wintan

This is the question that splits rooms. One side preaches wealth as proof of faith. The other preaches poverty as proof of holiness. Both are reading half a Bible.

Here is the whole one.

𝗚𝗼𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁 𝘄𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵. Abraham was "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." Genesis 13:2. Job was the greatest of all the men of the east, and after his trial God doubled it. David left Solomon a treasury that built the Temple. Lydia funded the first church in Europe. Joseph of Arimathea, a rich man, gave Jesus His tomb. Wealth in righteous hands is a kingdom instrument.

𝗚𝗼𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝘁. "They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare." 1 Timothy 6:9. Will be. The verb is desire. Not those who become rich, those who are set on it. The rich young ruler was not condemned for his gold. He was condemned for his grip. He walked away sad because the money owned him, not the other way round.

So the honest answer is this: 𝗛𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗳𝘂𝗹, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲. Wealth is frequently a result. It is never the goal. "Seek ye first the kingdom… and all these things shall be added." Matthew 6:33. Order, not exclusion. The things are added. They are not sought.

Paul's instruction to those who already have money is the most balanced sentence on the subject. "Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute." 1 Timothy 6:17-18

Enjoy it. Don't trust it. Distribute it. That is the whole theology of money in one breath.

And a warning from Abraham that most prosperity teaching skips. When the king of Sodom offered him the spoils of war, he refused: "lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich." Genesis 14:23. Not all increase is clean increase. Some money comes with a sponsor you do not want.

So, should you want to be rich?

Want to be faithful. Want to be excellent. Want to be generous. If wealth comes, hold it with open hands and let it flow. If it doesn't, you have lost nothing that was ever the point.

The barn-builder in Luke 12 was not a fool because he was rich. He was a fool because God was not in the plans.

Be rich toward God. Everything else is a detail.

#InNotOf #Faith #Money #Stewardship

Paul, who wrote half the New Testament, said something most of us would never say about ourselves.
"I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." 1 Corinthians 9:27
Keep under. The Greek is a boxing word, to strike beneath the eye. Paul disciplined his body like an athlete in training, and his reason was not fitness. It was finishing. He was afraid of preaching to others and being disqualified himself.
The body is not neutral. It has appetites, and appetites vote. Hunger, sleep, comfort, pleasure, ease. Left ungoverned they do not stay in their lane. They become the lane. "Whose God is their belly." Philippians 3:19
𝗔 𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗻𝗼𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗴𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻.
That is why fasting exists. Not to earn anything. To remind the body who is in charge. A man who cannot say no to a meal will struggle to say no to anything.
History agrees. John Wesley rode roughly a quarter of a million miles on horseback and preached into his late eighties, and he was precise about his sleep, his food and his hours, because he knew the body was the horse that carried the message. Daniel's diet in Babylon was discipline before it was devotion.
Now the balance. This is not vanity and it is not punishment. Paul also said "bodily exercise profiteth little" compared to godliness. 1 Timothy 4:8. Little, not nothing. The body is the servant, not the master, and also not the enemy. You govern it the way a good king governs a province: firmly, kindly, for the sake of the whole kingdom.
𝗦𝗼, 𝗽𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆.
Move it. Walk, lift, run, something, most days. A sedentary body dulls a praying mind.
Feed it like it belongs to Someone else. Because it does.
Fast sometimes. Let the body hear "no" from you before it hears it from a doctor.
Rest it. We covered sleep. It still applies.
The goal is not a body you can show. It is a body that will carry you to the finish line without becoming the reason you fall off before it.
Bring it under. Then run.(I am guilty of a few and my heart is pricked just like yours might be) 
#TheWholeMan #Faith #Discipline #Health

Some of us were taught, quietly, that ambition is carnal. That wanting to be excellent is pride in a suit. That the humble thing is to stay small and let the world have the top.
Scripture never taught that. We did.
"Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men." Proverbs 22:29. God wrote diligence into the path to the palace. Excellence is not a worldly value we borrowed. It is a kingdom value the world copied.
Look at the record.
Daniel was not merely faithful in Babylon. He was "ten times better" than every expert in the empire. Daniel 1:20. Joseph was not just a good slave. He was the best administrator in Potiphar's house, then in the prison, then in Egypt. Bezalel was filled with the Spirit specifically to be the finest craftsman in Israel. Exodus 31:3
None of them aimed low to look holy.
𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗼𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆. It is poor stewardship wearing humility's clothes. The servant who buried his talent and gave back exactly what he received was not praised for being modest. He was called wicked. Matthew 25:26
So yes. Aspire. Be the best in the room. Learn more than your peers. Ship better work. Take the hard problems nobody wants.
But watch the motive, because the same verse that sends you to kings can send you to idols.
𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 says: He gave me this, I will return it multiplied. 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 says: I will be seen, I will be first, I will be enough. Same output. Opposite altar.
The test is simple. When you are the best in the room, who gets the glory? Daniel interpreted the dream and said, "there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets." Daniel 2:28. The excellence pointed up.
Be ten times better. Then point up.
"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord." Colossians 3:23. Heartily does not mean adequately.
#InNotOf #Faith #Excellence #Work

