Apostle Gabriel Mothobi - The Head - Part 1

The speaker is addressing a radio audience and thanking the host for the opportunity to share God's word. They emphasize the importance of being a true Christian and having performance indicators to show one's faith. The speaker highlights the need for leaders to monitor and check if their teachings are being lived out by the congregation. They compare it to raising a child and checking their progress in learning tasks. The speaker questions why churches don't have similar monitoring systems and stresses the importance of applying teachings in daily life. They mention the need for growth and fruitfulness in the church and the importance of living a life that reflects God's power. The speaker also discusses the mindset of prioritizing work over church and the lack of time spent with God due to busyness. Blessed salutations to you, children of the Most High God, what an absolute pleasure and honor to once again be ministering right here on the Mighty Lunsui Radio. Man of God, Muridu Mukhali, thank you so much for the continued honor and privilege to break bread with the children of God. Let us pray. Divine King of Kings, we glorify you for your word. We glorify you that you are God. You are faithful, even when we are not. You are unrelenting in your desire for your will to be done, for the kingdom to advance, and for that which you desire to simply come to pass. We thank you, O Lord, for the opportunity to be able to be part of your plan, your plan to advance the kingdom, to reconcile man back to yourself, O God, while Jesus continues to do the work of cleansing us and to be able to present us as a holy, perfect, without wrinkle bride. To himself in time to come. What an absolute honor. Thank you, Lord, for this amazing opportunity to continue to share the word with your children. In the name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. So, children of God, we've been dealing a great deal, if you've been with us a couple of weeks, over the past couple of weeks, we've been talking a great deal about, you know, the actions that one needs to take to be able to really be effective for the sake of the kingdom of God. As you would know, if you've been following my ministration, I will always be asking the underlying question, why are you a Christian? Why are you a Christian? Why do you call yourself a Christian? Do you understand what it is to truly be a Christian? And what are your known performance indicators? Yes, what are your KPIs? What is it that tells us that you are truly performing as a Christian? Or are you simply a Christian and we can only hope that when you get to heaven you would have done enough? Christianity has so much to do with doing. You need to do as a child of God. There has to be some sort of performance indicators that you can say to yourself that, you know what, I've been working for God. Those are churches. You have a church, you're leading a church, you're ministering, you're preaching, you're doing all these things every single Sunday. Here's a question. How do you know that what you have been preaching, what the Lord has been placing on your heart to deliver, has actually taken root in your congregation lives? I find that there is so much disconnect between the delivery of a sermon, the delivery of service, as it were, and the checking or the monitoring of whether what is being preached is actually being lived out. Let me put it to you this way. Imagine you are raising a child and you are teaching this child all the time, hey, listen, you need to learn how to do this, you need to learn how to do that, learn how to wash dishes, learn how to go to the toilet by yourself, learn how to read your books, learn how to tidy up your room, learn how to... So you are doing these teachings, but you don't actually check whether there's any sort of progress. So you're continuously teaching, but you're not checking. So if this child never washes dishes, if this child never does what you're saying in terms of going to the toilet and putting their room together and so forth, you're continuously talking, but you're not sure if this child is doing what you're doing. In your house, that would be quite taboo, because you would always be looking to find out, have they washed the dishes? You come home from work, you come home, you find the dishes there, and you're like, why didn't you wash the dishes? I told you to wash the dishes. It's your responsibility to wash the dishes. I taught you how to wash the dishes. Why didn't you do it? So if you're not monitoring and checking, you don't know whether this person now knows how to wash the dishes. If you're never there with them sitting there and say, okay, listen, let's see you wash the dishes. This is how you do it. Are you following? Yes, I'm following. Okay, this is what you do, this is what you do, until they eventually know and sooner or later you back off and you let them now do it themselves. That is called monitoring. You're raising a child in the house, because you expect them to eventually get to a point where they can do a lot of the things that you would be doing for them themselves. That's training up a child in the way that they should go. That's why you want them to go to school, because when they go to school and they learn whatever it is that they need to learn, they come back and there's homework and so forth. Generally, you will pick up the results at the report level or at the time of report. The report comes in and it shows you what they've done or how they have now shown the