THE FAITH OF RAHAB

By faith the harlot Rehab perished not with them that believed not, when she had received the spies with peace. Heb 11:31

And Joshua the son of Nun sent out of Shittim two men to spy secretly, saying, Go view the land, even Jericho. And they went, and came into an harlot's house, named Rahab, and lodged there.  (Jos 2:1 KJV)

Without doubt the story of Rahab as presented in Hebrews chapter eleven verse thirty one punctures the very heart of fallacious religious beliefs not based on accurate revelation of God’s word. I am sure some religious men of the ‘lineage’ of the Pharisees and Sadducees will have the effrontery to question the inclusion of a ‘common harlot’ in the Honour Roll of Faith in Hebrew chapter 11. How can Rahab be included among patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Noah, Joseph, David, Gideon, etcetera? Of what significance was Rahab to God and how did she get her faith?

Moses had just died and the mantle of leadership has been passed on to Joshua to lead the people of Israel. Then it was time for Israel to conquer the city of Jericho. The second chapter of the book of Joshua opens with two Israelites sent on espionage to Jericho and this is where the story starts getting interesting. On entering Jericho the two spies decided to lodge and the place they chose was a Harlot’s house. They may have chosen this place so that they could blend with the general ambience of this Pagan city. The harlot’s house was on the city wall and the name of this harlot was Rahab; Rahab the harlot. The events of that day launched Rahab into a place in history. She was never to remain the same again.

It is easy enough to see Rahab as the perfect example of an unbeliever who is alienated from the commonwealth of God’s people. Rahab and the city of Jericho were headed for destruction which is a reflection of the eternal damnation that awaits those who have rejected Jesus Christ in this world.

On the other hand, Rahab is a figure as it were of Christians. She does typify Christians who have lost their bearing in Christ within the maze of the world system. She exemplifies believers who cannot be easily distinguished from those who do not belong to Christ. There are millions of ‘Christian Rahabs’ in every walk of life who have perfectly settled to the rhythm of the world. Some of these people are quite successful according to the world standard but they are far from God’s will for their lives. It is to this group that I speak. You may be as lost as Rahab but praise God you can still find your place in His plan.

The earnest expectation of the creation is still for the manifestation of the sons of God, but I am sure that I don’t need a long epistle to convince you that most sons [that is Christians] aren’t manifesting anything; most are sound asleep. God is always looking for someone to stand up and get into place. He is always looking for men of KINGDOM relevance, men who WILL represent Him wherever they are in these critical end times. God will not change his plans but he can sure change people. Just like in the time of Joshua the son of Nun, when God needed the wall of Jericho to fall, all he needed was a man [in this case, a woman] of faith inside the walls of Jericho. In the very same way in these times God is looking for men of faith in various human endeavour to lift the kingdom banner. The soul of our spiritual existence must be stirred up; we must awake from our slumber and respond to the call of the Holy Spirit within us and the cry of the world outside.

 ALL HE NEEDS IS A MAN OF FAITH; A MAN THAT BELIEVES.

Let me use these 2 verses to drive home how important faith is to our walk with God as Christians.

But without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that COMETH to God MUST BELIEVE THAT HE IS, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (emphasis mine). Heb 11:6

…Nevertheless when the son of man cometh, shall he find (heurisko – to perceive, see, obtain) faith on the earth? Luke 18:8.

These verses of scripture are clear enough. So if faith is so important, what does it take to have faith and did Rahab really have faith? Romans chapter 10 verse 17 puts it as direct as it can be: this is how to have faith; ‘So then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God’. Therefore, to have faith you have to have heard the word of God. Joshua chapter 2 shows us how and when Rahab got her faith.

And before they were laid down she came unto them upon the roof; and she said unto the men… for we have HEARD how the LORD… for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath Joshua 2:8-11.

So we see now that Rahab heard the word of God and believed, therefore she was able to take her place in what God wanted to do in Jericho and this pattern still applies to you and me. What have you heard God say to you? Do you believe?

If we will ever make impact in our generation and be useful for kingdom expansion, we must be clear about the following.

WHERE ARE YOU?

                This is a simple question to answer. It is a question of location. Your location is not just geographical but also economical and socio-cultural. In Rahab’s case she was in Jericho. In your case you might be in the educational system, the world of medicine, the oil and gas sector, the banking industry, the law profession, politics and governance, etc. you must be able to define WHERE you are.

WHAT DOES GOD WANT TO DO WHERE YOU ARE?