There is a verse I avoided for years because it indicted me.

"It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep." Psalm 127:2

Vain. Rising early, sitting late, eating anxiety for dinner. The psalmist calls it vanity. Not diligence. Not sacrifice. Vanity.

Because the man who cannot sleep is confessing something with his body. He believes the world depends on him. He believes if he stops, it stops. He has quietly taken a job that was never offered to him: holding the universe together overnight.

𝗦𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗚𝗼𝗱 𝗶𝘀 𝗚𝗼𝗱 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁.

"He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep." Psalm 121:4. He doesn't sleep so you can. Every night you close your eyes, you hand the watch back to the One it belongs to. Refuse to sleep, and you are refusing to hand it back.

Jesus slept in a boat in a storm. Mark 4:38. The waves were real. The disciples were terrified. The Son of God was on a cushion. He was not careless. He was trusting. Sleep in a storm is the highest form of faith the body can express.

𝗡𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁.

In our world, sleep is the first thing sacrificed and the last thing confessed. Five hours is a badge. "I'll sleep when I ship." We treat the night as a resource to mine. And then we wonder why the mind is foggy, the temper short, the prayer dry, the body sick by forty.

God built the night into the day. "The evening and the morning were the first day." Genesis 1:5. In His calendar the day starts with rest. You begin by stopping. Work flows out of rest, not the other way round.

𝗦𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗶𝘁.

What are you saying to God when you refuse to sleep?

If the answer is "I don't trust You with this," then the fix is not a better mattress. It is repentance.

Go to bed. On time. As an act of worship. Hand the watch back.

"I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." Psalm 4:8

The beloved sleep. It is a gift. Stop refusing it.

#TheWholeMan #Faith #Rest #Health

Psalm 127:2 names a bread most of us are eating and have never identified.

"It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows."

Bread of sorrows. Not bread that causes sorrow. Bread made of it. Bread whose ingredient is anxiety, whose oven is the arm of flesh, whose baker is the man who believes that if he does not provide for himself, nobody will.

𝗜𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗴𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗺 𝗼𝗳 𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘀𝗵.

"Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm… he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh." Jeremiah 17:5-6. That is the diet of the self-made. He gets the bread. He never gets the satisfaction. He is eating in a desert and cannot see good even when it arrives.

Because here is the law of that bread: 𝗶𝘁 𝗻𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗳𝗶𝗲𝘀. "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not?" Isaiah 55:2. You can earn it, hoard it, multiply it, and the hunger comes back by morning. Nothing in this world was built to fill a man. It was built to point him somewhere.

𝗘𝘀𝗮𝘂 𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗶𝘁.

He came in from the field exhausted and said, "feed me… for I am faint." Genesis 25:30. One bowl of lentils for a birthright. He got the bread. Scripture's verdict: "he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright." He was full for an hour and robbed for eternity. And later, "he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." Hebrews 12:17. Bread of sorrow. Eaten quickly. Wept over for life.

𝗚𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘇𝗶 𝗿𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝘁.

Naaman, healed of leprosy, offered Elisha silver and garments. Elisha refused. The prophet would not let a Syrian general think the grace of God had a price. But his servant Gehazi watched the gift walk away and could not bear it. He ran after the chariot, lied, and collected two talents of silver and two changes of raiment. 2 Kings 5:20-27

He got the bread. He also got the leprosy. "The leprosy of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever." The thing the master refused became the servant's inheritance, with the disease attached. That is what the arm of flesh always delivers: the gift, and the curse under it.

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱.

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Deuteronomy 8:3. Jesus quoted it to the devil while starving. Not "bread is bad." Bread alone. A man who depends totally on bread will die a man of sorrow, because bread was never designed to carry the weight of a soul.