knowledge that they supposedly gained over that particular time period that is set up. Now, do you know whether they've done what they're supposed to do? That's what reports are there for. Reports are there to tell you that this person is either understanding better, they're doing better, or they're not. That's the thing. So, why is it that we don't do it in churches? In churches, we just come in, we preach, we preach, the pew is listening, the congregation is listening, they're shouting hallelujah, they're shouting amen, and maybe you have healing services, people are getting healed and so forth, and you're delighted. All good and well, but if you now don't teach them how to now call forth that healing for themselves in future, in the case that you're not there or they're not in the church anymore and so forth, and maybe it's during the week and so forth, and you're not available, there is a responsibility upon leaders to bring people to a point where they can actually call on God themselves, get to know God for themselves and so forth. There is a definite desire for God to see growth in the church, growth in our lives. That is, this is where KPIs come in, where we check, that's why home cells are there and they're important for a church that is quite large, where the pastor preaches on a Sunday, Saturday, or Sunday or Saturday, whatever it is, and he preaches all good and well, but now he needs to have people under him who now allow these people, the congregation in their different areas where they live, to sit together and say, okay, the pastor preached about this. How is it that you are applying it in your life? How can you apply it in your life? And after a certain amount of time, how do we check that you've actually applied what the pastor was preaching about in your life? I find it interesting that as ministers of the word, we're preaching, we're preaching every single Sunday, one new message after another, one new message after another. And the hope is, I don't know, by the end of the year, after at the very least 52 different types of messages that have been preached, your hope is that your congregation, one, remembers, two, has applied the teachings, and three, has shown some sort of fruit. Without fruit, a tree is cut down. That's how it works. What's the point of the tree if there's no fruit? What's the point of the tree if its purpose is not being fulfilled, whatever that purpose is? So, you will always find me asking, what is it that makes you a Christian? Why are you a Christian? How do we see that you're a Christian? There is a beholding that must happen in your life. People must behold the power of God at work in your life. That's how people are generally drawn to you to ask, how is it that you're surviving when we're not? How is it that you are healed when we're sick? How is it that you are victorious when we are not? Without you preaching, you living your life and showing that purpose, it's beautiful. That's how a lot of people can come and say, but you know, the word of God really works in this person's life. It's a major, major key. And so, we live in a world where it seems like, you know, when it comes to church, that's why I actually happened to come across a lady at one of these special church shops. And this lady, it was a Sunday, it was quite cold, it's already winter, so now I'm coming from church, it's kind of late and they're almost closing, and I get in there and I'm buying some food. And she asked me the question, you go to church even when it's cold? And I'm like, well, of course I do. Wait, hold on. Do you come to work when it's cold? And the answer was no, but work and church are two different things. That tells me everything I needed to know about her mindset when it comes to church versus work. And that is sadly the reality for many other people. You'll find people will gladly stay home when it's either raining or it's cold, or they have a little bit of a flu, or they have a little bit of pain here and there. They're always fatigued and tired and all of these things. For Sunday, they'll stay away from church, no problem. But trust me, come Monday morning when they need to go to work, they're somehow either miraculously healed or they power through whatever sickness and pain and whatever they have because work is at a much higher level in value than church. That's how it is. Now, it doesn't say much in terms of the church building itself or the actual church congregation. Not about that. It's that the time, if you look at the very same person who's always at work when it's time for work and hardly there when it's time for church or is easily distracted or stopped from going to church but will probably never be stopped from going to work, you look at that same person, they hardly have time to spend with God. They're always busy. They're always working. It's early mornings to late evenings. They're always tired otherwise. Then they're home, they're cleaning, they're cooking, they're looking after children, they're looking after the husband, the spouse, whatever the case may be. They're always busy, so they hardly have time. So come Sunday, they're quite happy to stay home but even then, not much by way of connecting with God and so they just leave it. For most people, just the Sunday service is likely the only time that God will hear them, speak to them or even about them. Otherwise, God is just a distant option. So if for nothing else, at the very least, the opportunity to be able to sit with God or to talk to God and to pray and reflect and hear the word of