Cymbals
Men pleasing has become our Baal
Our life the bar of Balaam
Upholding norms
Losing the form of God in us.
Drums
Beating our chest in pride
Our tittle knowledge has got us riding
On the things we never were
And the things that can never form in us.
The melodies of our guitarist
Our lying tongue
And the wrongs we call right
Has left us in deserts
Of will
Our heart milling endlessly
The next rhyme to call rhema
We play with the dead
Yet claim to be living
Yet life abides in us still
Our doings suffocating it
And the trumpet of of voice void
Of any goodness
Other than sycophancy
The cymbals we lived
And the cleansing power we received
In his blood
The thick red fluid that makes us white as snow
Now we know
It’s nothing other than a thought
Author: symolean
I don't write... I write!
Everyday Jesus wants us to be Careful with the Ministry of Teaching (1 cor 12:8, 1Tim 1:3-7,Acts6:10,Acts 9:1,2, 18:24-28, 2Tim 3:7,813b-15)
I was once privileged to have teachers of varying abilities. Some of them were enthusiastic about what they were doing that it reflected in the way they taught us. You could literally see their pain as they try to salvage the conditions of those that were bodily present but never learnt a thing. They cried, (and sincerely we assumed it was), wolf. We thought that their dilemma was uncalled for. We thought they had lost it and turned to determine wielding the cane as their panacea. How wrong we had been all along and never knew. We were wise in foolishness and accused the wise ones of folly.
The short account I artlessly delivered to you is just a preface to a little hazy discussion I intend that we would have.
Jesus is our teacher. Honestly speaking, he had the first set of Christians directly under his tutelage but coincidentally, just like my teacher, he had occasions where he was completely dissatisfied with the “never-learning” life of his students that he had to boldly say to them, “until now, una never sabi this mata”. He expected to have a group of forever improving students, the kind you can call polymaths or savants considering how much of himself he had invested in them. He had taught them by one of the best teaching methods, Guided Inquiry, when he looked back and saw that the Lecture Method he employed in teaching them back at the mount had little or no effect. His long but punchy lecture only got them cheering him on but when he rested his case, the only thing they went home with was his authoritative tone while delivering the lecture; they went home with no new lesson learnt, defeating the Instructional Objectives of the Emeritus Professor.
So, he did a kind of sifting to reduce the class size of his disciples and as you know, “many were called but only few (the twelve) survived the screening”, to be taught to teach. After the programme had ended and Jesus made up his mind to retire from teaching undergraduate students, he told them to go scouting for students from all over the world and make sure that they were taught pass the fundamentals of our faith.
Many enthusiasts ran into the street preaching from “hear-say” the truth they never had as a reality. Technicians like the Seven Sons of Sceva also joined the mob only to get embarrassed by stubborn, masked reagents. Other people he really never commissioned took it upon themselves to become his marketers (though they never studied marketing), selling his goods to the public; painting the wrong picture as they were already outdated in terms of the new breakthrough in Heaven’s Education. In case you still want to doubt, when you cross the bridge ask Bro. Apollos who boldly and accurately taught the old Research Method. Well don’t be too quick to condemn the actions of that loving brother, we were all at that same level and if people like Priscilla and Aquila who proved that they have been taught by Jesus by not shushing us but patiently updating us never came to our resources, we would have continued on the woolgathering venture. They understood what Jesus implied when he said that those who are not against him are actually for him. They remembered how patient and loving Jesus has always been when it comes to the ministry of putting us right in the face of misconceptions.
And sorry, Paul, aka The Killer, saw that too. Believe it or not, it’s stale news telling you that Paul persecuted the Church because he was “law-loving” thinking that he was “God-loving”. So, the next time an opportunity came to show how abreast he was with the new spiritual law and his deeper revelation, he told little Tim to stay back and help people like me that might be walking straight into cuddle-sac of endless philosophizing to see their pit falls; not because he wanted them to be downgraded before their students nor to get more highly placed. He just wanted to show his love. He could not afford to sit on a professorial seat of Jesus Culture and watch the doctorate degree holders stuck at the point of no promotion courtesy of the wrong theories they kept on quoting in their works. He wanted to make sure they were sound spiritually in terms of insight, so that their students would not be academically poisoned. But I doubt if the aim of our correction is to promote faith from a pure heart or just to prove a point and get others defaced. Either ways, teachers beware.