Then He said the thing that ended the argument forever. "I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever." John 6:51

Living bread. The bread of sorrow is dead the moment it is baked; it decays, it is spent, it is gone by tomorrow. His body is living. It feeds and keeps feeding. Israel ate manna in the wilderness and died. "This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die." John 6:50

𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝗚𝗼𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝗰𝗵.

Israel Houghton sang it in "Your Presence Is Heaven": the whole song is one confession, that His presence is the thing, that nothing else on earth was ever going to be enough. That is not a lyric. It is Psalm 16:11 in a melody. "In thy presence is fulness of joy." Fulness. The one word the bread of sorrow can never deliver.

So the audit is short.

What bread are you rising early to bake?
 Is the thing you're exhausted for something He already promised to give His beloved in their sleep?
 Have you, like Esau, traded something eternal for something warm?
 Are you, like Gehazi, running after a gift your Master already refused?

"He giveth his beloved sleep." Psalm 127:2. The beloved do not bake at midnight. They are fed.

Put down the bread of sorrow.

Come and eat.

#Faith #BreadOfLife #Presence #Rest

Nobody falls suddenly. They are supplied.

James laid out the production line two thousand years ago. "Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." James 1:14-15

Read it like a process diagram.

Desire. Then bait. Then conception. Then birth. Then death.

Five stages. The act of sin is stage four. By the time you commit it, the industry has already done eighty percent of its work, quietly, in the dark, while you were not watching your diet.

𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝘀

"Drawn away of his own lust." Not the devil's. His own. The raw material of every fall is already inside the man. The enemy supplies nothing but the bait.

Which means the question is never "how do I resist at stage four?" You will lose at stage four. Everyone does. The question is what you are feeding at stage one.

"They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh." Romans 8:5. Mind is a diet word. Whatever your mind grazes on, your desire grows toward. Feed the flesh for six days and ask the Spirit to win on the seventh. It will not.

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘃𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗲𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲

Paul adds a word James doesn't. "Make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof." Romans 13:14

Provision. Stocking the pantry in advance. The phone in the bedroom. The account not deleted. The friendship you know is a door. The "just to see." Nobody sins at the moment of provision. That is what makes it lethal. You feel innocent while you are arranging the fall.

A man who makes provision has already decided. He is just waiting for his body to catch up.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗹𝗲𝘀𝗵 𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝘅𝗲𝗱

Here is the part religion refuses to accept. "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Romans 8:7

Cannot. Paul does not say the flesh is weak or unruly. He says it is incapable. You cannot train it, discipline it into holiness, or shame it into submission. It has no mode in which it obeys God.

So God did not reform it. He crucified it. "Our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed." Romans 6:6

Your job is not to improve the old man. It is to stop feeding a corpse. "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin." Romans 6:11. Reckon. Count it so. Daily. Not because you feel dead but because He said it is finished.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻

There is a second production line, and it runs on the same logic.

Feed the Spirit. Then mind the Spirit. Then walk in the Spirit. Then "ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." Galatians 5:16

Notice the order. Walking in the Spirit is not what you do after beating the flesh. It is how the flesh gets beaten. The victory is a by-product of the diet.

"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength… to still the enemy." Psalm 8:2. The strength is in the one still feeding. Nobody graduates from the breast. The day you think you have, the first supply chain resumes.

𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗹𝘆, 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻

Starve stage one. Guard your mind's diet.
 Refuse stage two. Make no provision. Delete, close, leave.
 Reckon daily. The old man is dead; stop feeding him.
 Feed the other chain. Word, prayer, fellowship, every day, especially the days you feel clean.

A fall is never an event. It is a supply chain that was allowed to run.

Cut the supply.

#Faith #Holiness #Romans #SpiritualDiscipline

Sin is not a list of bad actions. It is an industry.

Paul never speaks of it as a slip. He speaks of it as a power with a payroll. "The wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23. Wages. It employs. It pays. It has a whole body of operations working inside a man: "I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind." Romans 7:23. A law. A system. A supply chain whose only product is death.

And the thing about an industry is that it never sleeps. It doesn't take your rest days off.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗜 𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗽 𝘀𝗲𝗲𝗶𝗻𝗴

When we are young in the faith we fight like soldiers. We fast. We pray at midnight. We listen to messages until the phone dies. We are desperate to be free from the thing that keeps besetting us, and God honours it. The chains fall.

Then something subtle happens. Having been delivered, we want a holiday from the disciplines that delivered us. We ease off the Word. Prayer becomes occasional. Feeding becomes grazing. We call it rest, maturity, balance.