God from the minister chosen. So there are much deeper things to talk about when it comes to relationship with God versus church and so forth. I mean, we can talk a great deal about it. A lot of people tell me, no, at my church, I don't see any value. Nothing's happening there. There's a lot of lying, deceitful, whatever the case may be. All kinds of things are being said about church. That's fine. Maybe one day we can have a nice debate on the radio station, one day. We can talk about it. But this conversation with this lady told me that she values work more than she does church which means that there is a lot more benefit to her going to work than going to church because I mean, what happens at work? At work, you are given specific things in terms of what you need to do. You're given KPIs, known performance indicators. What is it that you must achieve by the end of the day, by the end of the hour, by the end of the week, by the end of the month in order to get a remuneration? That remuneration obviously gives you whatever status it is that it gives you and you're quite happy to do that every single month. However, if you happen to arrive at work and you don't do what you were told to do, arrive on time, be dressed in uniform, if you wear uniform, you need to get, you need to clean in terms of the restaurant you went to, you need to clean, you need to make sure this, and you're always standing, there are rules and regulations. There are things that you are told to do and you are checked on, you're judged on. This is basically what either says you need, you deserve your salary or you don't. If we don't have this in our Christian walk with God, this leaves us with this sort of lackadaisical, relaxed life that we have on the Christian side of things when it comes to the almighty God who, should you lose that job that you're so committed to, all of a sudden you run to church because that's where you now need to go pray for another job. That's where you are now praying a lot more during the week than you were when you were working. You are now going back to God with fire and now you are deeper into it and you're just God, God, God, hallelujah God and you're confessing, you're doing the things that you never did when you were working because you had a job then. So you tell me, which is more important, your relationship with God, nurturing it and having time for it, or your job that gives you a salary up to a certain point, or wages for that matter? I just find it quite interesting how we are so relaxed when it comes to things of the almighty God, things of our Christian walk with him, things of church, provided that the church that's obviously preaching the word of God, and adulterated, giving the truth of what the Lord says and so forth, provided that it's obviously preaching the word of God as it should be, right? If we don't give our time to it, what are we saying to God? Yeah, no, I pray every night just before I go to sleep. Do you hear God when he speaks to you? What is the last thing that he has told you? And how is it that you are showing your performance in that thing he's told you? How often does he talk to you? If I ask you about how often your boss talks to you, if your boss works with you, the likelihood is he does it every day. He's always giving instructions. He's always either complimenting or criticizing you. He's always, there's always this connection. It's almost like they're always in your brain. They're always there. They're always in your ear. You're always, and even when you're working, you almost imagine them there just to make sure that, you know, you're doing everything that you're supposed to do. It's almost like they're always there, but when it comes to God, we don't mind that, you know, we don't even know. So if I ask you, what is it that the Lord has said to you? What's the last thing he said to you? And what has he told you to do? What are the steps that you have put together to do it? It's easy to say, hey, I don't know. I don't really know. I don't know. I can't, I'm not sure. I just, I don't know. We're quite happy with I don't know when it comes to what God is telling us to do and him talking and him connecting and the time that you've given. But in anything else, whether it's your relationship, your workplace, your friends, the relationship you have with your friends. Yeah, if this person doesn't call me in a whole week, then it's a problem. If my husband, my wife does not talk to me during the day, then I'm angry at night. And why is it that you didn't talk to me? Why are you so quiet? Can't eat? What are you busy with? You are, you get upset at certain people who don't connect with you and you don't connect with. When it comes to God, you're quite happy to, I don't even know when was the last time I heard God speak. Forget when you went to church a lot. But let something go wrong. Let a sickness happen to you that no doctor can deal with. Let a job fall through and you have things to pay for and now you're in trouble. Let a sick child wake up and say, or let something happen that is somewhat beyond your control and all of a sudden you call on God with a 911 line called prayer. How's God supposed to feel? Imagine if your friend, your spouse, your child only called on you when they needed something and as soon as they got it, they don't even care about you anymore. How would you feel? That's how we deal with God. That's what we do. This is a major problem. I found it very interesting. I was talking to the lady and I was like, wow God, wow Jehovah, I'm so sorry