter intervened and cut off someone’s ear but Jesus put the ear back on and said, “I have to let this happen”.  Rachael did the same, “I agree with you dad and allow my sister to take the opportunity first”.  7 years later Rachael accepted to be married to Jacob. 

Racheal is a lady who is a shepherd with the name of female sheep.  What is a female sheep compared to a male sheep?  Female sheep produce babies and know what it is to carry a baby sheep in their womb and they will suffer but protect that baby and they are gentle, kind and don’t fight all the time.  They can make noise but less noisy than the male sheep.

Rachael had something unique which was her beauty.  When the Bible says you are beautiful, then you are really beautiful.  Regardless of her beauty, she accepted to take care of the sheep.  Many beautiful girls today prefer to be models but to look after sheep, they will not accept.  “Looking after myself is more important.  When I look at my beauty, I can’t see myself running after sheep.” These women cut some parts of their life off.

We very often talk about the natural gifts God gives to us.  Rachael had two: (1) beauty that attracted Jacob and (2) natural skills of being a shepherd.  What do you have in your life to attract your husband Jesus to you? Maybe you have it and don’t recognise it.  We are saved by grace, Jesus has chosen us first and we are not the one who chose Him.  He saw something attractive we have and came after it, “I want to be your Lord, I want to be your saviour, your husband, your Jesus”.  Privilege that many religious people do not have.

When we are chosen by someone to marry us, we normally don’t think twice but do we know how lucky and blessed we are to be chosen by God from the millions of people surrounding us.  Many men can’t find a women to marry.  In some countries, when a woman is pregnant a man will give money to the woman’s family so he can marry the child once she grows up.  The family will take the money and the man will keep checking on the progress of the baby and if the baby will be a girl, it will be a big party.  The baby has no choice and the man will be old waiting for the child to grow up.

When the child turns 12, the man will request the child now.  You can see those marriages have been there for years and Jesus who is our saviour, He wants us to be mature first.  He comes to find us.  Since we were born, He knew we would belong to Him but He waits for us to grow first.

Rachael with all her beauty and skills made Jacob to love her more.  What fruit do you hold?  The Bible tells us that we need spiritual fruit.  Gal 5 talks about the fruit of the flesh and then added the fruit of the spirit.  Those with the fruit of flesh may not see the kingdom of God but those with the fruit of spirit may inherit that kingdom. 

Can you see fruit without a tree?  Even if you go to Pak ‘n Save to get fruit, you have to think about the trees that produced that fruit.  Without a tree, you cannot get fruit.  The tree doesn’t grow in space but in soil.  The tree pushes its roots in the soil which has elements that feed the tree.  We cannot hold the fruit of the Holy Spirit without having the tree or soil or nutritional elements.

Rachael understood this formula.  Jesus wants us to find the tree of those fruits.  Jesus said, “I am the tree and you are the branches”.  Branches grow the fruit.  The small branches hold the fruit and they want to break as the fruit grows weak.  If you are weak in the Lord, you can produce better fruit.  You can see a fruit growing bigger and bigger from a small branch but the branch continues to hold on it because through Jesus, it will feed humanity.

Trees produce fruit to feed human beings and it won’t be there for one day or ten days but can be there for months waiting to mature.  How long does it take for a kiwifruit for the first day you see it until you can eat it to mature?  Oranges don’t grow orange straight away but they start green and are small.  If you eat it while green it will be sour and won’t taste good.  You need to allow the sun to hit the fruit for days and the colour of the fruit will change from green to yellow and then to orange and then it will be ready to eat.

If you don’t harvest the fruit, it will rot.  Birds can eat it or bats or it will fall on its own.  God gives to us the fruit of the Holy Spirit and we have to hold onto them seriously and feed them the same way that Rachael fed the sheep and look after them.  Wherever they go, we are there and where we go, they come with us.  If I offer to someone tamarillo that is green, you won’t eat it.  It is your work to make your gift of the Holy Spirit to become mature.  If you don’t feed your gift, don’t expect God to do that job for you.  It’s up to you to hold the fruit.