                The next question is what does God want to do where you are? This is the question that seeks to understand the plan of God in Space, Time and Purpose. In Rahab’s case God wanted to destroy Jericho and he wanted to do it at that time for the sake of Israel. You have to find out what God wants to do where you are. This is not about ambition; it is about a God given vision. What have you HEARD God say?

WHAT IS YOUR PART IN IT?

                The ultimate goal of knowing God’s plan for where you are is to know your part in it. This is the crux of the matter; it is why you are where you are. Will you stand up and take your place or will you just stay in your comfort zone? Will it ever be said that, ‘by faith you…’? God is looking for men who are ready to move the Kingdom forward through sacrifice, dedication and focus. You can be that man.

Just in case you are not aware, Rahab the harlot is in the lineage of Jesus. Jesus had a harlot for his great, great… grandmother; the harlot that had faith! Hallelujah! Matt 1:1 & 5.

Do you have faith?

Thanks for reading this post. Your comments are highly welcome.

CHURCH ON THE MAINSTREET [Part 6]: Discipling Nations

Then Jesus came up and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has

been given to me. Therefore, as you go, disciple all the nations, baptizing them

in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them

to obey all that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you each and

every day until the end of the age." (Mat 28:18-20 ISV)

To fulfill this mandate of making disciples, Christians have to carry the right consciousness of Church to all creation, that is, to the streets. We must BE church not just in our local churches but on the main street, that is in every walk of life. The following story illustrates my point.

Jack Falley is a sales executive at an electronics and other techno-gadgets production company. He is married to Lizzy and they have two kids, Sam and Jane. Lizzy [actually her name is Elizabeth but Jack prefers to call her Lizzy] teaches English language at one of the high schools in their neighbourhood. Both of their children, Sam age 8 and Jane age 5 attend a middle class private primary school sited three streets behind theirs. This family is a typical middle-class family and they are church going Christians who love the Lord. Their local church is just about seven blocks away from their house and they have meetings on Sundays and two other days in a week plus choir practice on Saturday evenings for Lizzy.

Jack also ushers in church every Sunday service. Jack and Lizzy attends most of the midweek meetings with the children but sometimes misses mid-week services because of the nature of his job. On some of these occasions the pastor of their local assembly has counseled jack to improve on his attendance to church meetings and increase his participation in church activities. After all, serious Christians should attend mid-week meetings in their local church assembly.

Every weekday jack leaves home early with the children, drops them off at school before heading to work in another part of the town. He drives a Toyota Camry and is yet to fully offset the loan he took to buy the car about a year ago. His company is not doing too well at present and they desperately need a solution to their dwindling sales profit. There have been rumours that the company is planning to lay off some people in order to reduce overhead cost. This has put everyone under pressure especially the guys in the marketing department. Jack has been so worried sick in the past few weeks because his family cannot afford for him to lose his job.

Elizabeth walks to her place of work to save gas money since it is a trekking distance. She only drives if she has shopping to do or when she is going to see relatives in another part of town. Lizzy closes from her workplace at three in the afternoon and picks up the children from school on her way home. Dinner time is always fun in their family as everyone uses the opportunity to relate what happened during their day. Later on, after praying, everyone goes to bed to get some sleep and much needed rest for the motions of another day. What I have painted above might describe in some ways how many Christians live. Jack and his family live a life that revolves around work, church meetings and family, much like many of us. This motion goes on every day, Sunday to Sunday. Like most regular

Christians, they believe they are doing their best in serving God. After all, they are quite committed in their local church but is this all that Christ has called them to? Did the Lord call us to do just local church work or to the world outside?

Let’s look again at Jesus’ parting words to his disciples [that’s us] in Matthew 28:19-20:

Therefore, as you go, disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,

and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded

you. And remember, I am with you each and every day until the end of the age." (Mat28:18-20 ISV)

Jesus said, ‘as you go, disciple all the nations and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.’ Two words must be understood in this scripture for us to get the import of what Jesus has sent us to do. What did he mean by disciple and nations?

DISCIPLE [noun] [mathe’teuo]: A disciple according to the Oxford English Dictionary is one who professes to receive instruction from another or one who believes and follows the doctrine of another. So what Jesus commissioned us to do is to ‘give instruction to all nations’ or to ‘make all nations believe and follow our doctrine’. It is clear then that making disciples is not a one-time action. We have not yet made a disciple just because such a person accepted Christ. Making disciples is about making sure the person receives instruction from us that would not only lead that person to believe but ultimately to follow. Just before we start thinking that we are to instruct them to start following any doctrine we cook up, Jesus explained by saying ‘teach them to obey what I have commanded you’. We should only instruct the nations in the doctrine of Jesus and not the doctrines of men and devils [Mark 7:7, Col 2:22, 1 Tim 4:1]. A problem we have been having in the body of Christ is that many of us have absolutely no basis in scripture and no matter how we make them seem religious they are still the doctrines of men.

