Issues

It is a new year. I wish you all a happy new year. I know by now the greeting is a bit stale for most people but there are people who are yet to wish friends and loved one the joy and pleasantness of the new year.
I hope to post more this year and not just more but with more value. Links from websites I find valuable, books that help become better at managing the days we have next. Also there may be the reflection on some odd apps here and there that I find extremely useful but I probably will focus more on the spiritual side of things. It helps but everything in its proper perspective.
I also hope to do all these because I have a new tool which I believe will make a big difference in the way I work especially with offline writing and posting.
This tool is currently in the beta version but from what I can see so far, it looks like it is going be my new best friend when it comes to posting on the site.

Last year was filled with its challenges while this year has started rolling its own. I planned to write a minimum of one post per month last year and I skipped on one month and had technical issues another month. This year I hop to post twice a month. That will definitely be more challenging considering all things but not impossible.

I am thankful to all of you that took out time last year to read the blog and I hope it will be worth your time even more this year.

Happy New Year!

Nelson Mandela will be buried at his village today after a week of activities that saw among other things the visit of over 80 heads of state to South Africa to mourn and celebrate his life.

I can’t possibly add anything else to all that has been said about this man and his life. Most have looked at his life from the angle of what good he did in his life time. A few have looked at his time as the leader of the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC) and the things the wing did then.

A lot of people have been moved by the celebration of his life and how it seems to show that the world loved him.

As a part of this show of affection, Bono the popular American Singer said something that caught my interest in the recent publication by Times magazine about the man Mandela. He said he thinks it is Mandela’s “lack of peity” that allowed him to achieve the success he had. That statement got me thinking.

When it is our turn to bow out of this world, what legacy do we want to live behind? Is it just the one that has earthly value alone or both earthly and eternal value?

We do need to love our fellow men and seek their good and if it depends on us ensure that things that have long term benefits are done for them. It is laudable to be seen as such a person. One may even receive accolades from the world but all these without participating in the salvation of Jesus Christ is nil.

Africa has lost a man that the world respected that is a very true statement. Can another be found? Yes if the rest choose to do that which is right for the people in general.

This is the month of Strange Fire. It is a conference that held at the Grace Community Church in California from October 16 – 18 2013. It was an event that focused on the charismatic nature of the evangelical church today.
It had men who have devoted and keep devoting their lives to the teaching of the word and living according to the word by the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit lead the sessions and review some of the things that have become common place in regions like Africa (though according to some, they are in the fringes) where these things are common place and all the people know to be Christianity. These men include John MacArthur, Steve Lawson, Conrad Mbewe and Phil Johnson to mention a few.
So many things were said at this conference and most of the sessions were streamed live so that over 25 Countries were represented at about 25000 individual points not to mention the number of people that were at each point.
Since it spoke about how the charismatic interpretation of the work of the holy spirit, the twitter-sphere was buzzing under the hashtag #strangefire with a lot of emotion underlining a lot of the comments particularly targeted at Pastor John MacArthur who is the Pastor of the church.
I learnt a lot of things at that conference. The most important is that Jesus preached the gospel and those that got saved did so after they heard the gospel. Also, the Apostles preached as they heard from Jesus and the people listened to them and they were saved. Therefore there is a true gospel and my prayer is to learn that true gospel and preach that true gospel as it was taught by Our Lord Jesus Christ.
In some parts of the church now, the gospel is not as it was preached by the aforementioned rather it is filled with promises of what changes God is going to effect (especially financially and elimination of challenges) in the life once one believes. The rich young ruler went to Christ with his riches and obedience but when he met Jesus and interacted with him, he realized the demand was more that adding a tag to himself and becoming spiritual.
It is natural to resist anything that calls us out on what we believe and we can respond in two ways. We can either fight back or we can try to learn what we did not understand properly. This is what has happened since the conference ended and it is still happening.
Personally, the conference was a call to action, a call to wake from the slumber of indifference and self-preservation to realize that these are very serious issues and are such that men’s lives depend on the proper handling of the word of God.
May God continue to bless all the people that give themselves to the proper use and preaching of the word.
You can find the website to the conference here and the downloadable audio files of the sessions here.

God Bless