Men of God

We have them in hundreds if not thousands. They appear in different regale and uniforms, and we see them everywhere especially on Sundays. Our television and radio stations are filed with their messages. They also go by different titles, some are called Pastors, Evangelists, Prophets, Apostles others combine two or three names- Pastor Prophet or Apostle Evangelist and all sort. While I don’t mind the title they go by or the fact that there are many of them, I worry if they are actually doing what they are called to do.
Malachi 2:7 spells out at least some of their duties for us. Its reads ‘For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, and the people should seek the law from his mouth: for he is the messenger of the Lord of host’. This scripture presents four things we should look out for in them, namely:
1. Their lips should keep knowledge. This speaks of the content of their message. It should be complete, accurate and up-to-date. They are not to withhold knowledge but to preserve the integrity of knowledge. That means they have to be knowledgeable in whatever they say. It is not surprising that some of our earlier scientist and philosophers were Men of God. Examples include Isaac Newton, Gregior Mendel, John Wesley, John Peckham, Nicole Oresme etc. They were both knowledgeable in secular things as well as in the knowledge of God. The movie the chronicle of Narnia was from the book of a preacher by the name C.S Lewis and it is so amazing that he wrote the book decades ago (1949-1954). If you have seen the movie you will know it is a good presentation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in terms and pictures that the children on the street can relate to.
2. People should seek the law from their mouth. This speaks of character and charisma, in that we should see them practice the same things they preach to the extent that we go to them so that they can teach us what they practice and they should also say it well enough for us to be willing to go to hear them. The latter I know a few have mastered well as they speak so eloquently that we long to hear them but the latter cannot exist without the former.
3. For his is a messenger of the Lord of Host. The commission. A messenger is one that bears a message from his or her master and can only be heard on the ground that he or she has a message from the master. Not only that he has a message but he must have a current message from the Master. First Corinthians 14:30 say ‘if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent’. It means there must be a present truth or message they are trying to pass across to us from God.
Friends when we see our men and women of God, do we see people?
1. With a Commission from God
2. With Character
3. With Charisma
4. With a message of accurate Content

TABERNACLE IN THE WIILDERNESS

I have always wondered why God could not wait for the Israelites to get to the Promised Land before asking them to build a tabernacle of worship. I mean God was going to add to their burden by asking them to make a tabernacle- a bundle of objects they were going to carry along the way. But I have since seen three reasons why God asked them to build the tabernacle, namely:
1- The journey was more about worship than it was about getting to the Promised Land. It was clear from the outset that God was interested in their worship for two reasons namely:
a- The Call to Moses at the burning bush was to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the Mountain of God so that they may worship (Exo 3:12)
b- The ground on which the children of Israel were to be released by Pharaoh was that they may go into the wilderness to worship God (Exo 5:1-4)
It is therefore obvious to me and keen observers of the scriptures that as a child of God going to Canaan, that Canaan is not the utmost for God but that I get the concept of worship straight before I hit the Promised Land. So the number of day or years it take for me to get to the promised land is not what matters but how much of God I am able to get while on the way.
2- They have been in Egypt where they had seen so many gods and they were going to Canaan where so many other gods are worshipped, hence it became imperative that they met the one and the true God and got acquainted with Him before they went in.
3- It was not just about meeting God but that He be in their midst and that they carried his presence along for not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm save them,
but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them (Ps 44: 1-4)
Beloved, on your way to the Promised Land you need to get the concept of God and your worship of Him right for what you have seen in Egypt where you have been is not the true picture of God. The Promised Land is not going to be of much help to you either but if while you are in transit you treasure Him and you devotion to him, then you will get to the Promised Land with His help.
One way to know that you have gotten it right, is that your fellowship with God becomes more important to you than the Promised Land (that car, house, job, contract, child etc) that is, you are not bothered or worried about getting in or getting it but that you have God in you, with you and for you. The book of Hebrews 11: 39 said it more succinctly, “And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised”.