We also need to understand that the point of making disciples is to establish the kingdom of God in all realms. It is not to bring men to our local churches and make them subservient to the church leadership. We are not trying to manipulate people to stick to any brand of Christian doctrine or to follow church denominations like gullible sheep. Doing this would amount to little more than warehousing of people for no purpose. It is God’s kingdom we are trying to establish in all nations and that is the point of discipleship.

NATIONS [noun] [ethnos]: A body of people marked by common descent, language, custom and or culture. It refers to a set of people with the same characteristics, beliefs and or ways of doing things. So we can have the Indian nation, the Student nation, the Medical nation, the Media nation, the Military nation, the Publishing Nation, The Sports nation and so forth. The point here is that Jesus didn’t only send us to Kuwait, Libya, South Africa, Indonesia, Ukraine, Sweden, Scotland, Brazil or Canada, even within and beyond these geographical boundaries we have been sent to all fields and realms of human interaction or convergence [or nation]. Do you now get the picture? The idea is to make disciples of men wherever we find them whenever we find them.

Now back to our story of Jack Falley and his family. As the story goes, they would be regarded as very good Christians by fellow believers. They have given their time to God serving in their local assembly. But is that the ultimate Jesus intended for us who have come to him? By now I believe you know the answer is an absolute NO. He said to the disciples in Acts 1:8 that they would be witnesses of him in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria and to the end of the earth. He didn’t say we shall be witnesses to ourselves within the walls of our local assembly shinning our lights on each other, while the world out there remains in darkness.

Some people have written and spoken on the major sphere of influence Christians must be consciously involved in. These are realms and areas of human interaction that have significant influence on how we live our daily lives. I have listed some of these as follows in no particular order:

1] Government 2] Economy 3] Media 4] Military 5] Technology 6]

Medicine 7] Engineering 8] Law 9] Geo-Science 10] Sport and Entertainments 11] Education.

Of course this list is not in any way exhaustive; I just needed us to get the idea of these spheres of influence I am talking about. Some few years ago I wrote an article titled ‘Get out of the Church’ in my periodic magazine publication. The crux of the article was that I was challenging Christians to move out into these spheres of influence and make a mark for the kingdom of God. It was a thought provoking article and many people testified that it indeed challenged them. Later on however, I discovered there is a problem with the mindset I was projecting: I was telling Christians to move out of the church into the world. The issue is that we are already in the world! We are already functioning and interacting with these spheres of influence. The first point I need us to note here is this, no matter how much time we spend in church meetings, we still do not live there permanently [at least for most of us!]. So where do we go after our meetings? Like Jack and his family we go to work, go shopping, visit friends, play golf with colleagues, drive on the city roads, pick up mails, do a car repair work at the local mechanic, go to the gym, take the children to the pack on Saturdays and the list can go on and on. As we carry out these diverse activities we interact with so many people, systems, institutions and nations. We meet the good, the bad and the ugly, Christians and non Christians alike. We are already among those we have been sent to! How come then we have so little impact?

The problem is with our mindset; with our understanding of church [the body of Christ] and our mandate of making disciples of all nations. Though we are physically in the world, we have shielded our light from people by refusing to move the power and character of the Church into the world. We believe we are church only when we gather and as such confined the power and character of the church within our walls. This mindset poses two problems; one, the world is left in darkness and two, the Church with the absence of her power and character is at the mercy of this darkness. This is why the experience of many Christians is not different from the world we have been sent to.

The solution is straightforward, let the Church change her mindset. Let us begin to consciously be Church wherever we find ourselves. The power and the character of the church [derived from the head which is Jesus] are available to us everywhere we are; all we need do is use it. Let us stop waiting till we get to our church gatherings to serve God; let us serve him wherever we are at all times in all situations. Imagine that Jack and his family understands this, they would be able to solve problems through the power available to them as members of the body of Christ. It does not matter whether these problems are personal or not. Jack would get a solution to his company problem and because of that he will have more respect which can translate to influence with which he can project Christ. Jesus said in Matthew chapter twelve verse twenty eight that; …if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.

