it was a great month

Report July

I thank God who saw me finally graduating from Africa International University. It has been four years full of life changing experiences. 4^th July 2015 was a summation of four years in this theological institution; having graduated with a bachelor’s degree in theology, what I can say is that this is just a beginning of great things to come.

The month of July saw trinity chapel  and Kenya youth for Christ receiving and hosting visitors from the Rwanda youth for Christ. Our visitors arrived on 9^th July 2015

    

                

Together we toured five schools, a girl’s probation center and a remand home for five days. The main focus of our mission was peer counseling; teaching young people abstinence from sexual behaviors as well as presenting the radical gospel of Christ clothed in a youth friendly language.

Homabay, Karachuonyo and Rangwe

Later in the month from 25^th July I embarked on my quarterly ministry in Homabay County. We have been embarking on a mission of disclepship and evangelism at unveiling ministry in Homabay with Pastor Ely Odhiambo. This time we decided to take it a notch higher by screening Jesus film and passion of Christ in the distant land of Karachuonyo by the Lake Victoria.

We were met with joy and jubilation from the villagers as we embarked on lighting up the skies first by dancing to the nice tunes as was projected at night. This was a young church which the congregants met under a tree .

 

 Beautiful scenes of rachuonyo area. On the right is the cloth which would act as our screen as we projected the films.

  

 

 

The church in rachuonyo has very receptive hearts, everybody received the gospel and everyone wanted us to come again, they prepared for us delicious meal of mumi(fish) with ugali. Such experience of warm reception made us to promise to come after one week to yet again set up another film at their trading center.

This month has yet seen abundance of fruits from the mission field. It’s a time to be encouraged to reach out the more with the Love of God. The harvest is plenty but the laborers are few, ooh how I pray that the lord of harvest sends out his laborers to the harvest field. If you can’t manage spending time in the mission field, why not send someone , and in this way participate in the great commission. August is here and am looking forward for more endeavors in the mission field. Thanks for your prayers and support.

Edited Timetable

Date	Mission	venue	Budget
	Passport replacement		12,000
20th-24th august	With Messengers of Grace; conference	Rakai, Dwaniro : Uganda	5000
28th-august-1st September	Speaking engagement: Glory of Christ Church	Kampala :	5,000
September -November	Nakode-kitwe-lusaka	Zambia	35,000

Feel free to support me through this number :

254  723433352

Many blessings : Kevin kainos Gitonga.

Sun Burst : The song

i have been an ardent fan of Hillsong united since 2007. I remember the first album i listened to was 'Mighty to save'-2007 then came Savior King- 2008, Faith, Hope and Love-2009, Beautiful exchange-2010, God is able 2011, Cornerstone-2012, Glorious ruins and Aftermath 2013, Zion 2014. Now in 2015 we have Empires album which is completely blowing away all my mental faculties, sweeping over the entirety of who iam.

Today i just want to review the song Sunburst from this album.
this song highlights the way God’s love and power has dawned on us like the sun pervading the entirety of all that we are like a sunburst . In order to capture the theme of this song we must delve into the dictionaries and ask ourselves, what is a sunburst ?
Read this…
a sudden brief appearance of the full sun from behind clouds

So Gods love in totality suddenly beams in full in an appearance behind the clouds.

The first verse goes like this

You draw our hearts from the shadows
Towards Your horizon
leaving the shade of the half light
To follow the Son
The city stirs in the twilight
In search of the morning
Street s finding life in the Sunburst
Of Your bright shining love

John 1:16-17 And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace.

17For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. (kjv)

That old dispensation of the law was a shadow, for the law was a shadow of the things to come (col 2 :16-17). His fullness drew us from that shadow towards his horizon. The law was an administrator to lead us to Christ . Now that we have Christ the son, lets follow him.

Every human being, every soul upon being launched on the face of the earth engages in the long daunting journey of self actualization. We all have been born in a world that is itching for the fullest manifestation of redemption. The creation is in earnest search of its morning. Every human effort to improve life, to have a tranquil life free of debt, hunger, poverty, etc is an earnest search of a new morning.

2samuel23: 4as the light of the morning when the sun rises, A morning without clouds, When the tender grass springs out of the earth, Through sunshine after rain.'(NASB)

PSALM 103:6My soul waits for the Lord More than the watchmen for the morning; Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.

Weeping may lat for a night but joy comes with the morning

Our night represents dispensation of the dark days without hope and without a God.

Every heart wants the glaze of the morning sun and basking in the everlasting rays of his eternal love is an enticement the soul cannot resist.

