THE WHEAT AND THE TARES

“Another parable put He forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field ? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up ? But he said, Nay ; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest : and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them : but gather the wheat into my barn.”

Matthew 13: 24-30

I’ll like to focus a bit on this parable. I already explained in my previous post why I will be focusing on this post. You can read about it in the post titled “An Enemy Has Done This”.

Please realise that this was a parable by the Lord. A parable is a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. Some get bogged down on whether it happened or the actual people it happened to. I don’t think that should be our focus. I think we should be focused on getting the moral/spiritual lesson in the story. So, in this parable, there was a man with very good intentions who went to his field and sowed good seed. That’s what many of us do. We try to live right, get along with everyone and relatively be good. But that’s not where this parable ends.

This man with good intentions, who didn’t set out to hurt anybody had an enemy. His enemy did not show his face while men were awake. We are not told who this enemy is. All we know is that there was someone who wished him evil and did not identify himself as the enemy. As we journeyed to the conference I talked about in the previous post, we started talking about the difference between evil people in Africa and evil people in other parts of the world. One of us claimed that the evil people in other parts of the world are more brutal than their African counterparts. Another one said the good thing about the ‘brutal’ non-African evil people is that they are not hiding what they are up to whereas in Africa, ‘na who no person dey do person’… Me, I don’t know which of them is more evil; neither do I care to know. All I know is that there are enemies that are not interested in your progress; the earlier you realise that and make the necessary adjustments; the better for you.

This man’s enemy found his opportunity to do evil WHILE MEN SLEPT. The challenge I have with many that claim that they are not concerned about the activities of the enemies is that they are actually asleep. The amazing things that we have winked at because ‘grace covers us’ is something else. Many altars are not on fire. We are the generation that ignore the Lord’s promptings to wake up in the night to pray because ‘God understands’. We sleep and expect God to do both His part and ours. I’m not recommending that we become so focused on ‘enemies’ that we’re afraid of our own shadows. I’m saying that we should be watchful and vigilant because the adversary we’re dealing with has been around the block for some time and he has a few tricks up his sleeves. I’ll need to stop here for now.

Have a blessed and productive day.

AN ENEMY HAS DONE THIS

As I prepared for the Conference I attended this weekend (it was definitely worth all that was invested in it and MORE), I heard the Lord leading me to read the story of the wheat and the tares. The word I heard then was "Let the tares and the wheat grow together till harvest time". I quickly searched Bible Gateway for the passage in Matthew. As I read this, I paused at "An enemy has done this".
As we travelled to the venue of the conference, I shared the story of when I was struck with a strange illness with the sisters travelling with me. I was going to respond to the illness physically but as I was about to use the antibiotics I had bought to treat the strange sore on my leg, I heard clearly in my spirit that if I took that drug, that was it...It would have been my point of no return. I believe in harnessing all that medical science has to offer; I also believe in addressing the spiritual root of every ailment. I had to engage in spiritual warfare to get out of that situation I was in.

As I was at the Conference, Dr Omobola Jeffreys also made reference to the same passage while she was teaching about drawing from the wells of salvation.
As I spoke with the mum of the autistic child I had the priviledge of watching, I also found myself AT SOME POINT saying "An enemy has done this".

Some of the challenges some are dealing with have lingered because we have been applying ONLY physical measures to issues that have spiritual roots. Will you take time out today to trace the spiritual root of the issue?

I'll share along these lines in the course of the week.
Have a blessed and productive day. 

Lessons From Mordecai

Hello everyone. How are you doing? How has the weekend been?
Inspite of the fact that DSTV are "showing" themselves (that's an entire post on its own), weekends like this one are made in ______, they don't last. (You can fill in the gap yourself, lol).
Our theme scripture today in church was Esther 2: 5-7. I'm not pleased to announce that it took me F-O-R-E-V-E-R to flip my "paper" Bible to the passage. (I remember one funny post in Group 1 where we debated if it was okay to... use electronic Bibles and some of those comments still have me LOLing. Let me return to my lane).
Somehow, I found myself scribling notes about Mordecai that I think are worth sharing, in light of some of the things one reads in the news (Father rapes daughter and she goes deaf...).
1. Mordecai was an unmarried man YET he adopted his orphaned cousin.
2. There were no ‪#‎StoriesThatTouch‬ about him molesting her, though she was beautiful and had a good feature. Yeah, I've heard some blame mothers of children that have been molested by their fathers for the evil perpetrated by these men. According to them, the fathers molest their kids because the mothers are too busy making money...Please, pick up your jaw, thanks. Lol.
3. Mordecai BROUGHT Esther up! Someone once said men are incapable of raising kids without "outside help" whereas women are able to raise their kids "without outside help". FYI, NO ONE can raise kids alone without "outside help". I firmly believe that parenting was never designed to be a job for 1 person. I know circumstances can make one a single parent but if single moms are honest, they'll remember that there was/is a grandma/grandpa/sister/brother/uncle/aunty/cousin/friend/nanny/driver (add your own) that lightens (lightened) their burden. I have a few thoughts for single parents but I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. Just watch this space for details of that effort...
Back to Mordecai, the Bible tells us that he brought Esther (Hadassah) up (and responsibly too).
4. The helpless orphaned cousin that Mordecai took in was INSTRUMENTAL to the salvation of the Jews. Be careful how you treat the "helpless" you meet today; they MAY very well turn out to be your destiny helpers.

