On face value, this headline may seem implausible. Can we indeed pitch Jesus Christ and pastors at different ends of a spectrum? It sounds improbable. But in truth, this is the great reality of the Christianity of our days.
There is a very clear line of demarcation between the Jesus Christ in the Bible, and MORE THAN 90% of the men that profess to represent Him on the pulpit in Nigeria.
As you study the Bible, one of the things that will strike you the most about Jesus is the fact that He is A MAN OF STANDARDS.
Very high standards. And in the matters of the Kingdom of God, and becoming His disciples, His standards are as unwavering as they are, at times, very difficult. So difficult that at a stage, in John 6:66, many of His disciples left, and stopped following Him.
Instead of quickly taking damage control steps to keep the rest of the disciples, look at the vintage Jesus: “Then said Jesus unto the twelve, WILL YE ALSO GO AWAY?” (verse 67).
That is Jesus for you – He did NOT lower God’s standards to accommodate the foibles of men, or to swell the number of His followers.
Rather than take this approach, Jesus REFUSED to lure men into the Kingdom using low standards as a bait. Instead, He set a high standard, and encouraged men to COUNT THE COST of discipleship BEFORE embarking on that journey.
This is the crux of His challenging message in Luke 14:25-35.
God’s standards are so uncompromising that Jesus did not even lower them for a man He loved – the rich, young ruler (Mark 10:17-23). For verse 21 makes it particularly clear that Jesus LOVED the young man.
But when he walked away because He could not fulfil the high standard of denying Himself and carrying his cross to follow Jesus, Jesus DID NOT CALL HIM BACK.
He allowed him to go away! With all the huge wealth the young man possessed, many pastors of today would not have allowed him to go just like that! They would have sought a compromise to avoid losing him.
They might have even given him a leadership position to tie him (and his money) down in the church. But, I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to Jesus.
In setting out the STRICT CRITERIA for those that would follow Him, Jesus listed some high standards, and ended each segment with a phrase that those who do not comply with those standards “… CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE”. We see some of these clear-cut criteria in Luke 14:26,27,33. Luke 9:23 is also instructive in this respect.
That was not all. He also made some very hard figurative prescriptions in relation to how we ought to be earnest (please permit the word ‘DESPERATE’) to enter the kingdom.
The right eye that persistently causes us to sin should be plucked out! (Matthew 5:29) The right hand that will also stand in the way of the Kingdom should be chopped off! (Matthew 5:30). In His teachings and parables, Jesus was clear that a believer CANNOT be materialistic; in Luke 12:33-34, He even encouraged His followers to sell their possessions and give the proceeds away as alms, in a bid to build up their treasure in heaven. Please think about this.
Indeed, Jesus may have been ‘gentle, meek, and mild’ as we usually sing in that song, but in the matters of the standards of the Kingdom, He set the bar high, and urged men to earnestly pursue those standards. Even after His resurrection, He remained very, very firm in His dealings with His Bride, the Church.
Please study how He related with the seven churches in Asia in Revelation 2 and 3. He gave praises where due.
He gave encouragement where necessary. But He was also VERY TOUGH where He noticed compromise among His people.
He threatened to take away the lampstand of the Ephesian church – unless they repented (Revelation 2:5). This would have thrown the church into darkness and into eventual oblivion. He threatened to vomit out the lukewarm Laodicean church (Revelation 3:16). When vomited out, the church would have perished outside Him.
There were more of such stern corrective measures as Jesus examined the churches. He made it VERY CLEAR to all the seven churches that His heavenly rewards were for ONLY overcomers in the church.
With our background knowledge of how the five foolish virgins were locked out of the banquet in Matthew 25:11-12, and how their pleas for mercy were ignored, it is easy for us to know that Jesus would DO EXACTLY AS HE SAYS.
Now, let’s be clear. Jesus is NOT a mean man. He is the ever-compassionate, loving, merciful Shepherd that came to suffer so that we may reign. He went into darkness so that we may live in abundant light. He became poor to give us eternal wealth.
Not only that. He is always willing to help our infirmities when we call out to Him. Till today, Jesus is making endless intercession for us at the right hand of the Father (Romans 8:34).
So His unfailing love and sacrifice for us can NEVER, EVER be questioned. He is LOVE personified. But in the matters of God’s ways and God’s standards, Jesus does NOT compromise.
When we are outside the Kingdom, the love of God will woo us to come into the fold. And when we enter the fold, that same love of God will constrain us to relentlessly strive to meet the high standard of our calling (1 Thessalonians 2:12). The best example of this is the woman that was caught in adultery. Her sordid past was completely irrelevant to Jesus.
He saved her from the law and from her accusers. And when the accusers had been dispersed, His charge to her was clear: GO, AND SIN NO MORE. That is how God works with His people.
Mercy will find us, the righteousness of God will set the standard, and the grace of God will be freely available in us to meet those high standards. For it is God that works in us, both to will, and to do His good pleasure (Philippians 2:13).
One of the reasons that God does not compromise on His standards is because the way to eternal life can ONLY be lived and sustained in the path of the cross of Christ. THERE IS NO OTHER WAY.
And so, this standard cannot be compromised. And WILL NEVER be compromised. The way of the cross is A LIFE THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN LIVED by Jesus Christ.
God is NOT calling us to live a new, hard life that is difficult. He is calling us to live a life that another Man has ALREADY lived – the Man Jesus Christ. So we are just called to enter into His finished work.
But the only way to enter that work is the way of the cross. The way of death. The way of a man presenting Himself as a living sacrifice to God (Romans 12:1).
