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Marriage is not easy…
It is like a little boat in the midst of the sea carrying two strangers from different backgrounds, lifestyles, personalities, upbringing, and sometimes different cultures and different religions. Continue reading →

The end of a relationship is not the end of the world. It is just an end of a relationship that is not working for both of you, or for one of you. If you are a Christian it might be God’s way to save you from a wrong relationship.

If you think the person who dumped was or is the best person for you, then you are not thinking straight.

Stop holding on to nothing, and open your hands to what God is about to give you.

Happiness humiliation love, disappointments, pain, joy, sorrow, peace, rejection, laughter etc. are all ingredients of life, turn up the heat with daily challenges, surprises, temptations and unexpected moods or weather condition. And there you have, it is called life, we live it until death. It was never meant to be lived alone, we all need a friend that sticks closer than a brother, His name is Jesus. He makes life to be worthy living!

“I Am Also Human, But I Can!”

This week during a counselling session someone said something that got me thinking, and that was: “I am also human”. There is no doubt that marriage is a serious business, it will try you and test you to your very limit. There comes a point when your efforts to try to save your marriage seem to be in vain. It is then that you start wondering if there is any point in continuing to try. I have heard people say: “What about me? I am also human, I’ve feelings, and I am also hurt”.

This is the time when you decide to take the matter (marriage) into your own hands. But before taking the matter into one’s own hand the following questions begs the answer. Where is God when all these things are happening? Doesn’t He care that your marriage is falling apart? Doesn’t He see that you’ve done your best and now you’ve reached rock bottom. Isn’t marriage His own institution that He created to bring glory and honour to His name? In Mal 2:16 the Bibles says that He hates divorce, why is it that it seems like He has left you without any choice but to do that which He says He hates? Does God want you to suffer in an unhappy marriage forever, or even to die in order not to break the vow you made: “until death do us apart”?

As I have said before, marriage was not intended to be practiced outside of God. It was meant for people who know and love God. Having said that, it is therefore important that we see marriage within the broader view of the Christian journey. The Christianity is the journey from here to the Promised Land. Christianity is not an end in itself, but it is a path that lead us to the destiny. Even though much has been promised along the journey, daily manna, the pillar of cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night, etc., real benefits of Christianity are at the destination, which is a place, a land that flows with milk and honey, the New Jerusalem.

It is therefore important that we don’t confuse the temporary benefits and provisions for the journey, with the future benefits that we’ll receive when we arrive Home. Our trials and challenges along the way should not discourage us from reaching the destination. The Apostle Paul gives the reason why we should not be discouraged; he said “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Rom 8:18.

It is with this understanding that we should face our current marital challenges. Marriage is not the end in itself, but is part of the Christian journey. Some of the trials that we need, in order to purify us spiritually, as part of the preparation for the destination, are packaged into the marriage union. There are some people that the devil knows he can’t touch them unless he touches their families. He knows that if he tempts them to do adultery they won’t fall for it. He knows that if he brings incurable sickness, they will die holding on to God. He knows that if makes them to lose their jobs / homes, they will continue trusting the Lord regardless. But when he enters their spouses, and makes them to do strange and hurtful things, not once, not twice, but over and over again, and it seems like they will never stop, then he gets them. You’ll them hear say, “I am also human”, “I can’t take it anymore”. It is when the anger, bitterness and “righteous” indignation has take over. And by so doing, the devil wins them over, and tries to divert them from the destination (the land that is fairer than day).

Whether we are married or not, we must never lose sight of the goal (the place prepared). We must not allow anything, including marital challenges, to makes us violate God’s laws, our vows and His will for our lives. As long as He gives us life, God will be there with us. He will change our setbacks to be stepping stones, and our trials to be testimonies. Yes, we are human, but there is someone who is not human with us, and in us, and we are in Him (Christ). And we can join the Apostle in saying “I Can (yes, I can) Do (action) All Things (even “impossible” things) through Christ (not human, He is God, and all powerful), who Strengthens me (for He knows your strength is not enough)

The youth asked: “How bad should our spouses be before we can end the marriage and move on? Is it serial adultery? Is it abuse and ill-treatment? Is it constant conflicts? Is it when you have in-laws from a very-hot-place-far-from-heaven?”
I say: “No, no, that’s not bad enough. They must really be bad, so bad that they have a very bad smell, they must have started decomposing, and they are really dead. Even then, get the death certificate first, before you can move on.”
Marriage is a serious commitment, it is about life and death. If you are not prepared for that, don’t enter it, it might kill you.

The Jericho Experience Part 1 – Introduction

The children of Israel were on their way to the Promised Land, the land that flows with milk and honey. They had seen the many miracles that God did in order to set them free from Egypt, the land of slavery. They had witnessed how God made a way in midst of the red sea. They had seen the great and mighty things God has done for them in the desert. For forty years they feasted on manna, the bread baked from heaven’s oven. After forty years their clothes had not worn out, their sandals had no holes, in fact, their clothes stretched and grew with them as they grew older over the forty years. At this point they had just crossed the river Jordan on dry land. Therefore, there was no doubt in their minds that God had led them thus far.

In spite of the great and mighty things that God had done for them in the past, they found themselves facing a new challenge, the city of Jericho. The city of Jericho was a highly fortified city. The high walls of the city made it impenetrable. The city had enough supply of water and food to last a long time. The inhabitants of the city, whilst they had heard of the great and mighty things that the God of the Israelites had done, they were confident that they will be able to withstand any attack that would come from the Israelites.