It is like a man who was filthy, had a thorough bath, and now reasons that since he is clean he need not bathe again. He wants the one bath to last forever.

Jesus said the opposite. "He that is washed needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." John 13:10. Once-washed, yes. But feet, daily. The world is dusty and you walk in it. Paul calls it "the washing of water by the word." Ephesians 5:26. Washing, present continuous.

𝗙𝗲𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗳𝗮𝗿𝗲

Here is where Romans is unrelenting. "They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit." Romans 8:5. The battle is not won at the point of temptation. It is won at the point of diet. What you mind is what you are feeding, and what you feed grows.

Victory is not achieved by struggling harder against sin but by living from another Life, and that Life is sustained only by continually drawing on Christ. The flesh cannot be improved. It can only be starved while the Spirit is fed. "Make not provision for the flesh." Romans 13:14. Don't stock its pantry.

And Psalm 8:2 is the hidden key. "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." Strength to silence the enemy is ordained from the mouths of sucklings, the ones still feeding. Not the mature who stopped nursing. The strength is in the mouth that is still at the breast.

Stop sucking, and the avenger speaks again.

𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘀𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗵𝗼𝗹𝘆

This is the part that exposes us. Many people want to be free from sin, but not for God's reasons.

A man will fight masturbation because it is shameful, dirty, something he'd never confess aloud. He'll hate pornography because it makes him feel small. Good. But that same man feels nothing about his pride. Nothing about ambition that quietly dethrones God. Nothing about the gossip, the cutting tongue, the love of money, the unforgiveness towards a brother. Those feel natural. Normal. Sometimes morally respectable.

That is not hatred of sin. That is hatred of shame. He is not offended that sin grieves God. He is offended that it embarrasses him.

True repentance hates sin because of Whom it offends, not because of how it looks. "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned." Psalm 51:4. David's adultery and his murder were equally against God, though one was more scandalous.

𝗡𝗼 𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗺𝗽𝘁

There is no level of growth, no title, no anointing, no years in the faith where the little besetting things cannot trap a man again. "The sin which doth so easily beset us." Hebrews 12:1. Easily. Not for beginners. For runners. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." 1 Corinthians 10:12

The moment the dutiful attention to the soul is taken for granted, the moment feeding stops, the industry resumes production. It never closed. It was only starved.

𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗮𝗶𝗻𝘀?

Only those who take up the discipline of living the life daily, who adopt the culture and the art of purifying themselves unto holiness, maintain a healthy spiritual life. "Every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself." 1 John 3:3. Present tense. A culture, not an event.

Reckon yourself dead to sin daily. Romans 6:11.
 Mind the Spirit daily. Romans 8:5.
 Renew the mind daily. Romans 12:2.
 Make no provision daily. Romans 13:14.
 Wash the feet daily. John 13:10.

You did not bath once. You will not feed once.

The enemy is still waiting for the day you stop sucking.

Don't give him the day.

#Faith #Holiness #Romans #SpiritualDiscipline

Somewhere along the line we absorbed a quiet ranking. Full-time ministry at the top. Everything else a lesser calling you do until God "really" calls you.
So the moment a believer gets serious, the first question is: should I resign?
Let me put that against the record.
Nehemiah was cupbearer to the king of Persia. When the burden for Jerusalem came, he did not quit. He asked for leave, letters and timber, rebuilt a wall in fifty-two days, and went back to his post. Nehemiah 2:5-6. The civil servant stayed a civil servant.
Joseph never built a temple. He ran Egypt's agriculture and treasury, and the phrase "the Lord was with Joseph" appears more about him than almost anyone in Genesis. His office was his altar.
Daniel served four kings in two empires and died in government.
Luke stayed a physician. Lydia kept selling purple. Paul kept making tents, and he was an apostle.
Amos said it plainly when the priest told him to go prophesy elsewhere: "I was no prophet… but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit." Amos 7:14. God took a farmer and spoke through him without ever changing his trade.
Now the balance, because some were called out. Elisha left the plough. Peter left the nets. Matthew left the booth. Those calls are real, specific and unmistakable. If He calls you out, go.
But notice two things.
𝗡𝗼𝘁 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝗱𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀. God interrupted men in the middle of faithful work.
𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆. For every Peter there were thousands of believers in Acts who stayed merchants, soldiers, jailers, tentmakers, and turned the world upside down from inside their trades.
Paul's rule for the rest of us: "Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called." 1 Corinthians 7:20. Wherein he was called. The place you were standing when He found you is not an accident. It is the assignment.
Walking with God is not a career change. It is a change of Master inside the same career. Same desk, new Lord. Same code, new purpose. Same clients, new witness.
If He moves you, move. Until then, the holiest thing you can do is the job in front of you, with Him.
#InNotOf #Faith #Work #Calling

