Munashe Soka: December 2016

Wednesday, 28 December 2016

Series: The world’s most pricking message

“What!!!” you might yell at me, “Did you say sin does NOT affect God?” —emphatically yes. Well, these are some of the rarest truths you’ll ever hear being preached. Usually, when we preach about the grace of God, most people, especially preachers, get disturbed. I know why; I was once a ‘victim’ of the grace message; so to say. It sounds like a licence to sin, isn’t it? Nevertheless, it isn’t a license to sin. Rather, the preaching of an unapologetic grace message is an empowerment to right living and not to sinful indulgence.

In this article, of course, my main objective isn’t to give someone freedom to sin but empowerment to live right. Once you get to understand this, sin will lose its grip on you. Before I begin to explain my point, I want this statement to register in you—SIN DOES NOT AFFECT GOD. And don’t quote me wrong, I didn’t even say it affects you either.

The bible says, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1) The meaning of this scripture is very simple to those who have not been blinded by religion. It means that God no longer holds any Christian guilty of any sin because he/she is now in Christ. Because of the fact that you have received Christ as your Lord, God no longer find any cause to condemn you, and that’s now your state till eternity.

There are those who say that the scripture I quoted only applies to Christians who are not living in sin as the ones whom God does not condemn. They say that the next sentence in that verse (which I did not quote) says, “…who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit,” meaning that the evil shunning Christians are the ones who are not condemned, but the sinful Christians are. Okay, to respond to that I can say that the one in Christ is not your physical body or your flesh—it’s your spirit and your spirit will never walk according to the flesh. Whether you sin or not your spirit remains righteous before God. Your spirit is now a part of Christ and Christ is all righteous and all light.

Nonetheless, if you are a good student of the bible you’ll get to understand that that next sentence wasn’t in the original Greek manuscript from which our English bible was translated. It appears that the statement “who walk not according to the flesh….,” was an addition made by the translators and not by Paul himself. My ESV bible has a footnote which says that the earlier manuscript did not include that statement. It was something that was then added later on. If you read most versions, other than the King James, you do not see that statement because it is believed that it was not in the original.

The ones whom God does not condemn are ALL Christians including those who are sinful. Your sins are no longer a factor with God. Sin is something that Christ destroyed on the cross; His blood washed them all away. If sin is still a factor with Him then it means His blood did not completely wipe them. It means His cross still didn’t do quite good. Psalms 103:12 says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”

In Christ you have been made a new creature altogether; you are no longer that same old sinner you used to be. Of course someone may say, “Before I was born again I was a smoke addict and even now that I’m born again I’m still struggling with smoking, how then am I a new creature?”

When the bible says you are now a new creature, it doesn’t refer to your physical body. It is talking about your spirit—the hidden man on the inside. You are a sinless creature on the inside. I want to ask you; before you were born again, was the colour of your skin black or white? And after you were born again was the colour of your skin the same? Of course your answer is yes. Now if that’s so, why then does the bible say, “If any man be in Christ he is a new creature”? (2 Corinthians 5:17)

So it means that your physical condition cannot affect your spiritual condition. The same is true when it comes to physical sins. Physical sins do not affect the condition of your spirit; you’ll still remain righteous. Those who are in Christ, the bible says, cannot be condemned. Again I say; I’m not giving people a license to sin here; I’m empowering you to live right.

There is no Christian who loves to sin. You do not feel good after committing sin. And most Christians are still struggling with sin; some are even addicted to porn, masturbation, lying, gossip, hatred, fornication, adultery, guilt caused by memories of past sins, prostitution, stealing, smoking, drinking, drug abuse and so many. You do not know how to come out of this I know.

Your greatest problem isn’t the sin itself but the guilt. You think, “Ah I have messed it up already. My life isn’t going to be repaired anymore. My past sins are hunting me down. God is mad at me. I’m no better person. I killed, I prostituted, I lost my virginity and I’m less a woman I should be, I’m just not good anymore…”

When you approach God you think He is always holding a whip against you. You think God sees you with less favour than He does that other girl who never slept with a man before marriage. You think God favours you less than that guy who never smoke and drank in all his life.