Have a blessed and productive week ahead.

THE BELIEVER AND THE OLD TESTAMENT (1)

Good day people. Happy Independence Day.
While responding to an issue, I quoted a portion of the Old Testament (in the Bible) and included the fact that " I don't believe that portion applies to the New Testament believer."
The following questions followed:
1. What part of the old testament should apply to the new testament believer and what part should not. Who determines these things?
2. Why do we decide we are new or old testament Christians depending on the situation? After all, when it comes to claiming blessings, we don't care less whether they are declared in the old or new?
My (partial) response to Question 1 was "The Holy Spirit is the one who determines these things. I don't believe that the Old Testament requirements are binding on the NT believer because God isn't operating under that covenant (which was with the Israelites, not the Gentiles, anyway). I'll probably need to write an entire post to address this point with the scriptures to back my position. The conclusion is this - If there was nothing wrong with the Old Testament, there would have been no need for the New Testament that came into force when God accepted Christ' blood...However, we can still LEARN from God's dealings with people of the Old Testament...At least, that's how I see it"
So, I'll start with the promised 'post'. I think it's better to have it as a series so I can go scripture by scripture. Please follow me on this journey and feel free to share (referencing AMA Writes, please) and tag others. Sometime in the course of the series, perhaps when I've exhausted the scriptures that effectively answer Question 1, I'll attempt to answer Question 2. Please feel free to share your thoughts on either question at any time. It'll be nice to have your scriptural references too. Thanks.
I'll start with scriptures in the Old Testament that foretold of a New Testament that was essentially going to replace the Old Testament.
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
(Jeremiah 31: 31-34, English Standard Version)
I guess I should just share the grace with this alone, right? Lol. If AMA wasn't as scholarly as she is, that's what she would have done. Thankfully, she likes writing so we'll continue the series.
Hebrews 8 references Jeremiah 31: 31-34 and shows us that Christ is the mediator of a better covenant, founded upon better promises.
Hebrews 9 placed the Old and New Covenants side by side, showing us the similarities and differences of each covenant (essentially to prove that the New Covenant is indeed founded on better promises).
The easiest way for me to illustrate is to use the example of a company that enters into 2 separate contracts with 2 different entities for similar services. We know there will be similarities and differences between the 2 contracts. It won't be wise for Contractor A to insist on the Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) of Contractor B's contract. It won't make sense for the Company to expect Contractor B to deliver what was agreed in Contractor A's contract. The expectations on both the Company and the contractor's side are different for each contract.
So, why do we still have the Old Testament in the Bible that New Testament believers read? I'll use the Company, Contractor A and Contractor B scenario again. Let's assume that Contractor B's contract is more recent than Contractor A's contract and is hopefully founded on better promises than Contractor A's contract. The Company should have no qualms giving Contractor B access to the initial contract. First of all, it proves to Contractor B that their contract is an improved one. We won't have been able to verify the claims made in Hebrews 8 and 9 if we didn't have access to Jeremiah 31.
Secondly, it may be helpful to clarify grey areas in Contractor B's contract. I've worked on a couple of projects where we've been required to replicate an existing design BUT ensure that it complies with current legislation. We always request for information on the initial design. Then we review the current legislation. Whenever we find cases where the old design does not meet up with current legislation, we adhere to the terms of our contract (comply with the current legislation).
My first pass response to Question 2 is that since the new covenant is founded on better promises than the old covenant, the blessings in the old covenant are still embedded in the new covenant and there are added blessings too. You may be shortchanging yourself if you limit yourself ONLY to the blessings of the Old Covenant.
In Part 2, I'll look at what the synoptic gospels have to say about the old/new testament. Parts 3, 4 and possibly 5 will focus on what the Epistles have to say about the old/new testament.
Thanks for taking time to read this post. Please feel free to ask questions and/or share your views. If you disagree with anything I've written, please state your views RESPECTFULLY. If you agree, it'll be nice to still hear from you.
Happy new month and I wish my fellow Nigerians a happy Independence Day. Have a blessed and productive day.