Let me start with the body, because nobody in our industry wants to.
We treat it as the thing that carries the brain to the desk. Sit fourteen hours. Sleep five. Eat whatever is closest. Coffee for breakfast, deadline for lunch. Then we wonder why the mind that lives in it is foggy, irritable and anxious by Thursday.
Scripture does not share our contempt for the body.
"Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you… and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Read the ownership language. Not your own. Bought. The body is leased property with a Tenant who expects it maintained.
𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗚𝗼𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗲𝘅𝗵𝗮𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝘀 𝗽𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗛𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹.
Elijah, after the greatest day of his ministry, fire from heaven, four hundred prophets defeated, ran into the desert and asked to die. 1 Kings 19:4. Classic burnout: a crash right after a peak.
Watch God's response. No rebuke. No sermon. An angel touched him and said, "Arise and eat." He slept. He ate again. He slept again. Only after sleep and food, twice, did God speak to him in the still small voice.
God fixed the body first. The theology came after breakfast.
Jesus Himself slept in a boat in a storm. Mark 4:38. The man carrying the weight of the world's salvation took a nap. Sleep was not a failure of faith. It was an expression of it. "He giveth his beloved sleep." Psalm 127:2
Paul, no softie, said, "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection." 1 Corinthians 9:27. Discipline, not vanity. The man who wrote half the New Testament trained like an athlete.
So here is the diagnostic. Not for the gym bros. For the builders.
Would your body say you have been faithful with it?
When did you last sleep seven hours, three nights in a row? When did you last walk without a podcast? When did you last eat something that grew in the ground?
The body you neglect for the mission is the only vehicle the mission has. Run it into the ground and the mission stops with it.
Steward the temple. The Tenant is watching.
#TheWholeMan #Faith #Health #Stewardship

Let me start with the body, because nobody in our industry wants to.
We treat it as the thing that carries the brain to the desk. Sit fourteen hours. Sleep five. Eat whatever is closest. Coffee for breakfast, deadline for lunch. Then we wonder why the mind that lives in it is foggy, irritable and anxious by Thursday.
Scripture does not share our contempt for the body.
"Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you… and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." 1 Corinthians 6:19-20
Read the ownership language. Not your own. Bought. The body is leased property with a Tenant who expects it maintained.
𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗚𝗼𝗱 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗲𝘅𝗵𝗮𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗮𝘀 𝗽𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗛𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝘀 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹.
Elijah, after the greatest day of his ministry, fire from heaven, four hundred prophets defeated, ran into the desert and asked to die. 1 Kings 19:4. Classic burnout: a crash right after a peak.
Watch God's response. No rebuke. No sermon. An angel touched him and said, "Arise and eat." He slept. He ate again. He slept again. Only after sleep and food, twice, did God speak to him in the still small voice.
God fixed the body first. The theology came after breakfast.
Jesus Himself slept in a boat in a storm. Mark 4:38. The man carrying the weight of the world's salvation took a nap. Sleep was not a failure of faith. It was an expression of it. "He giveth his beloved sleep." Psalm 127:2
Paul, no softie, said, "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection." 1 Corinthians 9:27. Discipline, not vanity. The man who wrote half the New Testament trained like an athlete.
So here is the diagnostic. Not for the gym bros. For the builders.
Would your body say you have been faithful with it?
When did you last sleep seven hours, three nights in a row? When did you last walk without a podcast? When did you last eat something that grew in the ground?
The body you neglect for the mission is the only vehicle the mission has. Run it into the ground and the mission stops with it.
Steward the temple. The Tenant is watching.
#TheWholeMan #Faith #Health #Stewardship

There is a quiet danger that follows gifted people everywhere they go.

Not pride. Not greed. Something subtler.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

When a man is brilliant at one thing, people stop checking the rest. The exceptional engineer is assumed to be an exceptional husband. The founder who closed the round is assumed to have his soul in order. The one with scriptural utterance, who can open the Word until a room weeps, is assumed to be whole in private. The wealthy are assumed to be wise.

Nobody decides this. It just happens. The gift builds a fence, and the fence says: this one is fine.

And here is the tragedy. The gifted man eventually believes the fence too.

