We have given Loyalty definition
in our previous topics in this series of
Loyalty, and we have found out what loyalty is all about and how important
loyalty is.
I had the opportunity to
talk to lady sometime ago and I told her that I am glad that I grew up the way
I grew up. I grew up in a very nice environment, but in the course of time we
moved to a very bad environment, the contracts was so much that it was like
moving from positive to negative; but I acknowledged to her that I was glad
that I went through all that in life because the bible says “all things work
together for our good” then I told the lady that one thing that helped me in
life is my upbringing; because your upbringing will either be a source of lesson to you or a source of worry to you;
but for me I learnt a lot growing up.
I told her that I learnt
loyalty when I joined the school fraternity back in my college days; every frat
calls itself ‘family’ and in the frat you are taught that it is ‘family first’.
if I have two loaves of bread to eat, and if
had eaten one and then my blood brother appears hungry and a member of
my frat also appears I will give it to the member of my fraternity and leave my
blood brother. Why? - Because it is family first.
If I don’t do it, I’ll
be punished for it; but when I repented and left all that and came into
Christianity, I noticed that Christianity pretends to be family when we are not
family….
There
is a lot of pretence in Christianity, a lot of ‘face fullness’ not
‘faithfulness’ people work more by face than by faith. So that’s what loyalty
is all about.
You
can stand your ground.
Let
me say this –seventy percent of crime that is being committed in this country
on a daily basis, is being committed by families (occult groups, fraternities).
… During my time with
them, one thing I never did was to go and rob, but I had some people in the
family, whose job it is to go and rob. Once we needed money, they go and rob…..
You
have a team like that, that goes to rob; they are probably thieves from their
parents’ houses, and then they now have an opportunity to rob, when they are
caught by the police and they reveal that they are cult members, the case will
change; that is if you are alive, because when police apprehends you, the
manner in which they judge ordinary thieves and cult thieves are different, because
bad police men will shoot them dead on the spot.
…What I am trying to say
is that you have a young man who hasn’t committed anything, once he comes in for
blending, that is initiation. After blending the person automatically becomes a
member of the family. And they tells the guy who has never done any evil in his
life to go rob with them, without question the guy quickly follows.
Mean while everything as far as I can remember
back then that we did was fake. I got to a point where I was part of the people
blending people, but they were all ingénue. There were some things we faked to
make people feel attracted to wanting to join the group, but honestly there was
nothing there, because it was all fake. It was only when some of us began to
steal things and became pure criminals and needed a higher covering than our
covering, then they now went to native doctors for charms so that when they were
shoot at, it will not hit them, and they made charms with their bodies and
their guns and so on…
The
fraternities as we have them so much believe in family. When they tell you to
steal from your mother, you will obey and steal from her, when they tell you to
steal from your father, you obey.
.. But
when I came into Christianity I noticed there was no loyalty in Christianity
Nobody
is loyal to anybody, we are loyal as long as everything is okay, once there is
a little shaking, and everybody turns away from each other.
We
are dealing on signs of disloyalty. Why must we look out for signs in
disloyalty? We should because sometimes you will not see the pure disloyalty;
in Christianity you see it in signs.
Signs
are clues, and once you talk about clues, you are talking about pretence,
you’re talking about what you are really not sure of, trying to put one or two’
together to get the answer that’s what we see in Christianity.
People
are not loyal, friends are not loyal to themselves, families are not loyal,
churches are not loyal to the pastor, pastor is not loyal to the people,
because loyalty is not a one way thing it is a two way thing; so when we talk
about loyalty, even though it is majorly on your bosses but also the reverse is
also the case. The boss should also learn how to stand with the subordinate.
Let’s
consider this:
There was a time a
particular pastor made one mistake, and then Christians began talk, even on
social Medias, and to worsen it all comments also from the members of his
church; we kill our wounded instead of treating our wounded, we help them die
Hallelujah!
Please
we are Jews! The new covenant Jews, not Jews by location in Israel, in the
middle east, it is Jews by covenant.
The
prime minister of Israel exchange the dead body of a Jewish man with releasing
terrorist that were held in Israel, solider killed in Palestine, they
negotiated the bodies of soldiers. He said ‘we need our body although he is
dead’, Palestine told him to release their men that are held captive. Israel
obliged and released the terrorist they held captive, in other to take the dead
body of their family member.
That
is what family is! That is what loyalty! We are loyal to you even in death.
In
Christianity, the new Jew, the new Israel, we don’t seem to maintain it- pastor
makes mistake, members announces it with trumpet, brothers and sisters makes
mistakes, the same thing. We do things here as a family, and before we leave
the gate, another church members somewhere will tell you about it and give you
details and time and you will wonder how she/he came about it, the case is,
he/she got it from a disloyal member from the church who went out to disclose
what the church is doing or will do. There must be loyalty to what you believe.