Everyday Jesus wants us to Consider Demas [Col 4:4, 2Tim 4:10, Hebrews 6:4-15, 10:26-29 ]
Few minutes before I started writing this piece, I asked Ben few questions and one sincere answer he gave me on correction was displayed on the screen of my phone the exact way it would appear here, thus: “I think correction implies truthful admonition, reality of issues, the implication of stiff-headedness … And finally an encouragement“.
On that note, I wish to truthfully admonish us and encourage us to seek out the truth of the gospel; to assume that nothing is implied by the scripture unless the holy spirit tells us so; to look beyond the endless motivational speaking and permissibility of the subtly anti-kingdom life knowing that those motivational/permissibility talks (which is always in line with logical thinking) may not be totally wrong the same way fallacy is never a full blown lie. My perspective, I assure you would never be the most correct bearing in mind that the vegetarian is not a sinner neither is he that eats all things a sinner. None of them is outside the clan of saints considering the truth that they are just trying to please our master, Jesus Christ (Rom 14:1-23).
I am filled with conviction, the same way water fills the ocean, that salvation is not the kind of gift that you are permitted to keep no matter what you do. By implication, one can be saved today and tomorrow darned. Before you start dragging me to the synagogue where the high priests would confirm me guilty and order that I be put to death by stoning as my punishment, hear me out. I know I shop left and you Shop right.
We all know of zealous brother Demas that Paul, the field marshal of Missions acknowledged in his letter to the Collosians. Am sure Demas must have been a born-again, holy ghost-filled, tongues speaking believer who had no need to meet Paul when the sun and countless people had gone to sleep to inquire of the kingdom. But at a time, t, when the going got tough, he played the wise and went to the house of plenty. Allow me to categorically tell you that Paul did not call him a sinner for his action of loving the present world but maybe if you consider 1 John 2:15 & James 4:4, you may have a standing on what cadre Demas should be placed in. If he loved the present world and we can tell people that our God and this world can not be accommodated in the same house, life, we can say that Demas became worldly and fell out of Christ. But we just can’t wrap his story up just like that. He is still living, so ’em still get hope’ to be saved again. But what if he rejects the second chance till he dies? Well, if you know what happens to lands that enjoys producing thorns, we can say that Demas would embrace that. Am I trying to say that God is so heartless that he would forget our labour of love? No! Am I saying that Demas deserved no mercy if he never repented? No!
God demands that we be patient when hard times strike us because the only ticket to getting his promise is faith and patience. If Demas lost faith and became impatient, do you think he still deserve the promise for those that wait till the end? Have you ever seen where an athlete that drops in the course of a race got to be crowned the winner? Enough of these questions!
I know you might be preparing to argue it out with me but the truth is, ‘I won’t reply’. We only need to look deeper into the scriptures and then stop quoting the scriptures out of context. If once saved our salvation becomes irreversible, why would Paul after telling us about the works Jesus had done to safeguard our salvation start warning us against sin. O! Am sorry, he must be talking to unbelievers or probably those that claim to believe but do not.ah! Satan is roaming around seeking whom to devour and believers are not in his list ‘cos they are saved? You know the truth.
He told them that if they willfully sinned; if they carefully plan and lie, cheat others, steal, even kill themselves, they would face God’s wrath. Why? Jesus brought a new covenant which was aimed at making the old one perfect. Sin is not allowed. He would teach us to deny ungodliness (Titusville 2:11&12). If you think that grace pardons sinning; making a practice of sin, am sorry. Grace is more demanding. Grace says that it can not be accommodated in such a Heart. Ask Jesus and he would tell you that the way I looked at sister Nkechi was actually a sin and I deserved to pay the price for it…… But because I am his student, he would tell me to go and sin no more the same way he told the woman and if you try to protest, he would ask you to cast the first stone if you were clean; yet he would continue teaching to get my heart clean. Why? Out of the abundance of my heart, I would certainly act. That’s a funny way of letting you know that He is after the cause of my depravity and not the symptoms. But have you considered what my plight would be if I failed to learn? A Tree that does not bear fruit has one thing awaiting it: to be cut down and used as source of energy. That’s the verdict.
If God tries correcting a believer who is living wrongly and such a person rejects his advice, what happens to sons of disobedience would be their reward no matter how many years they have worked for God. Salvation is not a permanent asset for those that made up their minds to continue in sin.
