*Matthew 5:3, "Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."* (KJV)
We are still in pursuit of spiritual poverty and we are at the point of homelessness or achieving homelessness. Because if you are not spiritually poor, you will not inherit the kingdom of God. Therefore, we have so far been discussing on how not to have any other food apart from the word of God and how to always hunger and thirst for the word of God. Because poverty encapsulates food insufficiency. Every poor person will always tell you how, how getting food is a problem. The next thing we discussed was clothes scarcity, and we discovered that in spiritual poverty we only have one piece of clothing called righteousness, which we will one day exchange for glory. And we said that this garment of righteousness is white in colour which means it has to be washed as often as possible in the mercies of God which are new every morning.
Yesterday we started on spiritual housing scarcity. Yeah, because another indication of Poverty is lack of housing or poor housing. Jesus told us that we need not worry for He went to the Father to prepare a place for us to live in. After you are born again, you secure your place in our Father's big house that has many mansions.
But we said that in this house, you should know that you are a co-heir. Therefore, you don't do things as you feel them. You do all things in consultation with Jesus who is your co-heir.
I have housed people and I have been housed by people and one problem we human beings have is that, when your host gives you freedom, soon we want to kick him or her out of his or her own house.
Just because I told you that you are at liberty to use anything in my house, doesn't mean you can take it without consultation. I can't wake up in the morning only to find that you drove off with the car I intended to use that day, you didn't ask me of my plans for the day and if they included driving that car. And when I ask you, you say, "But you said..." Yes I said so, but simple courtesy demands you consult first.
*Consultation is not begging.* This is why some firms charge a consultation fee. Consultation is a show of concern, respect and wisdom.
The same problem we see in the physical world, when we house a friend, or a relative for a long time is the same problem people are bringing into the spiritual realm after Jesus starts housing them in His Father's house.
Some people have asked me, "Why is it that when I got born again, the first few days I got almost everything I prayed for in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye. But nowadays, I can fast and pray for days and still the answer delays?"
Part of the problem is caused by familiarity. I have always told you that familiarity breeds contempt. One of the greatest shows of spiritual maturity is in the ability to make sure that no matter how close you get to God, you don't start taking things for granted.
You wake up one morning only to discover that your best suit was worn by your brother, who you are housing to an interview. You feel bad, not because you wouldn't have given him the suit had he asked, but because he is now taking you for granted. That is when you decide to be locking some rooms in your house, so that before anyone accesses them, they must ask you first and tell you what they want from in there.
This is the same thing Jesus is forced to do to some of us. It is not like He would deny us anything we asked, but the problem is that nowadays, we have become so familiar it has given birth to contempt.
Just because the bible says that your enemies shall see fire, doesn't mean you go calling fire on all of them!
Jesus said, "Some will say, 'we did miracles in your name', but I will say to them get thee away from me, you sons of iniquity. I never knew you, neither do I now". I know some of you already know that this is one of my favorite verses in the bible. And yes it is because, at first I never understood how this could be possible. But so far, God through His Spirit has shown me many ways it can be.
For instance, there are still some demons that will obey you just by hearing you mention you are related to Jesus or you live in His house. Without a need to confirm it.
A friend of mine was driving very fast in one of our highways, the police and highway control tried to stop him but he wouldn't stop. Until he came to a road block. He got out of his car and very angrily removed the road block himself all this time telling the officers to keep off if they want peace and to continue enjoying their job. He did not even give the officer a chance to talk. I know all this time, these officers were wondering, "who is this guy? Who does he know in the government? How can his arrest or apprehension affect our careers?" Do you know they just let the guy drive off. They didn't touch him! Let's say they thought he was a relative to our president. The truth is that, this guy just did a miracle in the name of the president. But does the president know him?
Hence, I think this is another way that, that favorite verse of mine will apply.
Because, as far as I am concerned, God is more happy when a sinner repents, than when a sinner dies. I have therefore always been against the message being preached nowadays of praying for the deaths of each and every person that against you. And bringing testimonies to congregations of how your neighbour or relative died after you prayed for them to die. What did God gain with their death? By their death, did the kingdom of God gain or did the kingdom of darkness gain? If you are happy about sending people to hell, are you really a child of God or a child of the serpent?
The guy who robbed me of my phone, everybody felt like I should call fire from heaven over his head. But no, *I pray he doesn't die before he has preached to every soul that that phone would have preached to!* Because I use my phone to preach, may that phone act as the missing link between him and the gospel. May He preach God more than me. O! How happy I would be to meet him one day saying, "I was a robber and a thief, but I stole one phone that changed my life completely!" O! What a great day that will be for me my LORD!
Don't pray for witches to die, yes I know the bible says, "suffer not a witch to live", but I have said, we need to seek more to fulfill the desire of our king than we need to see ourselves avenged.
One day when David was running away from king Saul and the philistines had taken hold of the city. He said to himself, "O! How I wish I could drink water from the well in the city!" He was not asking anybody to get the water, he was just thinking to himself aloud. But two guys heard him and they risked their lives and got him a skin full of water from the city. They fought the philistines to fulfill their kings desire. They risked death to see their king happy. Letting a witch to live, waiting that one day they will get saved, is a risk, but a worthy risk if the King will be happy with his salvation!
I am done for today, let's continue tomorrow.
Shalom and keep the faith.
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