Positionally, God did this for all believers in Romans 6:3-4; but we must work this out by offering ourselves to God as a living sacrifice.
A living sacrifice has no control over his life or over his destiny. He is as good as completely dead. Galatians 2:20 tells us, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; YET NOT I, BUT CHRIST….” A man that is not dead like this, a man that is not living daily in the reality of that death can NEVER abide in Christ Jesus. For there is no other way to get into Christ apart from this way of death.
It is the way of death that paves the way for fruitfulness. For unless a grain of wheat falls down and dies, it abides alone, but when it dies it brings forth much fruit (John 12:24).
And it is ONLY in this fruitfulness that a man is allowed to CONTINUE TO ABIDE as a branch in the vine (John 15:2,6). Otherwise, he is soon chopped off and left to wither, preparatory to being burned (verse 6).
This is the high standard that the Gospel sets for ANY MAN (Luke 9:23) that wants to come into Christ and abide in Him until the end. It is a high standard because it involves death. It involves ALL that a man is. And it involves ALL that a man has.
This is God’s standard. And it is the ONLY standard in the Christian faith. ALL the TRUE blessings that God has in store for every disciple are completely embedded in this standard, available through grace.
But UNFORTUNATELY, today, this lofty standard has been largely CAST ASIDE in the desire of ‘men of God’ to populate their churches and swell their bank accounts to build large cathedrals, build universities, and other physical projects as conceived by General Overseers.
Believers are lured into the fold with all sorts of fake promises of how God will make them rich, healthy, problem-free, famous, comfortable, powerful, etc. And so, many eager believers, looking for solutions to the problems of life, come into the fold AS THEY ARE. And sadly, after coming in as they are, they often remain AS THEY ARE for several years – with just a few religious, cosmetic changes that are designed to give a veneer of righteousness and spirituality.
In remaining AS THEY ARE, such men soon become religious artefacts in the pews, from where they are soon promoted to become pastors that will lead God’s people. Such people are barely ever confronted with the cross, and with the death that the cross involves.
The introduction of the cross into the life of a believer will INEVITABLY lead to pain, suffering, shame, persecution, etc. As these ‘negative’ elements will barely attract people into a church, or keep them there donating money happily, most churches have now buried the concept of the cross.
They only resurrect it once in a while in a sermon to pay lip service to it – in the bid to fulfil all righteousness. The cross is no longer at the heart of the message of discipleship in the church.
What is the effect of all these? In our fun-filled, happy-go-lucky churches today, believers can follow Jesus Christ WITHOUT denying themselves and carrying their cross daily. Believers can become disciples of Jesus and still dictate the general direction of their own lives.
And in this state of self-delusion, many are still full of the fake hope of reigning with Jesus Christ in eternity!!! In their land of deception, they do not have to be strangers and pilgrims on earth, they can be citizens and owners on earth. In other words, they can have the best in this life, AND also have the best in the world to come!
Now let us get to the crux of the matter. How did believers come about this fake concept of Christianity? Obviously, they got it through the ministry and FALSE TEACHINGS of their pastors! Unlike the ‘hard’ Jesus, their pastors barely urge them to suffer on earth with a view to reigning with Christ in eternity (2 Timothy 2:12, Acts 14:22). Unlike the ‘hard’ Jesus, their pastors barely remind them that they may need to pluck out an eye, or chop off a hand that will persistently jeopardise their chances of entering the Kingdom (Matthew 18:8-9).
Unlike the ‘hard’ Jesus, their pastors barely remind them that following Christ may OFTEN put a believer in the position of shame and embarrassment (Mark 8:38, 2 Timothy 1:8).
In other words, the pastors have ‘kindly’ removed all the thorns in the crown of the Gospel, and all a believer has to do is to enjoy the blessings of a comfortable crown on earth.
Most of the challenges that are imperative in the Gospel of Christ have been dismantled by pastors to make the congregation happy and comfortable, and to keep them coming back with tithes and various forms of offerings.
This is how many pastors have stolen the hearts of the people of God (Acts 20:30) and are leading many, many believers straight into hell fire! For Jesus said when the blind leads the blind, BOTH shall fall into a ditch (Matthew 15:14). There is no divine safety net for a blind follower that elects to happily follow a blind leader.
As the leaders face the ‘depart-from-me’ judgment in Matthew 7:22-23, the deceived followers will not be far behind them in the journey to hell fire. For God CANNOT be mocked (Galatians 6:7).
Today, many pastors are mocking God by trading with the blood that Jesus shed in GREAT AGONY at Gethsemane. And many believers are mocking God by CHOOSING to believe those lies. Let’s be clear on this: believing the falsehood of pastors IS A MATTER OF CHOICE - because the truth is not completely hidden.
It is available in the Bible that we all carry to church on Sunday, but barely bother to study in great details on our knees with the help of the Holy Spirit that is on earth to lead us into all truth (1 John 2:27).
The way many believers mock God today is to prefer the words of fake ‘men of God’ to the testimony of Christ in the Scriptures. But God CANNOT be mocked.
The man that attempts to mock God, both leaders and followers, mocks himself. For the day of reckoning is fast approaching. And as those days approach, here are the words of the Lord: “He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be” (Revelation 22:11-12).
Jesus Christ is at the door. Please let us renounce the FALSE GOSPEL of the FALSE PASTORS in the FALSE CHURCHES that abound in our days. Let us return to Jesus Christ, and to the narrow way that leads to eternal life. As Jesus Himself said, only A FEW will find this way (Matthew 7:14). Please be among this few, for the day of reckoning is at hand. God’s grace is freely available to help the willing and humble heart – just reach out for His help TODAY.
Thanks for reading, God bless you.
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