Scripture is honest about this in a way we rarely are.

Samson had strength no man alive could match. Everyone saw the lion torn, the gates carried, the thousand slain. Nobody asked about his appetite. The fence held until a woman found the gap, and the strongest man in Israel woke up blind and grinding grain.

Uzziah reigned fifty-two years. Built towers, raised an army, prospered until "he was strong." Then the text says, "when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction." 2 Chronicles 26:16. He walked into the Temple to burn incense, a thing no king was permitted, and walked out a leper. His strength was the fence. The surprise came from inside it.

Even Peter. Walked on water. Caught the revelation "thou art the Christ." Jesus looked at him and said, "Satan hath desired to have you." The disciple with the boldest gift had the least guarded heart, and he did not know it until a rooster crowed.

The natural world says the same thing.

Every few years a company that could not fail, fails. The engineering was flawless. The balance sheet was celebrated. And underneath, a culture nobody audited because the numbers were too good. The strength bought silence. The silence bought the collapse.

In medicine they call it the halo effect: competence in one area makes observers assume competence in all. In aviation they learned the hard way that senior pilots were crashing planes because junior officers wouldn't question them. Crew Resource Management exists because experience had become a fence.

𝗦𝗼 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗼?

It removes the questions. Nobody asks the gifted man how he is actually doing. They ask what he is building next.

It removes the correction. Who corrects the one everyone learns from?

It removes the mirror. Praise is a poor mirror. It shows you the gift and hides the man.

And then, years later, the surprise. The resignation. The affair. The breakdown. The quiet exit from the faith. Everyone says, "I never saw it coming." Nobody saw it because the fence was built precisely to stop people looking.

𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵.

Paul, with more revelation than any man alive, said of himself: "lest I should be exalted above measure, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh." 2 Corinthians 12:7. God built a gap in Paul's fence on purpose. A weakness he could not hide, so that he would never be assumed perfect, least of all by himself.

If you are gifted, you need a gap in the fence.

Someone who is not impressed by you. Someone with permission to ask about your marriage, your body, your prayer life, your money, and to be told the truth. David had Nathan. The king who could do no wrong had one man who could say, "Thou art the man."

Because your gift will never protect your heart. It will only hide it.

"Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." 1 Corinthians 10:12

The surprise down the line is never really a surprise. It is a fence, finally giving way.

Build the gap now, while you still choose where it goes.

#TheWholeMan #Faith #Leadership #Humility

A new series, running alongside In, Not Of. This one is personal.

I know a lot of brilliant people in tech. Deep, serious, world-class in their domain. And I've watched too many of them be world-class in exactly one domain while everything else quietly fell apart. Body. Marriage. Friendships. Soul.

Nobody plans that. It happens because we only measure what we're good at.

So I went looking for a scorecard. I found one in a single sentence about Jesus.

"And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." Luke 2:52

That is the only verse we have about eighteen years of His life. Twelve to thirty. And it says He grew on four axes at once.

Wisdom. The mind. Knowledge, judgment, skill, understanding.

Stature. Primarily this is spiritual maturity, the measure of a man, the same word Paul uses for "the stature of the fulness of Christ." But it showed in the physical too. You cannot be a weakling and be a carpenter in Nazareth. He lifted beams, carried timber, worked stone. And years later that same body bore thirty-nine stripes and still carried a cross up a hill. The Lamb that was offered was a healthy Lamb. Inner stature produced outer strength, and both were part of His growth.

Favour with God. The spirit. Communion, obedience, intimacy with the Father.

Favour with man. Relationships. Family, friends, community, the people who actually knew Him.

Four dimensions. And the Son of God grew in all four at the same time, for eighteen years, before He ever preached a sermon.

Now hold that against the way most of us live.

We grow in wisdom, our craft, our stack, our domain, and call it growth. But stature is neglected, inside and out. God gets the leftovers. The people closest to us get the tired version. One axis at 95. Three in the red. And the one at 95 is what everyone congratulates us for.

Here is the uncomfortable truth. A man who is brilliant in one dimension and bankrupt in three is not a successful man with some weaknesses. He is an unbalanced man with one strength. Those are different things.

"What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" Matthew 16:26. The gain is real. The loss is bigger.

Let me be clear about what this series is not. It's not a call to be mediocre at your work so you can be average everywhere. Jesus was not average. He was the finest carpenter in Nazareth, the finest Son in Israel, and the finest friend those twelve men ever had.

It is a call to stop grading yourself on one subject.