Everyday Jesus wants us to know that God Is Not Interested In Saving You For Destruction(2 Kings 8:1-6)
If you were there when the Israelites complained saying that the Lord and Moses had brought them out to the wilderness to be destroyed, you might have believed their report. You will see reasons with them. You might be forced to justify them by proposing that God actually planned to have them doomed by providing them with only one type of food that they had yo lose appetite to eat. You would try to consider the fact that they had no roof of any great value over their head, you would tell me that creeping things became their involuntary neighbours as the only wall they had around them each night they slept was not protection enough from such creatures. You would remind me of how rain sipped into their tent and how wild animals might have made their hearts quiver. And am sure you must be right.
But have you considered the Shunemite woman and her child? God brought him back to life when a famine was not too far from striking. People like me would have said, “God again!” I would be thinking that God wanted to punish the lad and her mum for whatever they had done in the past. I would be waiting for the doomsday bell to bong. In fact when he told them to leave the city for the sake of the portending danger of famine, I would have concluded that all he had done for them in the past was to have more reasons to forced them out of their inheritance, but that was not the case, they gained more than they worked for by the end of the day……
Thought: dear Christian, it’s the lord’s desire that you prosper… Never fold your hand, be hardworking like the Shunemite woman who had to work in Philistine and God would add more than the worth of your work.
WE…
we see and claim not to see
we bleed and cover it with our hands
our hearts are broken and yet we claim to be steel
we still cover our tears, the torn souls we are with smiles
we claim to be fine contradicting our state a thousand times
we see the savior but allow our pride to deprive us of salvation
we could boldly claim that the hot coal can’t burn us
and deceive ourselves when he affirm that millions will fall by our sides and we would be the last man standing
we are hopeless in our hope to marry the rope when they perceive our trouble
we are lies claiming to be truth
everyday Jesus is not a “what if?” IDEA
what if I've got your future fixed? what if I had told you that by the wake of the day you would need not labour again? what if the phrase "bed of roses" becomes the reality you swim in; that you would need not raise a hand to get a water to sooth your thirsty soul? what if by tomorrow you are nowhere to be found in this realm where suffering has pitched its tent and all you've got before your gaze is eternity standing akimbo before you, showering on you that look that is better described as, "you can't tell me you missed Christ all the while you were on the planet called earth"?
so we have floated on the assumptions, gave no room for convictions, in fact, we have crowned ourselves demagogues happily pushing God to the side. they tell us about the wages of sin and the blessings of righteousness and all we ask is, "what if God is just a religious fabrication, a construct of the moralist?"
so many things waiting for us to question their veracity, so many things the man of flesh would never be able to grasp, so many things begging for validation from the spirit man... and at the point of confirmation, our "what ifs" would reveal their foolishness: then we would understand that God is not and can never be a figment of our weak imagination...
Desired Destiny
Face exuding beams of beauty, with hands stuffed in the pockets of his trousers, he was contemplating on standing akimbo to show the world that finally he’s got his feet on it. He could not believe that finally he would be commanding this great wave he had always dreamt of that earned him the head of department of Dreams department. Distance was no more a barrier to his voice, he can’t help but call himself the noise that all beings enjoy. No more are the days when people would complain that he forced his big advice on people who are in no way in need of it. They now clamour, wait before it was office time at his gate with their consultation fees securely placed in their clasped fists, wishing they could pay more to gain his attention. His advice has remained irrefutable with no place for weakness, it has remained a symbol of compassion that unlike monalisa has refused to change no matter from where you view it.
His heart was content in giving men life. That’s all he ever wanted. To place a portion of himself in them and make free from the powers that has for long taken their voices and perpetually kept them as bond men.
His benevolence they insulted, claiming that he was only powerful in words but as strong as a 2 week old baby in works, an insult that is capable of making him to turn to their enemy yet he gave himself more to their services. Wisdom he lacked not, so, he demanded that the consultation fee be changed, it was no more what riches could afford, it was their lives, he was willing to make it a direct business, eliminating all the people in Secretary services department. It means, ‘no more middle men’. The business should represent you are him without alteration. It became like buying goods straight from the manufacturer. All he demands is quality service from the heart that is capable of transforming your life into a receipt to prove that you really met him. Yes, the way your life starts rolling will serve as the product receipt. His life remained the product!
That was the desired destiny… he is Christ
Christ a poet 