For the Light has come
And the night cannot understand it
As the world keeps spinning
This hope within us is rising

Halleluyah for the son of God has dawned on us with healing in his wings. He came to seek and to save that which is lost. He came to call the sons of men from the pits of death to the sit of life. What more can we say? What shall happen to a man who neglects such a great salvation? This even the thickest of darkness couldn’t stand. This singular act of love has left the world forever hoping, forever rejoicing .

And like the rising sun
Wake up Your light in us
And we will shine like grace
As we call on Your Name

Lets rise us then:

Isa 60:1Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

Jesus is the light of the world. He came so that we don’t have to stumble in the dark any more , he came and created a new day called ‘today’ (heb 4) that day my friend has no darkness in it. That day pervades any dark area of ur life and lives us glowing in the light of his glory .

Join me as we review verse 2 of the song in the next post

sunburst

exploits from Uganda

on 8^th of June 2015, some four young men set out on a trip to Kampala Uganda. We initially had thought that the said destination of our mission trip was going to be some couple of kilometers from Kampala but little did we know that our journey would lead us to the far end of Uganda near the Tanzania border.

After roughly 24hours of being in the road we finally arrived at Rakai district a 200km drive from the city of exhausted. As usual we were tired and so our hosts entreated us to rest only after we were served with a sumptuous meal of matoke with chicken stew.

 photo taken with the team of our hosts

The theme of our meetings was ‘Power Purpose and plenty with the aim of unveiling people to their God given destiny , revealing God and his power to make us complete and successful in life. We also were unlocking our potential in discovering our identity in Christ and the abundant life God has designed for each and everyone of us.

Our sessions included seminars during the day and revival meetings at night .

People in Uganda are so friendly and receptive and so our experience was life changing for all of us. It was amazing how all sorts of people , young and old responded to the gospel. It was also amazing how the delegates from 14 churches worked in unison and agreed to open up their areas for more missionary activities, fellowships , etc

 Our special thanks goes to all made this mission a success.

We thank God for connecting us with many friends in Uganda and surely we will be back for more complete programs like a bible school, children’s ministry among many other ventures.

We also experienced many miracles signs and wonders, even the blind recovering their sight, the lame leaving their stretchers and walking again. It was an experience that cannot be confined in the words of pen and paper.

  

Leading a group of delegates in a period of celebration, as we approached the climax of the meetings.

Special mention goes to pastor Geoffrey and the glory of Christ ministries who allowed us to visit three of their churches in dwanirro sub county during our period there. I personally cant forget the kesha we held on Friday night as we saw multiple of young people give their lives to Christ, for sure there’s a great need for discipleship and I savor the opportunity to visit again and embark on that mission .

                 

Ugandan dance versus Kenyan dance

We thank God for the many gifting that were manifested during our time there. Ugandans are very talented in music and dance and especially percussion instruments

            

Kids Ministry

SunBurst vs 2

Two months ago, i posted a song review on one of my favorite songs by Hillsong :SunBurst.
I had posted This three months ago and promised to do a review of verse  2.

This song as we had said talked about Gods love that pervades the entirety of our lives like a sunburst.
Like mountains mirror the sunrise Reflecting Your glory
Might we exhibit Your hope bright
Salvation in us.

Just as the mountains mirror the rays of the majestic sun in the same way we mirror the excelence of the exuberant love of God expended to us.

2nd Cor 4: 6  seeing it is God who said, “Light will shine out of darkness,”who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

The light shining is not a separate entity from the source for its God himself shining in us, Reflecting the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

God desires to display his glory even in the likeness of these lowly earthen vessels

Vs 7But we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.

Its not about how earthen vessel like we are, but the exceeding greatness of who dwells in us. We are to mirror the one who exhibits this greatness. He does this motivated by love rather than intimidating us.

And now lets go back to the chorus
And like the rising sun
Wake up Your light in us
And we will shine like grace
As we call on Your Name
And when the day is done
This sound will carry on
Ti l the night folds over
In awe of our Saviour

May we light up in his glorious light this christmas.
Let the sound of victory be echoed in us

In Death By Love

John 11:25-26"You don't have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one, who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live.

26 And everyone who lives believing in me does not ultimately die at all. Do you believe this?

We live in a world full of seasons, timing, events, deadlines, budgets and everything that the world needs to sustain life and at least move the wheel of life a stride further.

We also live in a world of expectations, demands and happenings.