So here is the scorecard. Four lines. Be honest.

Mind: am I growing, or just busy?
Stature: am I maturing inside, and would my body say I've been faithful with it?
God: is He getting my first hour or my last?
People: do the people closest to me get the best of me, or what's left?

Over the coming weeks I'll take each one apart, with Scripture and with men who got it right and men who didn't.

Jesus increased in all four. So can you.

Wholeness is not a luxury for people with time. It is the shape of a life God can trust.

#TheWholeMan #Faith #Wellbeing #Leadership

Let me start with an observation that rearranged something in me.

Moses met God while tending sheep. Exodus 3:1. Not in a tabernacle. There was no tabernacle yet. He was at work, on the back side of the desert, doing his father-in-law's job, when the bush caught fire.

Gideon was threshing wheat when the angel sat down under the oak. Judges 6:11. Mid-shift.

Elisha was ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen when Elijah threw the mantle over him. 1 Kings 19:19. He was the twelfth man in a line of farmhands.

David was in the field with the sheep when Samuel came to anoint a king. His father didn't even think to call him in. 1 Samuel 16:11

Amos was a herdsman. Peter, Andrew, James and John were cleaning nets. Matthew was sitting at his tax booth, in the middle of a transaction, when Jesus said "follow me."

Go through the whole book and count. The burning bush is almost never in a sanctuary. It is in the workplace.

Now think about what we have done with that.

We built a wall. On one side, "ministry," where God lives and real spiritual work happens. On the other side, "secular," where we earn money and wait for Sunday. We taught ourselves that God is most present in the one place where, historically, He most rarely showed up for the first time.

The word secular is not in the Bible. It was never God's category. He made the dirt and called it good. He made man a gardener before He made him a worshipper, and the garden was the worship.

So when Paul wrote "whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord," Colossians 3:23, he was writing to slaves. Not ministers. People scrubbing floors and carrying water for masters who did not know God. And he told them that work was unto the Lord. Not a distraction from worship. The place of it.

Your spreadsheet is a field. Your codebase is a field. Your clinic, your classroom, your shop, your kitchen. The question was never whether God can be pleased there. The question is whether you expect Him there.

Because the men who met Him at work had one thing in common. They were faithful in the thing in front of them before the fire came. Moses kept the sheep. Gideon kept threshing. David kept watching. God does not interrupt idlers. He interrupts the diligent.

Tend what is in your hand. Keep your eyes open.

The bush could catch fire today, right where you're standing.

#InNotOf #Faith #Work #Kingdom

I've been thinking about lineage.

The Lord does not plant individuals. He plants lineages.

He never introduced Himself as the God of Abraham alone. He said, "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob." Three generations in one name. A promise is not proven in the one who receives it. It is proven in the one who inherits it.

Moses parted the sea, but Joshua crossed the Jordan. Elijah called down fire, but Elisha did twice the miracles. David built the kingdom, but Solomon built the house. Paul planted everywhere, yet wrote to Timothy, "my dearly beloved son," because what outlives an apostle is a son who caught the spirit.

This is not only a Bible pattern. It is how creation moves forward.

Humphry Davy was already a great chemist when a bookbinder's apprentice named Michael Faraday wrote asking for a job. Davy took him on. Asked later what his greatest discovery was, Davy is said to have answered: "Michael Faraday."

Johan Cruyff coached a skinny midfielder named Pep Guardiola. Cruyff is gone, but his football is still playing.

Fatherhood was never only biological. It is a transfer of spirit.

And the design does not end here. Even in the forever there are canopy levels. "One star differeth from another star in glory." 1 Corinthians 15:41. Heaven is layered, not flat. God is not against height. He is against height without lineage.

So life needs two kinds of relationships.

Horizontal: brothers and sisters, iron sharpening iron.

Vertical: someone above you whose voice carries weight, and someone below you into whom you are pouring. A man with only horizontal relationships is a plateau. A man with only vertical ones is a pole. God builds trees.

"Though ye have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers." 1 Corinthians 4:15. Instructors are plentiful. Fathers are rare.

That is why I fear what my industry is doing right now. Companies are quietly deleting junior roles. Let the tools do the junior work, keep the seniors. It sounds efficient. It is a lineage ending in one generation.

Because the son does not only need the father. The father needs the son. Nobody becomes a father with no one to father. Cut the bottom of the tree and you have not saved the tree. You have dated its death.

The future is only secured where progeny is sustained.

