Yes, it is the King’s birth season. Even the weather has bowed to His glory.
The air has been frenetic, as the markets are suffocated by the crowd of buyers and inflated prices. Of course, money has been scarce but whatever little we have must not be spared. The king is coming and we must celebrate and welcome Him.
So, the streets wear new looks; the houses have a fresh coat of paint. There are barricades even on highways by security agents extorting money from motorists in the name of the season. Carnivals, too, and street jamz.
The desolate villages are agog despite the trepidation of unknown and known gunmen. Cows and fowls are in trouble, heading to the soup pots and consumed amid raucous banter and clinking glasses of wine.
The celebration is good but quite a great number of the people celebrate a king they neither know nor revere.
Who is this king that is coming?
To most people, Christmas is a period for wining and dining. A time to visit and be visited; a time to give and receive gifts. Yes, it is but essentially Christmas denotes Christ and mass. In other words, a time for the worship of Christ, the saviour of mankind. People have invented their own idea of a Christmas though; a period to carouse and frolic.
However, many would rather celebrate a Christmas without Christ; a celebration without the celebrant, which makes the whole festivity pointless.
However, you can tap into the relevance of Christmas, beginning from this year’s. You can entrust your life and all to Christ and be assured of eternal life far beyond the temporal pleasures that deceive mankind. Your feeling is immaterial to the reality of Christ. You can only win by trusting Him or be damned forever.
That is why you need to reexamine yourself in the New Year and turn a new leaf as 2 Corinthians 5:17 stipulates.
To help you decide that, you should do what 1 John 4:1 enjoins: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirit to see whether they are of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
One of the foremost Pentecostal churches, Christian Pentecostal Mission (CPM), in its devotional last week, dwelt on the sieving process.
“The sieve, whether made of plastic or aluminum plate, is a very useful instrument at home. Sieves help identify and remove the chaff mostly from grains very fast. They filter the good part and remove the chaff for the dunghill. All the grains may appear good and edible until they go through the sieving process.
‘“Believe not every spirit’ simply means that you should be conversant with the Word of God and be at peace with the Spirit of grace. It is the proper knowledge of the truth that enables you to dictate lies when they are told no matter the packaging.
“Today, the rate at which children of God swallow and even propagate falsehood is very alarming. When confronted, they simply tell you that this or that great man of God preached it (and they believe him without interrogation). Beloved brethren, I want to encourage you to become another Berean Christian of today. These precious brethren had the privilege of being taught by Apostle Paul, but they still subjected his teachings to the test of scriptures.
“There are so many commercial preachers and prayer contractors around us. Don’t swallow all they say; put them to test and discover the truth for yourself.”
Yes, ‘test and discover the truth yourself’ and depend less on emergency prophets for the world is full of fraudsters and pretenders, prancing unholy altars alias churches.
Must you be led by the nose; can’t you read your Bible? Even some unwary pastors are being deceived by the spirit of the age. And as for the perishing world gloating and celebrating the fall of some ‘pastor,’ sorry is your name. Who told you he was a pastor? Oh, he did, and you believed him, even despite the ungodly things he does and preaches?
I don’t know what is wrong with us. I heard a strange teaching the other day. Some pastor, saying it is wrong to take care of one’s parents in old age and, in fact, he said he had called his parents and siblings to a meeting in 1979 and told them he would not take care of any of them. I can’t now remember the weird interpretation he gave to the 5th commandment of honouring one’s parents.
Sir, you missed it. The Bearean spirit in me has found out you goofed. Where were you when your old parents were birthing and slaving to train you? Now, after investing what they could have saved to take care of themselves in old age, you are preaching another gospel.
Is this not akin to encouraging the government that denies pensioners their dues after years of serving the country? Why do you think Jesus handed his mother over to John before his death if not that she would be well taken care of in her old age?
Strangely, those that sat under your curious ministration applauded and returned the next service to be fed trash, forgetting that they too shall get old too.
The outgoing year has been horrific in many aspects. There were deaths and calamities all around us. Do you know why God spared our lives? Because we are holier than those that died? No, it is by the mercies of God that we are not consumed (Lamentations 3:22).
The New Year that God has graciously given us is an opportunity to begin again. It is time we sieved our lifestyle and rid it of muck. It is time we came under the cleansing blood of Jesus to be made whole. Don’t be like the sick man at the pool of Bethsaida, lamenting that he had no man to throw him into the pool whereas the very Healer was by his side, asking him if he would like to be made whole.
It is good to seek spiritual counsel and guidance but be sure where to go for such. There are many altars of Beelzebub garnished as altars of grace. Those who go therein get disgraced.
And, by the way, what do you seek; miracle? We all need miracles but there is just one miracle. Many seek other miracles but neglect the real and only one: Salvation. Until one first gets this one miracle and is saved, all else is bunkum; for what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul (Mark 8:36)?
So, brother, pick up your sieve; sister, take yours too; let the sieving process begin. Let us enter the New Year on wings of hope, holding forth the banner of our salvation. To God be the glory who made it possible.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!