Let me take you into my confidence a little bit. I want to start by making an example of the power through the story of Peter. So Peter sees the Roman soldiers coming for Jesus and he decides to snatch a sword from one of the soldiers and begins to fight on in defense of his master. Its important to note that Peter was a fisherman and therefore had no business trying to fight soldiers of the most sound regime of that time the Roman Empire. What is actually good about this story is that Jesus rebukes Peter as he was not looking at the bigger picture which is the cross where our sins were atoned for through the death of our Lord and Savior Jesus. I argue that the power that saw Peter lose any sense of reasoning & rational to attack soldiers of the highest caliber of the day to defend Jesus is the same power that sees people do crazy things today. Let's look at this power in detail and the type of manipulation that happens in order to keep that power with the leaders always.
Leaders by their very nature have the ability to get people to things that they've never thought they had the ability to do. Personally i believe that a great leader should be able to get people to want to do things for them all in the quest of a common goal. This is not done in a manipulative manner that seeks to self indulge in one's power to sway people. No. Again i say no. Leaders must inspire others to rise above their own limitations for the greater good of themselves and others. Now this is power, and in the hands of power hungry and egotistically self absorbed leaders can lead to all kinds of shenanigans. This unfortunately is becoming the order of the day in the church where we would least expect to find any such shenanigans.
Ladies & gentlemen people out there are searching & looking for anything that is bigger than themselves. People are looking for something to believe in even if it sound stupid and wacky it doesn't matter as long as it can feed their hunger & thirst to believe. Now whenever there is a demand, supply must be activated to meet that demand. The supply of miracles at the alter of Christianity or any kind of spirituality that may help with meeting this demand has a field day in our world today. Spiritual leaders recognize this demand and further understand the power that comes with meeting this demand as it were. Can you explain why people are willing to do things that are beyond our explanation all because some guy sad he must do it. I don't even want to make this about the drinking petrol saga and so on. People give monies, cars, laptops & other valuable materials because they have been made to believe that they will become rich.
You see the secret weapon that these leaders are using is what Jesus was talking about when he said the harvest is plenty but the workers are few. Indeed in these days it's cool to be spiritual and if you are not church going or involved in some spirituality program you are far behind the social lines. You won't have something to talk about in your social circles. So this desire is not met with the authentic gospel of Christ but with the foolishness of miracles. The unexplained wealth that these leaders amass as a result of all this is there for everyone to see. The poor & the rich all flock to these places. These leaders have almost risen above the head of the church himself because they no longer point people to Jesus but to themselves. They don't teach people to access these things from the Lord on their own but will tell you that if you bless them and obey them then Jesus will bless you. It simply doesn't make any business sense to them for people to be able to access this power without them.
They point people to themselves as the anointed of God and therefore they are the only channel through which they can access the power of God. This is all utter rubbish and foolishness. This is where i thank God for the teachings that we got from our mentors in the Lord. What further aggravates the situation is when you get the Nigerian accident at TB Joshua's church. You wonder what pushes people to go all the way to Nigeria when they can access God in their own homes. "For behold the temple of God is among men". That is a quote from the book of Matthew simply read means that God is omnipresent and cannot be found only in the temple or through one man but to all those who accept him as their personal Savior. Failure to grasp this truth about God as being accessible to all will open you up to all kinds of undesirable cultism centered spirituality.
It's time to get our act together and wake up from this sleep which is induced upon our people by manipulative & crooked leaders. Jesus says there is a price to pay when we follow him and that we must be willing to pay that cost if we are to truly be his followers. He himself paid that price for us and he became the ultimate example & he is the one we must follow always. Our focus must be to him & him alone.
Workshoped by Lungelo