A branch that doesn’t produce fruit will be cut off and put into the fire.  If you don’t produce fruit, God will cut you off and you will end up in fire.  Rachael knew that after 7 years, maybe my master (my father) has seen that I am not ready yet for producing.  She accepted Leah to take her husband.  When she was married, she started to put everything into practice.  She gave birth to 2 boys, joseph and Benjamin. In the same way, it is time for us to work for our family and produce something important to the church.

We all remember Joseph and Benjamin from the Bible but we don’t remember some of the other tribes.  Racheal looked after her two boys well.  You can have only 2 gifts in your life but you need to train them because your neighbours, your work colleagues, your family will benefit from your fruit.  E.g. kindness, you should not limit that to only your family but to everybody.  Even love, you don’t have to only love your children but every one including your enemies. 

I must make my gift to mature so the rest of the world can consume it.  Rachael was so kind and patient.  She accepted Leah to take her husband and she continued to be kind and respect Leah and was gentle and accepted to share her husband with Leah.  Today, no one will accept it but Rachael knew there was a time for everything, “God allowed this and I accept this to happen”.

There is a time to be born and a time to die.  You were born and it was a good day with everyone was happy to welcome you in the family but now you are by your own.  God took my dad when I was 10 years old so he could also take me.  I have to get ready and what I will take to God will be the fruit of my work.

Jesus will ask you, “I gave you 6 gifts, what did you do with them?”  You may answer, “I only recognised 2 God” or “I didn’t have time to use them all”.  He will take them away from you, “you are a bad servant, get out”.  To be a good servant is to commit yourself to what you have.  At work you sign a contract with your employer.  You are bound by that contract and you must work and respect the rules of the contract.

The God of Rachael is teaching us that He can give to you any skill that may be different to others.  E.g. you can become a shepherd as a woman.  Don’t turn down God’s gift because you are different to others.  Try to be the way that God wanted you to be.  Use your skills without doubt.  The more you use them, the more you become familiar with them and let others benefit from what you produce. 

Our next meeting to talk about the judgment of God. How is God going to judge you? When the judge enters the court, everyone stands and bows and judge listens to both sides and his words can send you to jail or give you freedom to be successful or failure.  Judgement is coming and no one will stop it and the only medicine to win is to know the law and put it into practice. 

God makes everything beautiful

Leah

By Odon Bulamba

It’s a joy to be here and I’m going to share with you the Word of God not my words, your words but the Word of God and whoever listens to that Word will never perish.  When you talk about the Word of God most of the time people think it’s just a simple Bible reading and forget that behind that Word is a powerful God, someone bigger than our universe hiding behind that Word.

As a child when I watched scary movies I would scream because of fear.  God’s voice is bigger than the scary noises on scary movies.  Why don’t we fear God speaking and listen carefully?  The Word of God was written many years ago and to understand it God decided to use human beings to write it and translate it.  At the end of the time no one can say, I didn’t hear it or understand it because God will say I sent it to you in English.

Genesis 29:17, we see the daughters of Laban.  Bible says, Leah was tender eyed but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured.  Leah was the older sister of Rachel and both were born from the same mother.  The two girls were descendants of the same parents but in human being’s eyes, people could see a difference.  One had eyes that looked tired/drunk, her eyes reflected ugliness and for people to describe Leah they only took the reference of her eyes. When they talk about Rachel they say she is so beautiful.

How can the same womb produce one beautiful girl and one that looked different?  How can God can use the same father and mother to produce two different things and human beings can notice.  That difference made them unbalanced: one was loved and all favour to her because of her beauty while the other lost favour because of her appearance.  That is not fair.  What did Leah do to be given the weak eyes?  Why did God decide to give those eyes to Leah and Leah lose all the favour?

Have you come across a situation in your life where people look at you and say, “wow, I love you” or where people prefer to be with your sister than you?  Have you felt that people are rejecting you?  Maybe someone else is favoured more than you.  Have you ever felt humiliated because of your appearance and people don’t think you exist? That is the life of Leah.