Let me tell you this: God does not look at us based on our physical condition. God looks at us based on our spiritual condition and our spiritual condition as Christians is just the same—we are all new creatures in Christ and we are the righteousness of God, His own special people, His holy nation, and He cannot condemn us.

From today if you sin just say to that sin, “You unclean thoughts, you bad habit, you lying spirit, you fornication, you masturbating desire;—you have no power over me—the real person on the inside; I have been made the righteousness of God in Christ. You do not have power over me. I refuse to be ruled by you. From now onwards I live and walk in righteousness only because that’s my new nature. God sees a holy person when He looks at me. I’m always living in righteousness. I am the salt of this earth. I have power over every sinful desire in the name of Jesus!”

You see when you begin to talk like this sin will lose its grip on you and your spirit will begin to gain control over your physical life. Look at the following verse and meditate on it:

Romans 6:11-14, “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”

Friday, 23 December 2016

FAITH DOESN’T MOVE GOD

Series: The world’s most pricking message

Authored by: Munashe Soka

“God is moved by faith alone and nothing else; it’s not your fasting. Neither is it your much praying that moves Him. It’s only your faith!”

Well, such statements are very popular in the body of Christ; especially among the ‘faith movement’ believers. I used to believe like this some years back, but when I got to a point where I was discouraged by the poor results that my faith produced I began to review my faith. Through much study of the word of God over a few years I came to a conclusion that faith does NOT move God.

As I studied the word of God I was surprised that nowhere in the bible was it mentioned that faith moves God. There is not even a single verse in the bible that says faith can move God. No! It’s not found in the bible. Someone may think that I’m trying to bring in my new doctrine here or go against what our faith fathers taught us. Our faith fathers (I mean those who pioneered the Modern-day faith movement since the nineteenth century) understood faith for real and they have even contributed to my understanding of what faith is; but when they presented the then ‘new’ doctrine they made statements about faith which, I believe, have been wrongly interpreted by most Christians.

Statements like, “It’s only faith that can move God!” weren’t doctrinally correct, but because they were taking people from extremely wrong religious beliefs, they had to say that. Howbeit, now that the church has been stabilised as far as Christian doctrine is concerned, it’s no more use staying in the babyhood stageof Christianity. It’s now time that we begin to take solid food and not milk.

Most Christians struggle when it comes to faith. It is only because our definition of faith is what is wrong. They think that God is moved by their faith. You hear them say, “But I had too much faith, why didn’t God act in my life? Why didn’t He answer my prayer?” while some say, “God is my witness, He knows that I had too much faith but He didn’t act. Why?”

If you believe like that then it means you don’t yet understand faith. Faith does NOT move God. Now what is faith? Faith isn’t something that you do to make God do something. Faith is something that you do in order to RECEIVE what God has already given you. It receives the healing that God already sent to you when Christ was smitten.

You hear some Christians pray, “God I believe in your word which says, ‘by His stripes you were healed,’ so heal me now!”

What!! Do you listen to your prayer when you pray? The bible says you WERE healed. That means it is something that God has done already and He does not need to do it again. In the eyes of God you have already been healed. He knows that He healed the whole world 2000 years ago through Christ. Now your faith only serves the purpose of receiving that healing. Your faith cannot make Him give because He already gave you that job, that healing, and that marriage beforeyou even had that faith.

In the bible faith is only connected with receiving only; not with making God give or move. Mark 11:24 says “…when you pray BELIEVE that ye RECEIVE…”

Galatians 3:2 says, “…did you RECEIVE the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of FAITH?”

James 1:6-7 says, “…let him ask in FAITH, not wavering. For he who wavers is like a wave of the sea…Let not that man think that he shall RECEIVE anything of the Lord.”

God has already moved with your answer even before you had that faith. He moved 2000 years ago on the cross of Christ and provided everything that you’ll ever pray for. You just need to receive by faith what He has already given. Your faith doesn’t make God move. He moved already. You just have to believe that you have received your answer and begin to act like someone who has received. If you are sick, just begin to do what you could not do before. Don’t wait for God to heal you. He has already healed you. If your answer doesn’t come immediately just continue to say, “I know I have received my answer, thank you Jesus for (name it)!”

