The Roots of the Righteous (2)

Think back to the first few years after your conversion.  You are likely to find out that those years, the instruction you received and the encounters you experienced, have defined the quality of your spiritual development.  This is so because the roots of your spiritual life began to develop during those years.


In the same way that the first five years of a child are crucial to the eventual course of his or her life, the first five years of spiritual development are most important.  That is why we are to desire the sincere milk of the word in the way that newborn babies do (1 Peter 2:2).  Sadly, due to the environment to which many believers were exposed in the first five years of their new life, the roots of many are partly in the word, partly in tradition, partly in religion and partly in church personalities.  Is it any wonder that many are not producing the fruit that the Father desires?


When the crowd got converted on the day of Pentecost, "they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42).  What a way to start one's new life in Christ!  The New Believer Classes in many churches are miles away from this ideal.  Instead of connecting directly with the Father and learning the ways of the Spirit, the root structure of too many connect them with programmes and the ways of man.


I am grateful for the first five years of my spiritual life.  My conversion itself was a spiritual encounter that left a residue of spiritual grace upon my life (I believe it so for everyone, only that we need to discover over time the uniqueness of the grace that came upon us at conversion).  It was also during a prolonged spiritual revival, the Faith Clinic revival in Ibadan (Nigeria), which exposed me to the reality of the power of God, faith and the authority of the believer.  Then was my five years in University and involvement with the Evangelical Christian Union (ECU).  This exposed me to the evangelical tenets of faith and an awareness of calling, purpose and service in the Kingdom.  Those first years were not about what I can get from God but what I can give to Him.  I am still drawing nourishment from this solid spiritual heritage.


Sure, it is not the end of the world if a believer has developed a faulty root system in the things that pertain to the Spirit.  Corrections are possible, though sometimes painful to the flesh.  It is written that "if the foundations (roots), what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3).  The righteous can seek God with an open heart and allow the axe of God's word to fall upon every root that has not been planted by Him.


Lord, let my roots be in you and you alone!


(To be continued...)

Read more...

The Roots of the Righteous

Believers, the ones who follow hard after God, are likened to trees planted by the river whose roots go deep down to the place of unlimited supply.  It matters where you are planted and to whom you are connected.

If we will thrive as God's people on the earth, we need to cherish our connection with the Lord and His Spirit.  It is the most important thing about our existence and destiny.  This place of connection is hidden from view, just as a tree's roots are not visible above the earth.  The things we do when no one is there to observe are the most crucial to our Christian walk.  They reveal the kind of root structure we have developed over time.

The Lord should be our ONLY source; He should be the One who sustains and preserves us; He should be the One who determines our identity.  However, these will be the truth of our life if we are rooted in Him - not in the world; not in man; not in the things that we possess.

There is a shaking that is already here, and only those who have their roots in God will remain unshakeable.  Lord, you are my everything!


(More on The Roots of the Righteous later...)

Read more...

Rivers in the desert

How does God cause waters to flow in dry places?  How does He "give waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert"?  He is no magician but a worker of miraculous processes.  What, then, is the process He intends to work out in our day that will turn our parched communities around for good?

The answer is in His people.  We are His agents for changing the world.  Jesus rightly claimed that He was the light of the world (John 9:5), which implied that He was God's answer to the world's darkness.  We too, Christ has said, are light for the world's gross darkness and salt for the earth's decay and tastelessness.  We are God's answer to the world - but we need to know this and be it.

If only believers will understand that there is a river flowing from the presence of God within them, and that wherever this river flows it produces life!  With this understanding, we will pass through the "valley of weeping" and turn it into a place of blessing (Psalm 84:5-7).  Without this knowledge, we will be numbered with the millions of mere water-drinkers who are only desperate for some sort of relief from the dryness of their lives.

Let us reconnect with the Lord who dwells in secret, find the portion of dry land He wants us to possess, and become the answer that everyone around will seek - all to the glory of our King, Jesus!

Read more...

Water from within vs. Water from without

The moment we come to Christ and drink of His Spirit, a well of living water is formed within us, springing up to life eternal.  It is from this inner well that our nourishment and fulfilment is derived.  Also, this inner well of the Spirit sustains against a backdrop of external famine and hardship.  The confusion that many believers find themselves in on a daily basis is the constant need to petition heaven for a change in their dry, external circumstances, when they are meant to thrive in the midst of every circumstance and through faith in and obedience to God, change every unfavourable circumstance.  When Christians ignore the abundance of "water" within them, they will go from one place to another in search of external "water" that can never satisfy.

Christ has done it all!  We need to appreciate and appropriate what He has already done within us, and with Him transform the parched world around us.  If only God's people will understand this afresh!  If we do, many gatherings that promise circumstantial breakthroughs without refocusing the believer on what has already broken forth within them will lose their appeal.  Charlatans who exploit the ignorance of believers and charge them heavily for the promise of external refreshment will lose their crowds too.

The transition from being a mere water-drinker to a significant well-digger starts from here, because only those who are connected to Christ on the inside will be used of Him to transform life on the outside.  Think about this and gain wisdom.

Read more...

Only Well-diggers can change the nation!

The Church that Jesus envisioned, the one for which He laid down His life, is to be full of people who through their relationship with God bring transformation and blessing to their world.  For some reason, our worship houses are teeming over with a different kind of people - a people who relate with God primarily for their own blessings and transformation.  These are a people who forget that they are already blessed with everything in Christ; that they already have the well of the Spirit inside of them and simply need to allow Him to flow into everything around them.  It really matters how we see ourselves and our association with the Almighty.

Mere water-drinkers in the Church cannot bring change to the nation.  Only well-diggers have the vision to transform the land promised to them by God.  The Earth is truly the Lord's and we all have a duty to establish His rule in it through well-digging.  Let the life within you find expression in your world without any restriction, and you will be known as a builder of broken walls, a blessing to many.

Lord, I am a well-digger!

Read more...

Getting ready to publish the message!

It's time I get back to blogging.  Left it now for far too long!  It's all the more necessary now that I am getting ready to publish the transformational message God has imprinted upon my heart for a number of years: The Well-digger Message.

I was probably not aware of the depth of what the Lord was inscribing upon my heart when I first preached on Becoming a Well-digger.  It was at Cornerstone Christian Centre in Bromley, UK, in December 2005.  A year later, I published the book The Secret of Abraham, which introduced the Well-digger revelation.  Now, in the middle of 2012, the time is right for the message.

Every God-breathed word is a double edged sword that cuts deep to the heart of man.  This message will cut and will also heal.  This message will produce a Kingdom people with a Kingdom mindset.  May the voice of the Lord be heard across the land as the message is declared to all who have ears to hear. Amen.

Read more...