These two pens in my hand look similar.  One pen represents Leah and the other is Rachel.  Both daughters of Laban but in this pen the ink is different compared to this one.  God made one to be perfect on purpose while the other was different on purpose.  Maybe Rachel didn’t need make-up or even look in the mirror while maybe Leah tried to make herself look better, “Do I look ok today mum?”  “Try again daughter”.  Maybe she tried to use make-up to cover her weak eyes.  By keeping on trying…time kept ticking and moving forward.

Leah was now old.  “What can I do?  My only solution is to pray and cry to God.  I have spots that spoil my beauty but God can help me”.  She prayed and committed her burdens into God’s hands.  “I know that people don’t like me, they treat me lower than my sister regardless of my birth right. They don’t consider me as someone special”.  By praying to God, her age didn’t stop and she found herself older…maybe 30 or 40 years old and no one came close to her and tell her that they love her.

On that day, God looked inside just like we can look inside this pen to see the ink.  God says, “I won’t look at what human beings look at but what human beings don’t see.  I want to see your beauty inside”.  The Bible says that God doesn’t look on our outward appearance but focuses on the inside.  You can do make-up and wear expensive clothes but what He considers most is what is inside you.  People can refuse to give you favour but God doesn’t look at that but what is inside.

God mad you short, fat, slim or ugly or beautiful but God doesn’t focus on that.  The Bible says we should be beautiful on the inside.  Who is the beautician to make our inside beautiful to rearrange my inside to look beautiful?  The Holy Spirit is the only one who can do it and He does it free of charge.  All the tools He uses are painless, you don’t feel pain, they are soft and rearrange them inside you and your beauty doesn’t attract human beings but God.

When Jacob saw Rachel, he cried out and admired her beauty, “wow, I have never seen this”.  Automatically his heart beat faster, “I love you, come and hug me” and he hugged her and in other versions, he kissed her because he saw something pleasant with his eyes.  He gave her that favour to kiss and hug her and automatically decided to marry her.

As you know to express love some people write poems to describe their love to someone.  Others express through their spoken words.  Others through their eyes.  Here, God our Lord, He chose not Rachel but Leah.  “I see your beauty inside you Leah, this is what attracts me and I will be your God, I will be the God of Leah. Leah someone who is humbled every time, someone who is minimised and everyone looks down at and I want to make you someone”.

As I said last time, that at night Laban came to Jacob with a different girl, “This is your wife, it is time now to start to celebrate your marriage”.  That trick, I don’t know how much it affected Leah?  You know that the husband is the fiancé of my sister and now it’s night time and in the next few hours the morning will appear, I will have to explain to him.  What is going to happen? Maybe he will kick me out, call me a liar, how will my sister look at me when she discovers that I took her husband?

What would you say Ange if Debbie your sister took your husband? How will you feel when someone you trust, your older sister who took care of you, to advise you and now she takes your husband?  How is Leah going to manage that? I might say, no God, this is wrong, this is unbelievable, you will just put me in trouble, how can you put me in this situation where everyone will be shocked when they hear this story.

If Ange will take Debbie’s husband, I am sure that Debbie will never believe that Ange or her husband acted in a right way and Ange will feel guilty and the family will be shocked and people will talk badly about Ange.  “What she did, no way, do you know what she did to her sister, it’s unacceptable”.  But for God’s plan, Leah you have to pass by there.  If you were Leah, maybe you would resist, or if you were Laban you might not be able to do that to your daughters.  It would be very hard as a parent because your youngest daughter will hate you for the rest of your life.

God who looks at the inside of human beings, He believes that this husband doesn’t deserve to have Rachel first but Leah.  That is God’s decision, that is His voice.  Jacob, you are not having Rachel or Leah.  Is the choice yours or mine?  How often do we make a choice and put God aside and we don’t care who is God and what He is talking about?  When we choose, how often do we think about God’s plan?  How often do we consider God’s choice is not good?

Our choice is based on our feelings but God chooses what is inside.  Now Leah is in front of Jacob and spent the first night and the story comes out in the morning.  I’m not sure if Leah came out of the bedroom with pride in the morning.  How many people looked badly at Leah from the neighbourhood?  Poor Leah.  She conceived and God was now I have to prove.

