My wish list for the new year

Let us imagine a different world. What if we have a temple of the Holy Spirit which is clean on the inside more than it is on the outside? Is it too much to ask: if we demand for the cup to be cleaner on the inside more than it is on the outside? What if the Lord told us: “Your means are meager but you are rich” rather than telling us “You have a name for being alive and you claim to be rich, yet you are poor”? What if we dream of planting Jesus and his ways in the life of every faithful rather than having mega-churches everywhere that preach material life? Which one is more valuable: a mega-church with spiritually infant members or spiritually mature faithful who assemble under a tree? What if we pray for the wisdom of the lord so we can serve right, than for power or wealth? What if lord says to us: “You did not ask for power or wealth but for wisdom, so I will give you more of wealth and power”? What if our role model, the perfect faithful that we try to imitate, at best is Jesus at worst Paul, Peter, John, or Jacob? What if the book we teach most of the time is not supplementary material but the bible? Is it too much to ask? Those are a few of my wishes for the new Ethiopian New Year of 2016. 

 

What if the churches teach us most of the time about how to spiritually grow to ward the lord in knowledge, behavior, and way of life, so we can be like Jesus in knowledge, behavior, and way of life? Is it too much to ask? Say Jesus is carrying our cross, should we help him like Simon or should we sit on his shoulder to enjoy an easy life? Should we teach people to behave in the most holy manner, so they can be light to those in darkness and salt of life, or should we teach them 24/7 about money, power, wealth, prosperity, and all earthly things? Imagine how many percent of the bible is about blessing and how many percent is about being like Jesus? All things in the bible are about Jesus and his ways. How can you clean the leg of an insect and swallow the camel? You demand payment from every small income and all day you preach about wealth and health, but you don’t teach what is most important like love, holiness, mercy, and obedience to the will of God? Is not the spirit more important than the body? I wish better for you, for me, and lord.

 

Okay, tell people sometimes “If you are God’s own, you will be blessed”. But why is your preaching 24/7 about blessing? What about the rest of the Bible? It is true, that your salary and way of life are dependent on this theology, so you have to bless the congregation and they will bless you with 10% of their income. It is trade, it is barter. I know your defense of the prosperity gospel is about your children's food, shelter, and clothes, your car, your house, and your way of life. Yet, you should have faith in the lord and preach the full gospel not only the one about blessing. Can you see why poverty is evil? It even corrupts the most loved ones of the lord, you. Lord said: seek the light (God) and the shadow (everything else) will follow you; yet you are chasing your shadow and only God knows where you will end. My advice to you is that you should turn your face toward the light as you cannot serve two lords. 

 

What I will advise you is that to have faith. Have faith you little faith. Lord will provide the means for you. Accept this by faith and focus on teaching the full gospel in faith. When people come to church, they have to be filled in the spirit of the lord, the word of the lord, and the perfection of the lord. They have to smell Jesus. They should not smell a piety trader from Marketo. In church, people should shout in honor of the lord, not in dreams of money, power, wealth, and prosperity. Nowadays, churches are filling people with the love of material things, not the Lord's faith. Why don’t you teach them to seek the kingdom of the lord and the lord can focus on giving them everything else? Why do you focus on everything else while ignoring the kingdom of God, unless the role of the kingdom of the lord is to bless you? Clean them on the inside, in spirit, rather than trying to rap their dead body in expensive linen to bury them with their latest model car in their newly built burial palace. 

 

You may have a mega-church or not, but what does it matter? You can have 500 churches and even a few mega-churches. Yet how many of your members look like Jesus? OK, what about Paul? In the city where your “dominance” is established, how are corruption, crime, rule of law, holiness, love, and support of the poor? Are the people very holy and godly in behavior? What about your church members, do they shine like a bright light in the darkness? I don’t mean on the outside, which is material things, but in spirit, behavior, and way of life. Are you rapping them in expensive cloth before their journey to eternal fire or are you enriching their spirit so they can imitate Jesus in every way with the guidance of the Holy Spirit? 