That is the gospel in one line. The Father sent the Son. The Son, "the firstborn among many brethren," brings sons and daughters to glory and is "not ashamed to call them brethren." Hebrews 2:11

Find someone to learn from. Find someone to pour into. Be a son. Become a father.

Whatever you build, build it with a successor in the room.

#Faith #Leadership #Mentorship #Lineage

If you grew up in Nigeria in the late 90s and early 2000s, you remember the water crusades. Bottles lifted in the air by the thousands. Buckets, sachets, kegs. Rivers where people queued at dawn. Testimonies the following Sunday.

To be honest, those years made me question a lot. Not God. Us. Something in me couldn't settle. Why water? Why this particular water? What exactly were we holding up?

Then the book I'm reading listed who else has holy water. Hinduism. Sikhism. Buddhism. Shinto. Judaism. Rome. The Orthodox. The Lakota, the Maya, the Māori, the Yorùbá, the Akan.

Everybody has magic water.

And that was when something clicked. The water was never the point. It was a confession. Every bowl at every shrine is a people saying, "we are thirsty for something we cannot name."

Coming back to the scriptures with that question, I noticed a pattern that runs through the whole Bible: men latch on to a symbol faster than they seek the reality the symbol points to.

Moses lifted a bronze serpent and the people were healed. Seven hundred years later Hezekiah had to smash it, because Israel was burning incense to it. 2 Kings 18:4. The sign had become the god.

That is the core of religion. And it is the core of idolatry. Not that we worship nothing, but that we stop at the pointer and never follow it home.

Then I saw John 7.

The Feast of Tabernacles. For seven days a priest carried water from the Pool of Siloam and poured it beside the altar while the crowd sang, "with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." Seven days of holy water. A prayer for the Spirit the prophets promised.

And on the last and greatest day, at the ritual's climax, a carpenter from Nazareth stood up and cried out:

"If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, rivers of living water will flow from within him." John 7:37-38

He waited until the water was being poured. Then He said: everything this has pointed at for centuries is standing in front of you.

"A shadow of the things to come; the reality is found in Christ." Colossians 2:17

A shadow can tell you something is coming. It cannot quench your thirst.

And notice what He promised. Not water carried from someone else's well and poured on you at a crusade. A spring. From within. "By this He meant the Spirit." John 7:39

So the question for all of us, whatever bottle we once lifted:

Have you been sprinkled, or have you been filled?

Holy water can't heal this. He can.

Come to the Fountain, not the shadow of it.

#BeyondWorldReligions #Faith #Jesus #LivingWater

How does a man who is easily offended become quite peaceable?
How does a man who is prone to speaking hurtful words become one who speaks gracious and uplifting words?
How does a man who once struggled with anger, pride, impatience, or selfishness become gentle, patient, and full of love?

First, he believes that he can change because Christ has made provision for his transformation. He must first believe that he is not condemned to remain the way he is. In Christ, he has become a new creation:

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” — 2 Corinthians 5:17

The new birth gives him a new life, but he must yield himself to the work of the Holy Spirit. Transformation comes as his mind is renewed by the Word of God:

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” — Romans 12:2

So, the easily offended man begins to learn how to bear with others and forgive:

“Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another…” — Colossians 3:13

The man who once spoke hurtful words learns to submit his tongue to the government of the Spirit:

“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying…” — Ephesians 4:29

The angry man learns that God’s way is not to give free expression to his anger:

“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.” — James 1:19

And the man who once reacted according to his flesh learns to walk in the Spirit:

“This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” — Galatians 5:16

But believing he can change is only the beginning. He must submit himself to the dealings of God. He allows the Word to expose what is wrong in him, and rather than defend himself, he receives correction and yields to the Holy Spirit.

A man changes when he stops merely trying to appear better and begins to allow Christ to be formed in him:

“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you.” — Galatians 4:19

This transformation happens little by little, through obedience, choosing the way of Christ even when the flesh wants its own way.

Ultimately, a man changes as he continually beholds Christ, receives His Word, and cooperates with the work of the Holy Spirit:

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image…” — 2 Corinthians 3:18

The goal is not simply to become a “better person.” The goal is that Christ is formed in the man, until his words, reactions, relationships, and decisions begin to reveal the nature of the One who lives in him.

“For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” — Philippians 2:13

A man begins to change when he believes God can change him, submits to God’s dealings, renews his mind with the Word, walks in the Spirit, and continually beholds Christ. The life of Christ in him will eventually become evident in the character he expresses.