PARADIGM SHIFT

“And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence,
and the violent take it by force.”

The world had been going through one revolution/age or the other at every given time.
There was the Stone Age, Jet age and in the recent time we have the industrial age. Each of
these ages marks the shift in the world order and everyone individual or persons that
respond on time with this flow always experience financial break through. It was the
industrial revolution that birthed the likes of Henry Ford and Edison and the likes. In the
recent time, we have people like Bill Gates, Mr Dell, Steve Job, etc who jumped into the
river of the information age and are making it financially. Right now through the great
opportunities the information age produced and those who ceased the opportunities we
have many young millionaire and billionaire. The irony of it all is that in the midst of this we
still have many struggling rather than take their chance in the same matter.

The saddest story is for any man not to change with the changing times or for an individual
business to keep saying the old is better. Sleeping in the past is a life sentence to poverty
and extinction. As it has been said that there is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time
has come and there is nothing so detrimental than someone who is still thinking old ideas.
The greatest thing for you is to be sensitive to the signs of the changing time and adjust to it.
Else you will be what a man of God calls “a blast from the past.” What the blast from the
past succeeds in doing is reminding you of the good old days and nothing more and if you
are not careful you might end up being a cave man in New York.

I want you to comprehend that this paradigm shift that happens at every given time is God
orchestrated, God induced and God planned. It first takes place in the realm of the spirit,
then God lays it in men’s hearts and as many as will act on it shall bring about the
revolution, as the scriptures say “It is beautiful how God has done everything at the right
time. He has put a sense of eternity in people's minds....” (Ecc3:12a GW) for we must realise
that the spiritual realm is the mother of other realms.

Our base scripture made reference to John the Baptist whom Jesus says was the greatest of
all the Old Testament characters. This is a very difficult statement to comprehend and
accept especially when you remember the likes of Elijah, Elisha, David, Daniel, Moses and
the host of other Old Testament greats. It is until you understand the stand point from
which Jesus spoke you might struggle with this all important truth.

To comprehend what made John the Baptist great we must first understand about his family
background, before I go any further let it be known that John greatness was not necessarily
because of the supernatural birth that he had, it is much more than that. The parents of
John were introduced as thus, “...a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia:
and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.” (Lk1:5) that
means both his father and mother were of the order of Levites, those who were meant to
serve at God’s temple. John by the reason of his family background was born to serve as a
priest. Having this understanding should cause you to see why John ministry was off natural
course of things. In those days priests were special people who were meant to dress in a
peculiar way, they were to be without blemish not even having mark on their body, they
had their strict diet etc. Let us see the way John was introduced, “In those days came John
the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea... And the same John had his raiment of
camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey.”
(Mt3:1,4) and Mt3:6 say people were baptised by him at the Jordan River.

So John was totally living a life contrary to the expectations of even his own parent and
contrary to the natural order. He was wearing camel’s skin as his clothes locust as food and
baptising at the river. He was meant to wear priestly attire and minister at the temple. One
of the peculiarities of John was first his name (for it was customary to name people
according to their family). As the people said then, no one in his family had that name”.
(Lk1:61) One of the things that made John great therefore was his boldness to stand out and
do things differently, he dared to go contrary to the norm, he was sensitive enough to sense
the new age in the spirit, picked it up and carried it out. John later became the forerunner of
Jesus, or put in another way, he became the forerunner (agent) of change. With John
marked a paradigm shift, a move from the temple to being the temple of God. He it was that
started the preaching of repentance that the Kingdom is at hand and when Jesus came He
finalised the teaching by saying “the kingdom is within you”, you and I now have become
the living temple of God. This is one of the reasons why John is the greatest among the old
yet the least among the new because he never had the opportunity of the indwelling of the
Holy Spirit.

With John also, we had another order. Whereas before then, God had been speaking to the
whole tribe of Israel, whatever He said was for them all, then it was immaterial what
individuals believed rather it was much of what God wished to do for His people. Before
John, the High Priest makes atonement for the sins of the whole nation, receives forgiveness
for the whole nation and releases God’s blessing upon the whole nation. Yet when John
came, he introduced individual repentance. So since the day of John the Baptist everyman
had to work out his own salvation. Jesus was good to all, but it was as many as believed in
His goodness that receives it. It was as many as believed in His salvation that receives it.
From John God was no more limited to the Jews but he was now available for as many (both
Jew and Greek) as will accept Him and that which He offers.

