THOSE THREE BOYS........

Bible scholars actually engaged in a really painstaking mental ‘torture’ to calculate that it was about 600 years before our Lord and Master was born that King Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem and took captive many of Israel’s finest citizens and ‘carted’ them to Babylonia. Among these were three young men from the tribe of Judah [four actually, but this article zeroes in on the three].

It is instructive to know that it was God who actually gave Nebuchadnezzar victory over Judah as a result of their outright rejection of His tenets, leading ungodly lives by majority of them etc… God actually permitted him to take some of the sacred items from His temple. Interestingly, Nebuchadnezzar, haven been permitted by the Supreme God to take these priceless items belonging to Him, he in turn placed it in the ‘treasure house’ of his ‘god’.

WHO DO YOU SAY HE IS????

Once upon a time in the Bible, Jesus sought to know what the people he taught thought of Him. He proceeded to enquire from His disciples. Some equated Him to John the Baptist, some said Elijah, and others also mentioned Jeremiah.

John’s bluntness, I believe was the reason for his mention, Elijah because of the ‘humongous’ miracles and the Jeremiah because of his ‘compassion’ [he was nicknamed the ‘Weeping Prophet’].

When Jesus now asked them what they (disciples) personally thought, Simon Peter downloaded ‘divine intelligence’ from above and declared, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God”! (Matt. 16:16)

Although this knowledge was handed down to Peter, I believe it was made possible because of his personal encounter Jesus. When Jesus asked posed the question to them, each began to reminisce what He had done for them throughout their relationship. Peter recalled how Jesus met him crestfallen after toiling all night on the high sea without any catch to show for it. He remembered how in his lethargy and frustration, but at His word, he let down his net and hurray!, what seemed to have been a moody night turned out to be the beginning of his surreal association with Jesus.

It was while thinking about this and a thousand-and-one other wonderful things that God ‘connected the dots’ in his mind, and dropped what will eventually be the ‘Rock on which Jesus built His Church’ into his mind.

Brethren, I honestly believe each and every one of us must have a personal encounter or relationship with Jesus in order to answer this question. Let me pose this rhetorical question and try to answer it..ironical, isn't it? But I will venture nonetheless; How will you be able to tell someone about me when we haven’t acquainted? Is it possible to say something noteworthy about me? Admittedly, it is, except that your declaration will be based on another’s opinion which may [or may not] be true. 

Lots of people thronged the family house of Komla Dumor, Joy FM and the Accra Press Centre to sign the books of condolence which had been opened at these locations when the senior BBC journalist died of a cardiac arrest in his London home. I heard the morning [and mid-morning] show host[ess] of Joy FM read the tributes of his ‘loved ones’ who had come to the radio station to sign the book of condolence opened there, and I could only wonder how many of these people actually ‘knew’ him for who he really was apart from what Joy FM and subsequently BBC had made him to be. In his funeral brochure, a few of these tributes were captured there, and anyone who cared to read them could easily separate the proverbial ‘wheat from the chaff’. Wheat here represents those who really knew him, and chaff…well…..

The former gave detailed description of their association with him, whiles the ‘not so brown’ gave one, or two-liners as ‘tributes’.

 

My point is simply this; you need to ‘know’ someone for who he/she really is and not just on a ‘face-value’ level in order to tell others when called upon to do so.

Many of us know Jesus for what He has done for us; that well-paying job He gave us, that lucrative deal He helped us close, that malignant tumor He removed from the thyroid and many other wonderfully humongous things He does for us each day. These are fantastic! But hear this: He is more than that! The Good Book calls Him the Bread of Life, the Good Shepherd, the Comforter, the Saviour, ‘the-One-that-takest-away-the-sins-of-the-world’, Emmanuel etc…but above all, the ‘Son of The Living God’! Know Him for you!

Who do you say He is?

HOW FAR ARE YOU WILLING TO GO???

How far are you willing to go? – In your career? In your relationship with that ‘special’ someone you call ‘honey’? But most importantly, I ask this question in relation to your walk with God! When one wants a promotion or a pay rise from his/her employer, that fellow would go all lengths to ‘please’ the supervising officers. This includes, but not limited to working longer hours, offering to get the coffee etc… Similarly, when a 30+ year - old lady wants her boyfriend to consider her as a ‘marriage material’, I’d bet she’d go the extent of tidying the house of her ‘prospective’ in-laws, and perhaps wash for them, pretentiously oblivious of the presence of a house help in the house! Shouldn’t that be the case in our walk with God?

I ask this because most of us Christians seek a ‘reward’ [for lack of a better word] from God for virtually ‘no work’ done – And I literally mean this!Let me digress a little and take us through how Elijah met Elisha, albeit briefly. It was simply divine, in my humble opinion. He didn’t find the latter praying, nor evangelizing, but rather going about his everyday work – ploughing! He then threw his cloak over Elisha’s shoulder and walked away (1 Kings 19:19-21).

Now let me tackle the ‘meat’ of this note. Fast forwarding to 2 Kings 2 when Elijah was taken up to Heaven, it is strikingly evident that he, on three occasions had this to say to Elisha:“Stay here, Elisha; the Lord has sent me to….Bethel, Jericho and Jordan”! And at the utter of each ‘order’, his protégé had this to say: “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” Dare I suggest that if Elisha had been a child, a scolding of sorts wouldn’t have been out of place? But the man stood his grounds and followed his master throughout his journey. Call that positive defiance!

Elisha knew that his mentor was going to be taking up to heaven. At least, his responses to the questions from the school of prophets suggest so. I want to believe that his request from Elijah seemed to have been well-thought through and hatched from the onset. This certainly doesn’t seem to me as an ‘impromptu’ desire. He’d desired it from the commencement of their relationship! So when the time came for Elijah to be lifted up into the skies above, he effortlessly, almost without thinking of the gravity of his desire, muttered: “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,”! Even after Elijah had explained the magnitude of the request and the conditions under which it would be granted, Elisha relented not. He followed until he’d met the conditions set and his request granted! Amazing!

I challenge you, albeit humbly in the Name of Jesus: Never give up in your walk with God! The tribulations will certainly come; the persecutions will come but don’t give up, my friend! PERSEVERE till the crown of life has been given to you as your reward!!!

And so I ask again, how far are you willing to go?