that we treat you this way. I can only hope that we change this and do better because the kingdom of God needs workers on the ground, people who will apply themselves in the purpose of God and what it is that he's called us to do. We need, we need you in your purpose and doing what God has called, the greater purpose, far more important than your job, far more important than your business. We can talk about this maybe as we continue further on today. I just wanna touch on this as we've just come from Father's Day on Sunday and also Youth Day which was celebrated this past weekend. It's important that we understand a couple of things and I think after Father's Day, there was a video that I put together which I felt is something that we need to talk about and I've shared a lot more on my TikTok channel about fatherhood and really just the man in the home. So I think I wanna dedicate this coming few weeks to talking about the family because this is actually a major part of my ministry and so I believe that as I was just meditating and talking with God, it's like yeah, we need to get this right because if the family doesn't come right, the nation is in trouble and that tells you everything you need to know and so I went ahead to meditate a lot more and I started to hear how God wants us to go back to the original intent of both marriage and family as the building block of the nation. I wanna take this off. I wanna start by going the route of your view of the man. I wanna start by talking about the view of the man and how you view the man in the house. We live in a time when it seems that, actually let me be very clear about this. How you view someone tells us everything about whether you respect and honor them or not. I wanna say that again. How you view someone, and I'm talking about the view that you have even when they're not there the way that they think about you, the way that you think about someone else when they're not there, even if they are, but particularly when they're not there, when you are alone with your thoughts and maybe you can speak and they wanna hear what you're saying about them. That view is something that's ingrained in your subconscious. It's who you are. It's what you meditate upon or what you think about because your view of that person is either low or high and however it is that you view them, sooner or later it'll come out of your mouth. Sooner or later, how you truly view them will come out. Give it time. Let a heated situation happen. It will come out. So I think for the next couple of weeks we'll be talking a great deal about marriage, family and the view, the roles, the place that everybody has in the family for the sake of the nation and the kingdom of God at large. We'll talk about that. Today I just wanna brush on the view. The choice to see someone as God designed them versus whatever it is that they're doing in your presence. In your presence. You have a view. That view is your choice. If the man of the house is not viewed as the head of the home because this is the person that God has placed in that position, if the view is not that, then the only thing that you're going to do as a family is judge him on merit. You're going to merit-base everything he does. The moment he makes a mistake, it's a demerit. And if he goes into a time of depression or a time of weakness, you're going to keep demeriting him and therefore your respect for him will go lower at that particular time. And maybe he comes out of it and he's victorious after six months or whatever and maybe you start to see him better. You start to respect him a little bit more. In the time that you don't respect him as much, you won't speak to him like the king that God gave to you in your life. You won't see him that way. All that's going to happen is you're going to speak, you're going to talk down on him. You're going to not consult with him anymore. You don't see him as the king that he's supposed to be in your life. You only see him as someone who's weak, who's crying, who's depressed, who's losing his way and there's no honor anymore. And it is in those times that you will say and do things to him that will show him that he really isn't much right now. And it's almost as if you're saying to him, listen man, I will honor you again. I will respect you again only after this has happened. Either you make more money and give us more money and take care of us or you're able to protect us better or you're able to, you study, get education, become better. If you can just come up to this level, then I can respect you again. And if you don't, well, there's not much power of respect because you have to earn my respect. That's the world we live in. You need to earn the respect. What does God say about this? When you dishonor your head, you are dishonoring God. Why? Because God is the, he is the authority of his headship in your life. We can talk about having the right head and having the right person in the position and so forth. We will be dealing a great deal with that in future. So stick around. I'm here every single Thursday every morning at 10 o'clock and in the evening at 10 o'clock again, right here on Lent Radio. The series I'm starting now is about marriage, family, roles, authorities, positions, and so forth. Peter answers the question of Jesus in the book of Matthew chapter 16. And Jesus says this. I'm reading from verse 13. That's Matthew chapter 16 from verse 13. It says this. When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples saying, who do men say that I, watch this, the son of man