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Kenya UBF
November 21, 2013

Follow Jesus

1 king 18:1-46, Mark 8:27-34

The 2013 Spiritual Revival Conference held on October 18-20 was a very great blessing to the Kenya mission. This conference came at a time when the shepherds in the mission needed spiritual revival. During the period leading up to the conference, it became clear that many of the shepherds were low in spirit. The student members’ low spirit was due to the campus peer pressure. This pressure made it difficult for them to live and grow as Bible teachers. The graduate members’ low spirit was mostly due to struggles of self-supporting and family life.

To encourage all the co-workers to be revived, we focused on two passages: "Remove Baal!" (1King 18:1-46) and "Follow Jesus!" (Mark 8:27-34). To set an example and be a good influence, main messengers and testimony speakers were chosen among fellowship leaders. The 1 King study focused on the removal of all things that compete with God for priority in our lives. Elijah’s clear challenge to people to make up their minds was shared by Shepherd Otieno. In the message, Shepherd Otieno (Emmanuel fellowship leader) challenged all the attendants to make individual decisions and resolutions to follow Jesus by sharing how he suffered from his past wavering spirit between spiritual desires and sexual passions toward a woman. Then, Juma (Faith fellowship leader) shared his past experience of wavering spirit between his human plan and marriage-by-faith issue. Their living testimonies of repentance and restoration filled the hearts of all attendants with laughter and willing acceptance of Elijah's claim, "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him."

The second main message was given by Kevin (Abraham fellowship leader). Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ and based on this confession, Jesus taught them to follow him by denying themselves and taking up their crosses. He challenged the members to have the right view of Jesus as the rejected, suffering, crucified and finally resurrected Christ. With this view they could deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow Jesus as they await the glory that is set before them. Joram (Revival fellowship leader) shared his testimony based on the message. He deeply repented that even though he confessed Jesus as his Christ, in his desire to secure a stable self-supporting life, he did not devote his heart fully to serve God’s sheep.
As part of building up revival spirit all together, we had two special activities: Outdoor games and Romans 8 memory contest. Through outdoor games, all missionaries, graduates and student members joined together for fun and competition, and it helped us to build a strong spiritual bond among us.

In order to help us to follow God in practical life, all attendants were given a chance to memorize the entire chapter of Romans 8 two weeks prior to the conference. And we had a Bible memory contest on the second night. Missionaries presented the entire chapter in teams to show an example. It was wonderful to see all the members including missionaries struggling to memorize and present the passage, and it crowned the reviving spirit of the conference.
After the conference, most of the attendants agreed that though it was a short period and with a humble number of attendants, the conference was pointful with a clear spiritual direction and contained powerful and spiritual events. We thank God who worked powerfully through the 2013 Spiritual Revival Conference to revive his servants. As evidence of God's work in the conference, many of our sisters made up their minds not to be swayed by peer pressure in the campus, and restored their regular Bible studies and worship attendance after the conference. Our leadership team decided that we should have similar leader-focused conferences at least once a year from now on.

One word: Remove Baal, Follow Jesus!

JUMA FUCHINGO-SRC 2013 BIBLE TESTIMONY

1Kg. 18:21 ‘“Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” But the people said nothing.”’

After Ahab became king over Israel, he not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam but he also married Jezebel. Jeroboam having thought that the Israelites could return to their God by going back to Jerusalem, he made two golden calves for them and put one at Dan and another at Bethel so that the people could worship them instead.

Due to this wickedness, the Lord sent his prophet Elijah to declare the impending drought to Ahab. The drought took three years and was severe to Israel. In this way, the Lord wanted them to realize their sins and return to him but still even when Ahab saw Elijah, he called him and said, “Is it you troubler of Israel?” This meant that even with so much suffering, Ahab had never realized that he was the problem but still blamed Elijah.

When Elijah challenged them to prove whose God was the true God, it was very clear that they were all torn between serving the true God and Baal. So Elijah challenged them to decide either to serve Baal or the true God.

From this passage, I am reminded how important my marriage is to God as much as it is to myself. As serious as it may be, it determines how I could serve God in the later days of my life. After my graduation, God blessed me with a stable job and the next thing in human perspective was marriage. At this point, my mind was preoccupied with my own human considerations on how to handle this important stage of my life. First, I wanted to marry a lady who could be the envy of many by all human standards.

I also considered tribal loyalty and contented myself with some and eliminated others depending on cultural compatibility. I went ahead to consider which profession would match my engineering background in order to make a good match. Finally, I too was under pressure from my family and culture and thus I had to consider someone who could perfectly fit into my family according to my own judgment in order to avoid any negative pressure from my family.

So in view of all these, I needed to take my time to establish a relationship in order to be sure of all my concerns. I thought I could be able to observe and make a perfect selection by myself but I have since learned that there can be no perfect partner however much they may look to be except God’s choice for me.

While I was still pondering over my plans, I was challenged by my shepherd to begin praying for my marriage by faith. Marriage by faith meant I just trust God in everything without considering any human criteria. This was the most difficult time for me to have faith rather than what my human eyes and feelings could offer. According to me, I could not be sure that all my requirements could be met just by trusting in God. I asked myself many questions. How could I believe that God could show the best partner for me through prayer or even through his servants? And in any case, why would my marriage be a concern to God or anyone else?

Even though I had burned my Baals during the spiritual revival conference in my first year, I realized that one Baal was still alive in me. And that was my own self. My human centeredness could not allow me to have a hint of letting God take charge of my life direction. I was too sure of myself that I thought God was not important.