On the side of children of Israel, they too should have been worried about this great and fortified city. You’ll remember that majority of spies who were sent earlier were so terrified of the people of the city that they gave a report that the people of the city are like giants and that they felt like grasshoppers. So, apart from the imposing walls, the people inside were said to be intimidating. Therefore, when the children of Israel were facing the Jericho, even though they remembered the great things God had down in the past, they approached Jericho with much trepidations. The coming of a Special Envoy from Heaven, “the Commander of the Lord’s Army”, attest to their concerns and trepidations about Jericho.

I would like to suggest that in our life here on earth, our journey to the “Promised Land”, we will all have to face the city of Jericho. The city of Jericho is a challenge that is diverse from anything we have experienced before. A problem that is so big, so fortified, so scary, that it looks invincible. A challenge that challenges everything that we are, what we have done, what we have, and sometimes what we believe. That is your Jericho experience. If you have not faced Jericho in your life, just continue living, keep moving forward, as soon as you cross the river Jordan, Jericho will be waiting for you.

• To some it will be a Jericho of health, even though you pray every day, and have tried your best to live right, to eat right, exercised regularly and go for regular check-ups, yet you end up with cancer that is discovered after it has spread such that there is not much that could be done. That’s your Jericho experience.
• To some it is a Jericho of marriage, after you have live right, married right, and have done your best love your spouse, to be faithful and supportive, to be there for him/her in sickness and health, but your spouse ends up in an affair and refuses to end it. At the end you find out that he/she has infected you with HIV. That’s your Jericho experience.
• To some it is a Jericho of financial challenges, after you been faithful to God, returning your tithe and offerings every month, and taking care of the needy around you, yet you still end up losing your job, your business, or your contract. Now, every third call that you get is from the bank or debt collectors, they have repossessed your car/s, and your house is about to go any time. That’s your Jericho experience.
• Your Jericho can come in many forms, it might be children whom you have tried to raise the right way, but in turn they have become the source of pain or are terrorising you. It might be your siblings who have decided to gang up against you, a boss who has made it his/her to harass you and nothing you do is good enough. It might be church members, in-laws, “friends”, who gossip, backbite you and accuse you of some of the worst things. It can be demonic or satanic attacks on your life.

Our Jericho experiences might differ from one person to another, but we’ll all have our Jericho experiences. In the coming weeks we’ll be trying to understand Jericho, and share some thoughts from the Bible on how to deal with your Jericho.

May God bless you and keep you strong and courageous!

Truth About Marriage – 102

Adultery is not a marital problem but a spiritual problem.

Because of the devastating impact that adultery has on marriage, many of us are tempted to think that adultery is a marital problem, but it is not, it is a spiritual problem that has a negative impact on marriage.

We need to understand that it was God who said “Thou shall not commit adultery”, it was not the spouse, the pastor, the church or the family. When people decide to commit adultery they are lifting a middle finger to God. They are saying to God we don’t take instructions from you, we don’t obey you, we obey our feelings, our boyfriends, our girlfriends or the demons that are controlling us.

If your spouse is committing adultery, it is not about you, it is their defiance of God. And if they can defy God (without whom they can’t exist), who are you? Therefore, stop blaming yourself, it is not because you are not attractive, it is not because you are fat or skinny, it is not because you are not good in bed, it is not because you don’t earn enough money. It is because someone is possessed by the demons of infidelity, and don’t join them to prove that you too can also be possessed by the same demons. Since this is not about you, but about God, know this: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap” Galatians 6:7

Yesterday as I was taking a young couple through their first premarital counselling I needed to give them an illustration of marriage and its challenges, and this is what the Lord gave me. I said to them marriage is like swimming in the sea, most of the time it is fun, but sometimes there are big waves that come through and beat you down, and sometimes one wave comes after another, and at time the waves last for a considerable amount of time. But we don’t stop swimming in the sea because we are afraid of the waves. If we do that we miss out on the thrill and the fun of swimming. At the same time, we should not be naïve that it is all fun.

Let’s congratulate people for getting finance approved, not for cars they don’t own yet.

It is not easy to get car finance. You have to have a good job, travel allowance, or a business that is doing well in order to even be considered for finance. Then as required by NCR they must make sure that you can afford to pay back the loan over a particular period of time.
Therefore, getting car finance approved is some sort of affirmation of your status in society, or at least it puts in a certain class. And the size of your credit also shows where you stand in that class.

After your status has been affirmed, you then get a call from the car dealership that your car is ready for collection.

Then comes the stressful time when you have to take pictures with the car ribbon on it for social media. You then have to post the pictures immediately with some nice message, may be, something religious like, thanking God for the new “blessing”. Then, FB responds with many “likes” and congratulation messages. What a moment!

I am often not found among those congratulating people for their “blessings”, I might just be jealousy.
You see, I know people whose family finances became a mess and their marriages affected badly as a result of “buying” a new car. It is also a fact that every day hundreds of cars are getting repossessed.
Instead of congratulating people for the new “blessings”, let’s congratulate them for getting finance approved, not for the cars they don’t own yet.

By the way, if you want to buy me a car, (I said “if”) I will only accept it when you bring the car and registration papers in my name. Don’t try to impress Bishop MJM Ravhengani with a big debt.

My people, let’s wake up, and stop competing on who can get deeper into debt than others, that’s new form of slavery.

The reasons why we can live in adultery and still remain active and “good Christians”.

• We have enough excuses to justify it
• We have killed our consciences
• We are never caught
• The Lord continues to use us in “ministry” in a powerful way
• The Lord continues to “bless” us materially
• “No one” knows what we are up to
• We are trapped: emotional-blackmail, baby-blackmail, etc.