 

Now imagine old people who used to imitate Paul, Peter, John, and Jacob. You know those with the spirit of poverty, those hit with religious spirit, and those who are uptight people. They face hunger, danger, prosecution, and imprisonment for decades to plant, nurture, and grow tens of millions of faithful, who were not known for wealth but for holiness. They don’t have mega-churches but tree or shanty meeting rooms that they use to plant and grow the faithful with the face of Jesus. You can insult them, yet they don’t respond except to bless you. You find them nowhere evil. They never lie. They never steal. Even the devil has no option but to witness their holiness. Their role models are Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, and Jacob, not contemporary famous preachers with mega-churches. Who is more important? Those “idiots” who clean the spirit from the inside or those “smart ones” who clean the dead body from the outside for its burial site? I hope you have the minimum sense to know the difference between the good and the bad. Those who are sowing on this earth will harvest corruption. I advise you to sow in heaven so you can harvest eternal life. What is the difference between the children of the high priest and Samuel? Samuel serves the lord and those children of the high priest demanded service before the lord. They want the good meat for themselves rather than serving it to the lord. Be Samuel!

 

Some data as quoted in one book do show that only one in four, from man/women of God, end up right. This is too optimistic a statistic because only the lord knows the heart. Yet, why do you follow the one with a 25% chance of being with the lord all his/her life, at best, than the lord himself? It is funny people dream of having mega-churches everywhere. You need a better dream so dream again. What about dreaming about the possibility that the image of the lord to be imprinted in the identity of everyone? Dream big, dream to do what is the will of the lord. Think about what the lord needs and what you can help. Then build the house of the lord without reservation. So the lord can focus on building your home. Have a better role model; your role model should be Jesus himself. Jesus did not focus on his will but on the will of the Father and the Father for that raised him above all names, powers, and authorities in heaven and earth. Try to know the will of the lord and try to serve it. Stop playing on your own will like a child playing in his/her poop. Be smart, always think what is the will of the lord, and always think about how to make the lord smile on you. Focus on that and everything else is a gift from the lord. Be smart! 

 

When you see most pastors, prophets, apostles, healers, and soon, their eye is focused on the achievement of some man or woman of God. Their ideal man is a human being, rather than Jesus himself. Those men/women of God did work for the lord and serve the lord the way they understand things. They did not party 24/7, they did not run after sin, and they did not become a sin of the world. I was a sin of this world and I am pretty sure I am a very sinful person. Yet this is not about my holiness, it is about the holiness of Jesus. I am not selling me, who can buy me? But Jesus! I am not your spiritual father, heavenly father is. I am not your father or mother in spirit, you don’t call me Papa or mama. I do not matter but Jesus does.

 

They, men and women of God, try to be light and salt of the earth, the way they understand it. They seek the lord and I hope the lord can see what is good in their work and forgive their mistakes. I am sure they are better than me, yet they could not be better than what I could be. Because my eye is on the lord of armies, not on any man or woman, and I am telling you to be smart and to focus on the perfection of Jesus, not on any work of man. After all, the most optimistic statistic is that 3 out of 4 will not end right with lord. Do not imitate men or women of God, imitate the lord and his ways. Be smart!

 

Besides, the character of the people they lead is a witness to their failure. Nobody can see Jesus in the life or character of their sheep. This cannot be the right kind of fruit or the right kind of work. Let us take Ethiopia, where upcoming kids, with large churches, are dreaming of growing their churches into mega-churches. Those churches are springing everywhere with imported theology, yet the quality of the faithful is becoming worse than the world. Nowadays the born-again faithful are not taken to be honest, loyal, truthful, helpful, kind, merciful, and law-abiding citizens. Nowadays they are in every sin of the country. Who is choosing death when life is available? The people are sold death in the name of Jesus, and material life in the name of grace.

 

Those little kids, who are called Papa and Mama by their congregation, are imitating the way of those “top generals” of the church, those with Mega churches. Yet the data is most men of God and women of God do not have a perfect end. If this can be seen by man, imagine how far their failure is in the eye of God. Imitate Jesus, not man. If you must imitate Paul, it must be as an intermediate target but your goal should be Jesus and only Jesus only.  Besides, your fruit is a witness to your wrong choice and way of faith.

 

Now let me ask you: what are you producing by imitating the mega-church owners than the most productive forefathers around you? How can you imitate death when life is near you? Now churches preach about blessing, cars, planes, money, wealth, and health but not about life of perfection. People did not come out of church filled with the love of the lord but the love of the world, the love of material things, and the love of spiritual death. See how poverty is evil? The dark magic of poverty is seen when out of the child of the lord it can produce you, lover of the world. I am sure poverty is evil because it made you! You started in faith, yet you end with material things. Is it too much to ask you to reconsider your ways? I recommend you that you buy clothes from the lord because you are naked. You think you are rich, I am telling you “you are miserable poor”. Dress Jesus to live in honor of the lord.