Do not quickly lose hope when your answer seems delayed. Faith works hand in hand with patience. I gave a more detailed teaching about this subject in my book, “The Hidden Man of the Heart.” Grab a copy if you need an in depth teaching.

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December 2016

Thursday, 8 December 2016

THE GOD-MAN UNION

“How can Jesus be both God and God’s Son?”—was a question that was posed at me about six years ago. Though I was a strong and well versed believer on the deity of Jesus Christ, what this group of people argued about got me thinking. It made me want to study the bible more concerning the subject of Jesus’ deity. That group wanted to dismiss the fact that Jesus is God. They taught that He is just smaller than God and is a little god.

“Is He God or is He God’s Son?”—the question kept on pondering me. As I continuously contemplated on the issue, the Holy Spirit, who always guides us into all truth, rubbed a certain thought on my spirit, “He is both God and God’s Son.”

I was so excited; I had gotten a revelation. I had been enlightened. “But how is that so, Holy Spirit?”— I wanted some explanation and some scripture verses to support that. Accordingly, I engaged myself into a period where I prayerfully ‘searched the scriptures’ trusting the Holy Spirit would reveal His secrecies. As an answer to my prayer, the unknown truths were revealed; John 1 verses 1 and 14 came to light in the eyes of my spiritual understanding.

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Now the ‘Word’ here is God Himself, right? If you leap over into verse 14 you read, “And the Word (that is, God) became flesh and……we beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten (Son) of God.” John 1:14 (Parenthesis mine)

You see; when God became a man in the person of Jesus, that’s when He became ‘the Son of God’. Jesus Christ is God who made Himself the Son of God. He is both God and God’s Son. Howbeit, in this article my main objective is not to explain the deity of Christ but to show you how you can change your life through this revelation. A more detailed teaching about the deity of Christ is found in my book, “The Three That Are One”.

I want to talk about what I call, “The God-Man Union”. When God became flesh He was made 100% a human being, and while at the same time was 100% God. Him becoming a man was a sign to mankind that God had come to unite with them. God, in the person of Jesus Christ, came to live on earth; and because He was a God-man, He would heal the sick, cast out devils, walk on water, raise the dead, multiply bread, and would speak to the raging wind such that his disciples would ask, “Who is this man?” In other words they said, “What type of a man is this who can function like God?”

Little did the disciples knew that Jesus had come to show and give them a new type of life. Jesus was a man who had the DNA of God in Him. He was a God-man and He wanted that very same life to be in everyone on earth. It’s a pity that most Christians don’t know how to take advantage of this life—the God kind of life. They still like to live the ordinary life they received from their parents. That’s not God’s will. God wants you to have His life.

This life is in every Christian. Through Christ we have been made superior beings on earth. We should function like God here on earth. It’s about time that we begin to speak to situations to change. It’s about time that we begin to heal the sick, to raise the dead and to perform miracles in our homes and workplaces.

No one should die of HIV if you are there. As a Christian you are a saviour in your own world. You carry God; when you show up solution should show up, hope should show up, life should show up. You are the salt of the earth. Jesus expects you to be doing everything He ever did. You have been made a God-man. You are no more ordinary. Say, “I refuse to be ordinary! I have been created for glory and virtue!”

This world is getting corrupted day by day. Even nature itself is being corrupted; regions that used to yield enough rainfall are now becoming dry lands. In almost the whole world people are unceasingly confessing that things are getting worse by the day; children are becoming wilder.

But the bible says, “The creation is earnestly waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.” (Romans 8:19). The corrupted world is waiting for you sons and daughters of God. It is waiting for you to give it life; to prophecy good to it. When ordinary men of the world are crying and are fearful of the future, don’t cry with them, but rather speak life to them. You are a God-man.

The bible says, “When men are cast down you shall say, ‘there is a lifting up.’” (Job 22:29) You are a God-man and you are supposed to function like God on earth.

God changed my thinking when I got this revelation. It is a life changing revelation and it grows by the day.

It is true—you have been united with God in Christ. You are a god-man on this earth. Begin to shine.