In the animal kingdom,
it is not so, there happens to be a lion which was wounded by a crocodile. The
lion wanted to lap water; it didn’t know that it was filled with crocodiles and
all of a sudden while it was still lapping water, the crocodiles jumped up and
attacked by grabbing its leg , the lion pulled it out but was wounded, it
couldn’t make a move swiftly so it fell down in pain near the water, this made
lots of crocodiles to gather round it in attempt to eat the lion. When the
crocodiles advances, the lion will try to scare them off, this it did for a
while until it couldn’t scare them off again due to its pain, and so it roared
out, this got the attentions of other
lions who rushed to where the injured lion was and circled around it. They
stayed there for nine days until the injured lion recovered
They
can’t talk but they understand family, they surrounded the wounded lion, by
making sure that no crocodile came near the wounded lion. It was nine days
after that it was able to get up, because your body and that of animals is
programmed to heal within that duration. The injured lion recovered a little
bit and lipped back with them into the jungle. He cried and they responded.
Today
we have lots of voices that are crying and nobody is listening. This is why we
must talk about loyalty. What is your life style today? For it will determine
whether you go to hell or heaven, because we have some misbehaviors in church.
One
of the places that Jesus talked about
signs is in Mathew
24, He was talking about the end
time, and He gave them signs and said He is not précised about when He will
come back but He’ll give us a sign in order to be able to predict when He will
come; so He gave us signs.
What
I am trying to say is that when you see signs you begin to make predictions; as
such we are looking at signs of disloyalty.
a.
When one or somebody disappoints
you when you are going through pressure or crisis, it is a sign that the person is
disloyal to you. When a member of your family, or a member of your church, a
colleague in the office leaves you in the midst of crisis, when you are going
through pressure and suddenly disappears, never bothering about you through
that season, it could be a sign that the person is not loyal to the friendship,
to the family, the relationship between the two of you. if you read the bible
very well, something happened when Jesus
was enjoying His life with the disciples, they came to a place when they were
hungry, and then Philip said to feed these people you need one year’s salary, Jesus said we don’t need to steal money
anywhere, but can I have anything; and then they told Him, that there is a
little boy with just five fishes and two loaves. Jesus told them to bring, which they did. Jesus gave thanks and then everywhere was filled with bread.
In another place again, sick
people lined up, Peter was trying to block their ways, but Jesus encouraged him to allow the people come in, and when they
came Jesus healed them.
Another
place the people opened the roof and lowered somebody down and He looked at the
man lying down and said take your mat and go home, your faith has made you
whole. The people were excited.
People
that rejoice with you in times when you’re flowing normal, when things are
working well, they are not really your friends.
They
were happy, one day Jesus called
Peter and told him they were going to a place, Peter agreed and all the
disciples went along with them, and the men of the city blocked their path
refusing them entrance, Peter wanted to result to violence; but Jesus rebuked him, and told him that if
He want war, He would command legions to come, so instead they all went back
with Jesus.
Jesus was seeing loyalty in a Peter, but one day. He needed to test
the loyalty. He told Peter, that before the cock crows, you will deny me three
times; peter swore that he will never, Jesus
told him not to swear, that He had prayed for him.
When the pressure came and he saw
what Jesus was going through
instantly he denied out rightly all three questions that were asked him about
Jesus, the bible said that he ‘swore’ to the last question; he did that because
pressure came.
Loyalty is not tested when things
are going well; it is tested in the face of pressure, when things are hard for
you, when things are bad for you that is when you know the friends who are
loyal to you, and the ones who are not loyal to you.
Peter denied immediately, but I
am happy that Peter denied somehow because the other eleven we heard nothing
about them, it’s only a man that was close that could deny, so where were the
rest? When you go through the bible, you will find out immediately Jesus was caught they all left and went
back to their various jobs, but Peter kept following Him. The truth is that
when things are tough for you that you know your loyal friends, so we cannot
just be congregating together and begin to be sentimental about people who are
going through stuffs, the right person to be close to is a man who is going
through tough times, a woman who is going through tough times, the right person
to go to are the ‘poor people’ I am not saying rich people should be avoided or
they are bad, but the thing is you already know what they ‘are’, not much as
for the poor people because they are yet to reveal what they will be, the bible
says ‘it has not being revealed what we shall be, but we
know that when He comes and when we will see Him , we will be like Him’.
What this means is that the man
you seem to be looking down on due to his appearance is a good friend to stick
with, is a man who will appreciate you when he elevates up. That’s why big men
don’t have good friends because they have sycophants around them.
Hallelujah!
There are friends of mine that I used to know when we
were young in the ministry; sincerely speaking I will not allow them to climb
this pulpit; the reason is that, when I was nobody they were not there; but
there were some when I was in the pit
from time to time they will always come to check up on me and say a comforting
word “I believe in you keep doing what you’re doing”
b.