The last two weeks has seen my country Kenya plunge in a dungeon of sorrow and misery as we mourn our fellow 147 Kenyans killed mercilessly by terrorists in North eastern Kenya.

Its also unfortunate that this happened just a day before good Friday, when Christians all over the world commemorate the death of Jesus Christ our lord. Its normal for something of this magnitude to evoke questions amongst us Kenyans and especially Christians. We take note that the majority of Young people who perished were Christians who had woken up for early prayers and devotions oblivious of what and who were about to attack them in a merciless fashion.

It feels like bewildering times for Kenya and for Christians there are those who are wondering if God is good why would he let such an obnoxious episode rule the light of day . They are those who said that there were warning and prophecies that preceded this attack. There are much estimation out there to try and explain what we are in to which are of no avail in comforting the mourning families nor in restoring, hope peace and confidence amongst Kenyans

In death by Love

I really have no sufficient explanations to answer ‘the problem of evil’ that we see in our society today. I know there are those who would wish that all our Muslim brothers be annihilated from this land probably because we are faced by what is taking shape of jihad killings. Oh how we would wish that evil be eliminated from us. But if that’s our desire, we are asking that God to kill all people in the world for evil doesn’t exist independent of human life. Sin got attached to us like super glue and evil pervaded all faculties of human life. So we can’t just wish evil away.I wish to submit that God is deeply engraved and sympathizing and encouraging us with all the comfort we need in Christ Jesus. Human suffering reveals the fragility of human life, anytime is time to die, anywhere can be place to die if grammar hasn't eluded me there yet.There are simply million ways to experience suffering and death of the human sol but inside of us we roar with life ,immortality, hope that endures forever.

You don't have to wait for the End. I am, right now, Resurrection and Life. The one who believes in me, even though he or she dies, will live.

Let me draw our attention to the hope we have right here, now.

Jesus says “I am, right now, resurrection and life”

In death by love, Jesus ripped away the entity of sin and all vices from us. He is the resurrection and life.

If we believed we died in Jesus, let us also believe that we are raised up with him in a newness of life.

Heb 2:16-17It's obvious, of course, that he didn't go to all this trouble for angels. It was for people like us, children of Abraham.

17 That's why he had to enter into every detail of human life. Then, when he came before God as high priest to get rid of the people's sins(the message Bible)

No words can capture the horror we underwent as a country in the past week. I do sympathize with the family who lost their loved ones in the Garrisa attack. I also cant imagine the horror that the cross was. Smitten and pierced, Christ took upon himself the weight and the intensity of human suffering. This was one event that for all time changed the course of history

Yet we don’t currently see evil completely wiped away from the face of the earth but we see Christ crowned with glory.

Heb 2:9 What we do see is Jesus, made "not quite as high as angels," and then, through the experience of death, crowned so much higher than any angel, with a glory "bright with Eden's dawn light." In that death, by God's grace, he fully experienced death in every person's place.(The Message)

What we see even in such a travesty is not the ideal picture of a world rid of sin but we do see Christ who tasted death for all of us. This is the power of his death because his death was also our death. He drank that bitter cup to its dregs. He came and lifted us from that misery which is death and sat us in the highest seat in the heavenly places .

1^st Cor 15:55-57Who got the last word, oh, Death? Oh, Death, who's afraid of you now?

56 It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power.

57 But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three - sin, guilt, death - are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God (The message)

Who’s got the last laugh now? That which was a master over us even death is defeated by one stroke of death which was also a stroke of life. Greater still, sin and guilt and finally death is dealt a blasting blow by a single stroke of death.

Death is no longer frightening if you know what life is really yours in Christ. We are not the ones to recoil back at the sight of life’s uncertainties. Jesus said he who believes in him heaven though he dies he will still live for he has not really died at all. Its as complex and easy the same way the cross is to us, the same way the lamb of God was slaughtered before the foundation of this world .

Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

Insights from John Bunyan’s spiritual autobiography.

if you have not yet landed on a piece of literature that will make you dread on the thought of religion, then you would want to land on this small booklet by John Bunyan called 'Grace abounding to the chief of sinners'
If you happen to be an avid reader of Christian literature, John Bunyan may not be a stranger to you. An avid person and extremely religious. We know him from his famous writing ‘the Pilgrim’s progress’ John Bunyan was a classic English writer cum pastor who lived in the 17^th century, a period where the church had begun experiencing reformation from the Roman catholism.
What strikes me the most about this individual was how religious he was and he captures this very well in his spiritual autobiography ‘Grace abounding to the chief of sinners.’
This spiritual Biography is a spectacular journey of John Bunyan’s spiritual endeavors One full of struggle, conviction, self identity crisis, egoism and finally spiritual triumph.’
This was a person who in his religious endeavors tried to become the perfect human being. Infact at one instance he indicated that in his prayers he boasted that there was no pious man in England than him .He was extremely captivated by piety and his once profane life suddenly began gravitating towards religiosity and extreme morality. He says that he did this with all his passion and he had all the pleasure of pleasing God with his own righteousness.