am? This is in the New King James Version. When Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, this is verse 13 again out of the book of Matthew chapter 16, he comes into the region of Caesarea Philippi. He asks his disciples saying, who do men say that I, the son of man am? So they said, some say John the Baptist, some Elijah and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Verse 15, he said to them, but who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered and said, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. Jesus answered and said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Then he commanded his disciples that they should tell no one that he is Jesus, the Christ. It's so much that we can talk about there, but let's bring in what I've been talking about. I said to you that the way you view the person who is the head of the home, if you view them in any other way outside of the fact that God put him there as the head, it was an unconditional statement. He's the head of the home, end of story. Like I said, we'll talk in future weeks about how headship should be done, right? Because obviously everything comes with responsibility. He's saying, who do people say that I am? Isn't it exactly that way when a man is seen in a certain way by people outside, relatives, friends, acquaintances, neighbors. The way that other people see them is the way that other people see them based on whatever it is that they know or whatever filter they use to judge somebody. Yes? So he's asking, who do people say I am? Think about this. Imagine the man in the house, the husband and the father of the house, the man of the house says, who do people say I am out there? Maybe they see you as a criminal or they see you as a bum or they see you as a loose cannon or they see you as this bubbly ball of energy. They see you as this amazing singer, dancer, whatever the case may be. Who do people say that I am? Other people are experiencing me in a different way outside. He's talking about people who generally don't have a deeper, closer relationship with him. So he's asking about the people outside. What are they saying about me? Much like the head of the home. You know, whoever, John from wherever said, you know, you're crazy because the way you spoke at the steer there when you were angry about your father or the steer there when you were angry about your food, you know, they think you're a crazy guy or they think you're very abusive and now they're asking me if I'm okay because they think, so there are things that people think outside. And sadly, many families are broken by those who are inside allowing those who are outside to tell them about the king of the house. No, your husband is this, your husband is that and if you have no relationship with that very same husband, most times you find you believe them outside than you do inside. Oh man, this is exciting. He comes back, he asks them the question, but who do you say that I am? More important to the person, more important to Jesus, more important to any head of any home is who they are seen as by those closest to them because it is them or to them that he's most vulnerable, he is most open, he is most exposed as you, if you will, because now they see a lot more of him than any other person, strengths and weaknesses alike. And so the most important relationship, the most important view, the most important value given to him has to come from the inside. And he asks, who do you say that I am? Simon Peter answers him, you are the Christ, the son of the living God. He is giving Jesus a view of who he really is in the eye of Peter, in the eye of this man. He's like, this is who you are to me, you are a king. When others are seeing a weak man outside who can't provide for his family, who's weak in areas A, B, C, D, I see a man who God has made to be strong and powerful and you have talent and gifts inside of you that I feel are going to get this family to a new dimension. I believe in you, you are my king, my master, my Lord. Imagine if you will, if you told the head of the home these type of things. No, we don't hear that very often. Why? Because the view is not that which God has done, but rather merit-based. Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah. Man, there's so much to be said about what he replies here. Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. What is he saying? He's saying this viewpoint that you have does not come from you. It is a revelation from my Father who called me, who is the one who put me in this place and is the power behind who I am. If you understand this position, it means that if the head of the home is seen as one who is the head based on the fact that God put him there and regardless of the many times that he falls and he screams and he shouts and he fights, whatever, at the end of the day, he's still the king of the house and you honor him in the very same way, then you are saying, or he's basically saying, the reason I am who I am in your eyes because God revealed it to you, he revealed to you that I am this king, master and lord, regardless. It has to be by revelation of God and if you don't have a relationship with God, you are not going to see that, you are not going to expect that, you are not even going to have that mindset and therefore, you end up putting the man down. We are going to deal with the man, we are going to deal with the woman, we are going to deal with the children, we are going to deal with society. Stick around, there is so much to talk about. Stay blessed, amen.