Leaders
or people who disappoint you when you are under pressure, proverb 25 vs19 the worst person that will be
around you are a disloyal friend. How to know them is that they manifest when
you are in trouble.
I told somebody recently that any
pastor of twenty-first century church who is effective and who is genuine can
manage a multinational.
Praise God!
If you know what pastors go
through to come up to the pulpit to deliver a message of which you are seated
analyzing how his message sounds, you will not be too judgmental; you judge too
quickly because you do not understand
the ordeal he goes through to get a message from God for His people.
c. Anybody that has moral weakness is likely
to be a sign of disloyalty. When a man is struggling with immorality is a
sign of disloyalty 1Timothy 5 vs2 Paul was advising Timothy on
how to handle women, no matter how beautiful they are, handle them like your
sister. When every time you are struggling with immorality, it is a sign that
you are not loyal, this is because; any man who is into immorality, in a bid to
defend the act can deny anything.
When I am talking about loyalty,
I am referring to the loyalty to God
that we believe in a loyalty to man that we see.
d. Leaders who have financial weakness. If
you have a subordinate, you have a leader that have financial weakness, in
other words when you give him money to hold, he gives you tones of excuses as
to what happened to it. You can’t negotiate a business and it will go smoothly,
it is a sign of disloyalty, that person does not respect God. He is not loyal to the friendship; he is not loyal to the
business. So be careful of men, who talk about money all the time, or someone
one who has a report of being deceitful in business or other things, it is a
sign not to have anything to do with such an individual.
e. Leaders who are worldly. We have a lot
of them in church, John 12vs 6 this text makes reference to Judas
who pretended to care for the poor, and Jesus said:
‘this he said not
because he is poor minded’
But because when
they sell the alabaster he will be the one to hold the money, and eats it. This
is a man God gave the account to
take care of and never made a demand on it.
Anybody that is
angry about your elevation, success, watch it; anybody that will always like
you to go down instead of going up is a disloyal person. They come around you seeing you in pain, instead of finding a way to help
you out, they suggest what you will sell because they have not always liked you
having what you have .
The Judas in
our midst knows the value of products, that’s how to know the disloyal people.
Judas was angry
of the alabaster box, because he knows the value of what it was worth.
Praise God!
When men get
angry over what will give you prominence, affluence, influence, they are
disloyal. Disloyalty must die in the church.
f.
People
around you who think they can do better than you is a sign of disloyalty. You speak English, they think they can speak
better, you dress, they think they can dress better than you, etc, they have
competitive spirit. Instead of congratulating you they wish they were you.
Disloyalty!
And this is
what is killing the church the church is dying by the day. The truth is, if
church will stand to be what it should be, there won’t be space enough to
occupy people; some people don’t come to church not because they hate God, but because they hate Christians’.
The way we behave , they hate it, so they rather have self churches in their
various homes and God did not intend
for us to have ‘self’ churches, He created us to congregate ‘where two or three are gathered ‘but
unfortunately when we gather we mess up, we gather to witch hunt, that is why
there are no more testimonies in church not because miracles don’t take place anymore,
but because people are afraid of coming to testify because they don’t know what
people will do to them after wards.
The day you
will deliver yourself from personal and eternal jealousy, you will be free.
This thing is in every man, the only way is to give the Holy Ghost the space to work on it, so that aspect of you will die
and then you will have a free mind to rejoice with those that rejoice and mourn
with those that mourn. You need that aspect of you to die so as to be a genuine
person in Christ.
A friend of mine
told me, she stepped into a certain
church , the man of God pointed to her and said , she has a demon of
disappointment which keeps following her about, so she decided to see the
pastor after service, but she was told that she could not see the man until she
has testified on camera. She in turn told them that she would, once the
testimony happens; they told her that it does not work that way that she had to
testify first. She then ask what she would say, they told her to testify on
camera saying that the demon started disturbing you when you were small. My
friend told them that, if that is the case she would not testify. But she said
something that from that moment she went back to her house, she had being
dreaming one pattern of dream, and it has being very terrifying, so I
remembered you and decided to call you to tell me what to do.
Loyalty has
gone. The fear of God has disappeared, so men are behaving the way they want to
behave “everybody to your tent oh’ Israel” that has being the life style of the
people and then we are warming up that one day we will go to heaven. Which
heaven?
Loyalty must come back to the church;
one of the things that God promised
us before He arrives is that the body of Christ
must become one, we must come together and unify and the truth is until we
unify we will not fight the end time horror.
Amen!
Rev. Cosfinney Udoka N.
Senior Pastor
House on the Rock, Asaba
For messages like this and more visit,
House on the Rock Asaba,
Plot 17 GRA beside Lumen Christi School,
DBS Road,
Off Summit Road,
Asaba.
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