God said, I promised that my nation will be built through you.  God of Leah started to act and after nine months, she gave birth.  First son.  All this time Jacob doesn’t love her.  Imagine living with someone who doesn’t love you, imagine sharing the same bed, cooking and washing after them and they don’t love you.  You need patience, perseverance and to push yourself to live with that person.

Jacob was focusing on his 7 years coming to get what he wanted.  Leah you are not what I want and this 7 years will be focused on your sister and not you.  You can imagine the conversation between the two.  After the first son, “behold son” she named him.  “Look”, she was proud to present son to the world.  The world responded, “Shut up, you stole your sister’s husband.  We don’t give you the favour you thought you would get”.

When children are born, the world is happy but not in this case.  She had a second and third sons, up to six.  Half of the tribes of Israel come from her.  That did not let Jacob to love her.  Then she took 2 other children from her servants.  God was trying to defend Leah by giving her more fruit for the humanity to see, “Me God, I am the one giving you the gifts of the Holy Spirit”, but no one wanted them.  No one accepted she had the right to carry those fruit.

Most of the time we don’t know what we carry inside ourselves but want to focus on what people will see and what we can offer e.g. house, money etc.  This is to be kind because I give you material things.  When God gives you spiritual gifts, how do you receive them?  If someone says, I will give you this house, how will you feel?  You will be happy.  When you need a flash car or clothes and you feel happiness to receive them but when God gives you a spiritual gift, how do you welcome that gift? ‘Oh yea, I’m a prophet, I have the gift of intercession,’ and your joy is minimised just like Leah.  My gifts are not good.  The eyes of my gift look awkward, this is not the gift I wanted.

I used to pray 2 hours per day but today I can’t make it, praying is a waste of time.  We start to prove to God that we look down at that beautiful gift that He has given to us.  With joy God says, I will give you this and this to build my nation and half of those 12 tribes to be yours but you tell God, no I don’t need all of this, I just want Jacob (human beings) to love me.  Your gifts don’t impress the world.  We want our children to look like Benjamin who was handsome.

We want to impress human beings.  What is the secret of your life? Who do normally impress, yourself, husband, neighbours, boss or your God?  When it’s time to impress people, who do put as the first on the list?  Sometimes we forget to impress ourselves.  If I have the privilege to read my Bible, why don’t I read it? 

Leah knew the secret, all glory was returned to God first, thank you for this son, this gift and another one and I need more.  The nation you are preparing God, I want to be a part of that nation and I want my descendants to be a part of that.  If they call you today to present only one thing that belongs to Christ, what will it be?  Does your life really belong to God? Our lives, we don’t give them to God, we treat ourselves harshly, we try to impress others but not our souls.

When your soul and heart is crying inside you, how do you make it happy?  My soul, be quiet, God will make it pass. When a child is crying, we will comfort them and hold them and encourage them and build up strength and power in them and they feel motivated.  Our souls need to be cuddled sometimes – repent.  My soul I did something wrong, sorry God, I fix the problem.

My soul and heart has more value than my child.  If I can hold my child, why not my soul?  Your soul is what will go to heaven and therefore it is the only treasure you have, not your body.  How much care do you give to your soul?  I can call my child, my baby.  What do I call my soul?  Most of the time I forget I have a soul.  That soul needs attention.

Leah needs attention and forced people to pay her attention, “look Jacob what I can do for you, 8 children”.  Jacob was not impressed.  I’m inviting you this morning to beautify your soul in order to attract God.  Whenever God looks at you, He can be impressed.  The beauty of your soul needs a place in your life.  Take your soul to the beautician.  This is the time to consider making your soul more attractive.

Our sisters know how to apply make-up.  I see on television a make-up product called Thin Lizzy.  You can see the skin colour changes by using it.  It’s thin according to the name but achieves great things and makes the person more attractive.  Thin Lizzy can cover birth marks and make them disappear.

If human beings can make a product to improve skin, what about the product God gives to our souls.  “Lord, visit my soul, make me more attractive to you and let all my gifts be a part of your nation and produce”.  To be Leah doesn’t mean you are ugly but you are more attractive to God than Rachel and you produce more than others.  Hold onto what God talks about you, don’t hold onto what human beings testify about you and you will become a winner.