So in order to protect my plan, I completely rejected the idea of marriage by faith and hurriedly got into a relationship with one of the young sisters in the fellowship and declared to my shepherd that I already had someone in mind. I made a silent decision in my heart, that if my shepherd or anybody else would insist on me not choosing my own wife, then I would even leave the ministry so that I could follow my own way out of the influence of the church.

But at one point I was challenged by the message of Jonah. He tried to run away to Tarshish when God sent him to Nineveh but finally found himself in Nineveh through God’s divine intervention. So I learned that if God had earmarked me for his mission, you can never run away from him. Certainly I remembered God’s one-sided grace to enable me complete my studies and even grant me a stable job. This was because I had struggled with a medical condition that impaired my ability to write since my second year and at some point I had lost hope of ever completing my studies.

So in the middle of everything, I was gripped by great fear for my future. I felt like something more terrible might happen to my life if I forsook God and pursued my own human feelings in this matter.

As I struggled over this, I remembered God’s charge to the Israelites during King Solomon’s reign. God had told the Israelites not to intermarry with foreign women because they would surely turn their hearts after their own gods. This means they were to marry only daughters of God from among the chosen in order to retain the fear of God among themselves. The question was: Was I ready to live for God or just live a free worldly life? I felt like without God my life was empty because I didn’t deserve to have reached this far in life by any human standards. And so I asked myself how sure I could be that whoever I would marry was going to help me keep my relationship with God and establish a stable family for his glory. At this time, I felt like a voice was asking me: “How long will you waver between two opinions? If God’s way is best, follow him, but if your way is best, follow it. But I said nothing.

To be sincere, I could not overcome myself to pray for God’s given wife. It took me one year to overcome my human-centered approach through my shepherd’s help and finally I decided to cut the relationship and seek God’s way. Due to this I caused the young sister to lose her relationship with God and she eventually left the fellowship. Furthermore, one of the senior shepherds also left the mission because he had been silently praying to settle down with the sister that he was challenged to pray for; now my wife since I had declared my non-interest in no uncertain terms.

Ahab was considered as one who did more evil in the eyes of God than any of those before him. So Ahab’s story has made me realize that I did more evil in the eyes of God than anyone else although I was full of myself and never realized it. I felt so guilty and burdened that my lust finally caused me to kill two souls of God. I repented my lustful heart and human centered approach to life and accepted to begin praying to establish my house church by faith with my future wife.

Even though I was not yet very sure about her, she was very clear in her faith to accept God’s chosen husband. Due to her faith, I felt like I was arrested by the Spirit of God. But as we began our marriage preparation and even had our engagement ceremony blessed by Dr. John Jun, it came out that her father could not bless our marriage due to my tribe. I can say that even at this time I was not sure of God’s will to marry her and I really wished that her father could completely deny me so that I could be set free to pursue my own ways.

Our whole church community had prayed over this issue for almost one year but nothing seemed to happen. At this point, we wanted to see God prove his will between us and through prayer support by all our members, we finally decided to set the wedding date and continue with the plans and challenge to pray for her father’s acceptance before the date.

Because of the issue of tribe, I even made arrangement with two of my former classmates to visit her home so that they could help to neutralize her father’s stand. But when the date came, they both got emergency calls and had to go to their work places. So I had no choice but to travel with shepherd Otieno and shepherd Wekesa who were not in the initial plan and neither were they from either of our tribes. You can be sure our journey was doomed judging by this composition. Even on arrival, it took us over four hours of lobbying by village elders for her father to allow us to meet him for he had completely denied to see us. But the way God worked at that moment, it made the real turning point for me.

At last God’s power was supreme and her father accepted to bless our marriage even without any conditions. It was clear to me that the way God initiated our marriage; He did not want any human intervention except by his own way. This was a sure sign of God for me to trust that she was God’s chosen for me. Just like Elijah’s time, He proved himself through the whole process

Her faith never wavered all along and it proved to me that she was a woman of faith and therefore very important to help me keep my relationship with God. When I think of this point in life, I repent of my lack of faith. I now realize that I am the biggest Baal to myself due to my mental smartness, human centeredness and my own human plans.

I thank God for having blessed my family this way for his own glory. Since then, God has been steadily working to build a strong foundation for our house church for his glory. Through this passage, I am now convinced that if I had followed my own desires, then my life could be very different by now and marriage would not be what I conceive it to be as an instrument to serve and glorify God. This cannot be possible by any human effort.

Now I see God’s hand and assurance to help me trust him in every difficult matter in my life. I have never shared with my wife but I have continuously felt that she is actually a great blessing to me as I see her taking care of my son and her continuous challenge for me to build a good spiritual culture for my family through prayer. I have since discovered over time that over ninety percent of my concerns for marriage are actually sorted out and whatever remains is to struggle more before God to find a perfect co-working to encourage and challenge each other spiritually together. Then God can solve any other small human issues. I now know that if I have faith and true worship of God, I can overcome myself to glorify his name. I can give up anything whatever the cost and simply lay bear my life before Jesus and follow his leading.

Praise God who blessed us with our lovely son Gabriel, and I pray that through caring for him, God may train us to take care of his young ones in spirit so that they may grow as men and women of faith in this generation. Therefore, as I join in this conference, it is my sincere prayer never to waver again between my own way and God’s way but to just submit to God in everything with simple faith. May God help me rid myself of any form of Baals through this conference so that he may use me humbly as his faithful servant.

One word: Jesus help me follow you in my life for God’s glory. Amen.