When Jesus cast out devils from people, he was solving their problems and he refers to that as the kingdom of God! This is because the kingdom of God is any realm, situation or person where the rule [will and purposes] of God is established. So when we allow the power of God to be felt and seen in all creation then we have extended to them the kingdom of God.

As we go about our daily activities people must see that we are different in words and in deeds. Our character must portray who we claim to follow for that is the way men will see our light. We cannot cheat in examinations, bribe our way to ‘success’, lie to cover our tracks, ignore those that need help around us and expect the kingdom of God to grow. I see many Christians who shirk from their responsibilities in their work place and knowingly cheat people in business deals but do not think anything is amiss as long as they are ‘serious’ members of a local church. I once had a lecturer who can only be described as wicked and sadistic. He takes pleasure in taunting students and seeing them fail his exams. He openly says no students can get the ‘A’ and ‘B’ grade in his subjects and he always makes good his boast. You can imagine my amazement when I attended a certain local church Sunday service and saw the man ushering people to their seats. I sincerely felt like giving him a dirty slap! He was definitely not a good ambassador of Christ in his sphere of influence no matter how many times he attended church meetings.

The kingdom will not be expanded when we live as Christians within our church walls. The kingdom will grow when we live as the body of Christ in the world, right on the main street. The creation is waiting...waiting...waiting.

...the end.  Please take time out to comment on this series. Thanks.

CHURCH ON THE MAINSTREET [Part 5]: Mind Games

For the creation is eagerly waiting for God to reveal his children, (Rom 8:19 ISV)

In my meditation, I came to one conclusion: the problem lies in HOW we think about church and not what we think church is. Many of us know somewhere in our consciousness that church refers to a people, the only problem is that we relate to it not as a people. We know church is the saints of Christ but we think they are effectively only church when and where they gather. This mindset has consequently produced other problems as we shall see.

I have always wondered why local church leaders multiply meetings for their members and if you do not attend these meetings regularly you are seen as an unserious Christian; some would even say you have backslidden! The average local church member might have to attend some form of meeting four to five times in the week excluding Sunday. The people who attend most of these meeting are deemed to be the bonafide members of the church, it doesn’t matter whether you are born-again or not! When we spend so much time inside the four walls of our meeting place how much time do we have to reach out to the world out there not to talk of discipling them? Pastors must equip their members and release them to actually do the work of the ministry instead of inventing so many programmes to keep people within the church walls. After all, it is not like we stop following Christ the moment we leave church gatherings.

Ask almost any Christian if he or she is working for God and you might hear an answer in the affirmative. Ask them what they are doing for Christ and nine out of ten would probably list some of the activities they are involved in their local churches. How did we come to equate serving in our local church bodies to working for God? I am not insinuating that working in our local assemblies is unimportant, to the contrary they are but merely doing that does not mean you are working for Christ. You might and you might not. It is from this mindset that we have, inconsistent with scriptural teaching, separated our lives into two; the church life and the secular life. We think what we do inside our local assemblies is the work of the ministry and every other thing is secular work. With this mindset it is no wonder that Christians hardly shine as light outside the walls of our churches. But of what use is a lighted candle under a bucket or an unused salt inside the salt shaker. Church leaders need to start teaching their members to think differently.

In almost every local church assembly, members are encouraged to invite people to church especially those who are not born-again. While many people have come to our meetings and then accepted Jesus Christ, we are still far from achieving our aim of discipling all nation. If we are sincere with ourselves we know that unbelievers rarely accept our invitation to come to church. A minimum of five billion people are still effectively outside the fold of the Church. Many times our response to the realization that we still have so many people on the outside who do not yet know Christ is that we organize more church programs and crusades, buy more television and radio air time for preaching, send more money to the missionaries on the field, and distribute more tracts and etcetera. In other words, we just do more of the things we have been doing and expect more result. The more we do these things the less we see tangible results, maybe except for diverting Christians from one local assembly to another.

The problem with this method of reaching out is that what we are doing consciously or otherwise is inviting people to our various churches and denominations instead of inviting them to Christ. We think that when they get to church then our messages would change them. This method has not proved effective so far because the mandate, and therefore the power backing the mandate, is for us to bring them to Christ and not to our local church assembly. While we are waiting for them to heed our call and come to church they are waiting for us to show them the Light right where they are. When they see the light then they will see the importance of joining an assembly of other Christians for fellowship. We have put the Cart before the Horse so now let’s put the Horse before the Cart.

