What is a scandal?      

• -Damage to reputation.
• -Disgraceful and discrediting behaviour.
• -Conduct that brings offence.

What is ministry?

• -Unconditional service to God and to people in God’s name.
• -“To serve (God) as a slave”
• -Carrying out the instructions of God with the totality of ones life, as a worship to God.

Perilous times are indeed upon us and as creation winds down, evil and evil deeds pervade our world. The enemy of our souls is using all the artillery he has to try to bring the church to its knees.
As Christians and as soldiers of Christ we are enjoined to fight the good fight of faith, with our loins girded and our swords drawn, donning the full armour of God. We are encouraged, motivated, indeed commanded to fight. We are in battle daily. It is of utmost importance however to identify the enemy and be sure that we are fighting the enemy and not fellow Christians. (“A house divided against itself shall surely fall.”). We are called to stand against the enemy not against one another. We are called to help each other and strengthen one another. 

In these perilous times we need strength, courage, focus, faith, love, unity, etc,  to be able to fight and win. We need the kind of power that is released in unity. We need to stop being an offence to one another, but rather, be a fence and a defence to and for each other in the household of faith. We should understand enough of God’s Word to know that we are cut and called differently. One God, one standard of holiness but different forms of expression. Our orders in Him are not the same, but if these orders are given by the Spirit of The Most High, then we should support and not destroy.

God sits upon the circles of the earth doing as He pleases. He is the owner of the work not us. Christians should not turn up their noses at those going through the processes of their calling. Spiritual things could be very slippery. No one has the corner on God. God still remains a mystery no matter how much spiritual insight He has allowed us. It is arrogance to even begin to think that we know it all simply because all seems to be going good for us.

We react negatively to saints who have peculiar callings, simply because we lack the understanding that is needed to accept and support them as honourable vessels of our God. Our lack of spiritual maturity and spiritual enlightenment does not however invalidate these saints’ walk with God. 

I often wonder what the Church’s reaction to Hosea would have been if he lived in these times. Haha!!! He would have been given ugly and ungodly tags like, “whore-loving brother!” (please excuse their language). God gave Hosea express instructions to go and marry a prostitute and he did. How would his explanation of “God does with me what He desires” had sounded in their ears. He would have been excommunicated from the Church because his choices would have offended the sensitivities of the people. What a scandal! A child of God! A supposed man of God taking a prostitute for a wife! A prostitute?!! Meaning many men had known her intimately, and most of them had even paid to be known? What a scandal!

Christians would have speculated that it was because of his insatiable appetite that he had decided to go for an “experienced” woman. The man was not only a carnal, promiscuous, insatiable man, he was also mad; or how else could one explain his giving his children names like, ”the un-pitied one” and ”you are not my people”? Scandalous! (I wonder what the neighbours called the children?) The ultimate scandal was that the prostitute wife was named “Gomer”. The name Gomer in Hebrew (‘n’ ‘g’ mar) translated to English means, ‘to finish sexually’, that is, ejaculation! Surely God could NEVER be a part of anything so vulgar, so obviously carnal and so SCANDALOUS! God does not malign peoples’ reputations so… or does He???

How would we have received Prophet Ezekiel’s life and ministry if he had dwelt amongst us? He went on a scanty diet of bread cooked over a fire fuelled with cow dung (only because he had dodged the earlier instruction to fuel the fire with human excrement.). One day he woke up in his own house and packed his bags and put a blindfold on and started to dig through the walls of his house… insanity! Another day, he woke up in the morning and told the people his wife would die, and by evening, she was dead. What a scandal! “The mad man is also a murderer”. “Even if God had told him so, did he have to say it out loud? Where was his wisdom?” The body of Christ would have given him a wide berth.

Prophet Isaiah would have been publicly disowned by the Church on national television. Ostracised by the organised body of believers. He was a walking scandal. He walked in public for three years with his buttocks exposed for all to see. What a scandal!

Job was obviously a bad man… or wasn’t he? Those kinds of terrible things don’t happen to people who are walking right with God… or do they? Christians would have said of Job that he just appeared and seemed pious, but… “his heart must be very terrible, he was obviously secretly living in sin.” Bible scholars till today refuse to accept that Job was blameless in this matter, they say of him that “he lived in fear and this was the doorway through which satan came in to plaque him”. What a laugh! God was the doorway though which satan came in! God opened the door to satan! God introduced Job’s matter to satan! God was the one who waved Job in satan’s face! God practically offered Job to satan! Job didn’t do a thing wrong. Even God testified to that. God was just showing off Job’s righteousness. Simple!

Brethren, Gods ways are not our ways, His thoughts are far from ours. In as much as we always claim to know God, God is still a mystery. God will do what He wants to do in the ways in which only He wants them done. Our limited understanding does not have the capacity to grasp God’s ways. God does not answer to us. We should not act like we are holier than The Holy Spirit or more righteous than Jesus. God Almighty, grants us grace to know the parts of Him that He desires for us to know and He expects us to be submitted to His Spirit and humble enough to walk with Him by instruction, accepting the things that we do not understand not maligning them.

God has the same principles for all men, but different patterns. We should not be offended when other people’s life patterns do not look like ours. God used these men mentioned above for His own purposes. He used their lives and destinies as symbols to speak to those who had the ears to listen. These people were powerful and honourable tools in the Hands of God and He used them as it pleased Him. He did with their lives what He desired.

Turn to your neighbour and say, “Neighbour! Don’t be offended by my life, God is just doing with me as He desires. Simple!” –KJO

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