Ladies and gentlemen are you sensitive to the new move of God now? Are you sensitive
enough to grasp the new ways of doing things? It will be a disaster in the here and now if
you refuse to be computer literate and keep praying for opportunity. As have always been
said, in the scheme of things of God there is the man ward part and the God ward part. That
is, God will not do for you what you are supposed to do; neither can you do that which only
God can do. For example Mark4:24 says if we desire anything we should pray, if for example
you are crying and complaining you have not done what you are asked to do. He went
further by saying we should believe that we receive that which we pray for, again if after
you have prayed, you are still complaining and crying you are out of course. He then said
you will receive. From the foregoing, God will not pray for you, neither will He believe for
you, but if you will do these two, God will bring your desires to pass period!

I believe that just as the age of information is the new order, and it is bringing about
prosperity into the lives of those who dare to change with the changing times so I am wont
to believe that church is no more as we once had accepted it to be. There is a paradigm shift
in the way the church ought to be. Please understand that by church I am talking not just
about the building but the individual that makes up the church. The world understands the
gathering of people, but right now the gathering can be for many different reasons even in
the name of Jesus. There are many evil gathering now that are falsely proclaiming the name
of Jesus and many more are in church for many reasons other than the worship of our Lord
and saviour Jesus Christ.

Some drift to a church now because of its name, other because of the personality of the
Senior Pastor, Bishop or Overseer, others just because of its population, others to find
business partner, some for a life partner, some for gullible people to dupe, some to look for
ways to be ordained either by hook or crook but not by God’s calling, some to become rich,
some to be healed and the lists goes on. Some of these reasons may be justified, but most
have put the cart before the horse. What the Lord said was for us to seek first His Kingdom
before all these things are added.

The non church goers now see beyond the veil of the average Christians and church and
have concluded that the majority of us including the pastors are duds. It is not just enough
about the multitude that attend the church, nor is it anymore the size of your Bible, praying
all night and day disturbing your neighbourhood does not mean a thing nowadays, people
are no more impressed by how long you spend in church neither are they fooled by your
Christian lingos, they are not deceived by your piety neither are they carried away by your
continual quote of scriptures. Things have become so critical now that even miracles and
prophesies are no more fool proof reasons not to doubt you and your church. The world
looks out for something else. These things that were once used to convince others about
the truism of a Christian life have been watered down by too many falsehoods. So what’s
the way forward?

The way forward is the paradigm shift, it is about relevance. How much relevance is your
Christianity having in your daily life? How does your believe affect the way you do business?
Is your life speaking than the loudness of your voice and claims? Can anyone vouch for your
integrity? Can you stand to live the demonstrative life of Christ without necessarily quoting
the scripture? How much impact is your church having over your community? If the church
leaves that environment today, will they miss only your nuisance of noise and parking and
not your positive effect on the community as a whole? Can your unbelieving neighbours
hate you for your believe yet be ready to stand for you because of your sincerity?

The shift in the church is moving beyond mega churches back to the small groups, it is about
being counted for Christ right now, it is about changing and impacting lives one at a time
now, it is about being the Bible that people read, it is about being the light upon the hill that
cannot be hid, it is about upholding the standard of God according to His word without
compromise, it is about being a neighbour indeed where you can be counted upon to share
what you have with the poor, where your riches is not only about how many cars and
houses you build but about how many lives you have been able to impact with the riches
that God gave you, it is about changing your immediate world and spread the fire of revival,
it is about market place Christianity, that is your everyday life ministering Christ not just the
noise about your church.

The Hebraic view of life is very different from our modern western culture. God is embraced
as being included in every single aspect of life. The idea of sacred and secular does not exist
in Hebraic thinking- all life comes from God and all life belongs to God. Wherever I am and
whatever I’m doing – it’s all the life God has given me. The Christian life is not just a life to
be lived in the confines of the church. It’s a life that’s to have source of its strength in that
church - but which is to be lived in the reality of every aspect of our human existence.

Today it’s more important to focus on making Jesus real in the ordinary everyday
environment in which people live and work- the market place of life. Church meetings are
such strange environment for the majority of the unbelieving population that we must learn
new ways of meeting people on their territory rather than just inviting them onto ours.

The market place is where we happen to be when going about the normal, everyday
activities of our lives. It is a fact that 95% of the people we meet in our particular market
place arena will never come near a church. But, it is also a fact that close to 100% of the
people, in every arena of life, will come face to face with a member of the Body of Christ on
a regular basis. So whether we consider ourselves to be evangelist or not, the fact is, we are
- for, just as Jesus told the disciples, wherever we go, that’s where the Kingdom is. It is our
job to be a link in the chain of truth that God seeks to forge in a person’s life, so that they
can consider for themselves the facts of the gospel.

My brethren it is indeed a paradigm shift which I believe is the new move of the spirit now,
the question is, would you rather be a blast from the past or jump into the river of the new
order and stand out to be counted? For it is only the violent (the unrelenting) that will stand
up and out for Christ in this world of compromises.