The other interesting thing is that more often than not our programmes and activities are designed to appeal to those who are already Christians though we hold the belief that we are reaching out to those who do not know Christ. How many non-Christians attend most of our church programmes and how many eagerly await the next edition of our television programmes that we spend millions of dollars on every year? Whether we admit it or not, most of our projects and programmes as currently structured aren’t reaching out as we would love them to. We need to go back to the drawing board and come up with the right strategies on reaching the truly lost.

As much as it may contradict our theology, the truth is that the ‘church gathered’ is not designed to be the absolute in the workings of the Kingdom of God. It is a very important convergence zone but it is not the most important; every other convergence zone is as important because this is where we have the opportunity of extending the Kingdom of God and discipling nations.

CHURCH ON THE MAINSTREET [Part 4]: Convergence zones

.........Continued from part three. 

He continued according to plan, traveled to town after town, village after

village, preaching God's kingdom, spreading the Message. The Twelve were

with him. There were also some women in their company who had been healed

of various evil afflictions and illnesses: Mary, the one called Magdalene, from

whom seven demons had gone out; Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod's manager;

and Susanna--along with many others who used their considerable means to

provide for the company. As they went from town to town, a lot of people joined

in and traveled along…..(Luk 8:1-4 MSG)

My analogy of the main street in this book represents everything in our sphere of life from the market place to the workplace, family, friends and etcetera.

If you are living in a city I bet you know how busy main streets or roads are, especially during working hours. From the early morning rush to lunch breaks and then the work exit times, human traffic is always tremendously high and can sometimes be overwhelming on these city roads. A typical main street in a city can hold almost every conceivable activity man engages in; from the coffee shop to the fast food restaurant beside it to the saloon opposite them which charge exorbitantly for every service. As you move along the street you can count some schools, one of which your children might be attending, banking halls, shopping malls, car sales mart, gas stations, hotels and restaurants, hospitals, the fire station and the list goes on. You also walk past the burger man on the street corner, a public phone booth that may or may not be working, a homeless man ranting in his drunken stupor and the newspaper vendor who you might have made friends with.

What does a street mean to you? Many of us have interesting stories about happenings we have witnessed on the street. You remember the fateful day when a 4 year old child stood right in the middle of a busy street and the look of horror on every face as a vehicle almost hit her. Or it may be that favorite fast food shop on the corner where you like having lunch and relaxing after some stressful time at work. For as many people we have on earth, we might get as much divergent perspective on what a street means. One thing is clear, streets and roads serve beyond the purpose of facilitating transport and movement.

Obviously City streets at the time Jesus lived didn’t look like ours but it served the same purpose. Houses lined those streets too, women display their wares on the street side, money changers shout on the top of their voices to attract customers, and fishermen brought their catch to the fish market on the main street for sales and so on. Whether then or now, streets serve as points of CONVERGENCE. These points of convergence is where our impact as Christians should be felt most, it is where we light, salt and leaven the whole world. Men and women from all walks of life interact one way or the other on the corridors of these streets. Jesus met more people on the city streets than in the synagogue [read church]. No wonder he didn’t revolve his ministry around the so called religious people but went onto the streets to preach, heal the sick and raise the dead. As he travelled along these streets he was able to fulfill his ministry and right on the streets people who might have never entered the synagogue joined him. It was on the street that the woman with the issue of blood met him and got her healing [she was deemed as unclean so could not have gone into the synagogue] and he was not in the synagogue when he calmed the raging storm.

Like I pointed out earlier, streets serve as ‘convergence zones’. I have been talking of physical literal streets and their place in our daily lives. However, let me at this juncture state that in the context of our discourse, streets can also refer to those points and or places of convergence in various areas of our life. Thus, your office where you meet with fellow workers is a convergence point; the hospital where you meet other patients, doctors, nurses and paramedics is also a convergence. That Board meeting where brainstorming sessions are carried out on a weekly basis in your organization is a convergence point; it is your street at that point in time. The city park, golf clubs, shopping malls, Parents Teachers forum in schools, amusement parks, local churches, dance classes, Houses of parliament, manufacturing factories, police stations and every conceivable place and time of convergence serve as our streets. It is on these streets that our light should shine the most.

The problem we have on our hands, as I have stated in an earlier chapter is that our concept of church is deficient and as long as we keep confining the power of the Church within the four walls of our local church buildings, we will never be able to effectively fulfill our mandate of making disciples of all nations. As much as we have tried to bring the people of the world into our local churches it doesn’t seem we are making much progress [it is estimated that Islam is the fastest growing religion on earth]. So now we know what is on the main street; the world we have been sent to.

...to be continued.