The story and Life of John Bunyan gives reference to this virus of religion that plagued the church ever since the medieval ages when the gospel was domesticated under the then Roman catholic church . Things as I see began going wrong way back. 

The gospel is the power of God unto salvation,,,,,, Rom 1:16 . The absolute singularity of the gospel is missing today’s church. Church programs and other biblical teachings that seem logical to our religious mindsets have taken place of the gospel. what am I saying,,, is that fiery teaching that you may ve come to know as ‘gospel’ really the gospel ?we may have good teachings that appeals to our estimation of who we think God is and really say that such a message is the gospel. One of my friends usually jokes that God created man in his own image but Man has created God in his image. This portrays how religion operates in the faculty of a God imagined in our own minds and presumed as the eternal God. God is not an image formed in our minds, neither is he an estimation we learn from religion. God is our eternal father and his invisibleness made manifest in the person of Jesus.
I ve heard of many teachings being presented as the gospel but has got nothing to do with Jesus and his power of resurrection and what he has done and accomplished for us. Probably you and I have not yet heard the gospel being preached in our neighborhood.
Paul says that if anyone even him preaches another gospel other than what he preached, such a person should be cursed ,,,(Gal 1:6-8)
When I read Bunyan’s spiritual biography I see exactly the virus that had plunged the church at his time. Paul also speaks of the same

Gal 1:6-8 Am surprised and astonished that you are quickly turning renegade and deserting him who invited and called you by the grace (unmerited favor) of Christ (the messiah) and that you are transferring your allegiance to a different (even an opposition) gospel.

7. Not that there is (or could be) any other (genuine gospel)but there are (obviously) some who are troubling and disturbing and bewildering you with a different kind of teaching which they offer a gospel and want to pervert and distort  the gospel of Christ (the messiah) (Into something which its absolutely not)

8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to and different from that which we preached to you, let him be accursed (anathema, devoted to destruction, doomed to eternal punishment.)(amplified)

Paul is absolutely livid with any distortion in matters gospel. He is cursing anybody who distorts the gospel that’s according to what he had preached. That’s something I tell you.

Back to our friend Bunyan, His encounter with the gospel is something outstanding. He was amazed by four poor widows who were discussing the scriptures with a lot of pleasantness, refreshing themselves as ones enjoying pleasant beams of sunlight while he was shivering in the cold, afflicted with snow and dark cloud .[1]

At this stage the gospel was scandalizing everything he knew Christianity to be about . That’s what the gospel does by releasing us from the chains of religion and self into a new arena of freedom. Freedom not to sin but from sin, making us dead to sin and being alive unto God. The gospel falls on us like a ton of bricks pervading every area of our sorry lives. This is grace abounding to the chief of sinners.

We must take note that we should not promote a teaching that is in opposition of the gospel. For that teaching even if it massages our religious ego its doom to fail terribly. I will tell you that religion is facing a massive fall in today’s context. People are getting bored with routines and regulations and yearn for fellowship, for relationship.

People want to be accepted and loved but in the eyes of religion this is another license to sin, an absolutely preposterous estimation of human beings that we don’t see people in the church as people loved but instruments of sin. How can the gospel of grace be a license to sin?

Romans 6:1so do we bring back  competition between sin and grace? That’s what you want to do by bringing the sin issue back.(kainos amplified)

The gospel is most certainly about the grace of God that abounds to the chief of sinners. The heart and the engine of the gospel is love and God is certainly in the mission of love. Lets exalt God by declaring his goodness which abounds to all spheres of humanity. Blessings

Bunyan, John. Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. Welwyn, UK: Evangelical Press, 1978.

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[1] Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, 26.

Grave Cop.

Romans 6:1-4 : so do we bring back  competition between sin and grace? That’s what you want to do by bringing the sin issue back.

6:2 we hope that you know that we can’t go back to the graveyard and urge the corpse to live again. We can’t be dead and alive at the same time.[1]

6:3similarly through baptism we have been murdered, dead and buried. Sin is now a dead foreign language.

6:4 the baptism of Christ In which we share In an equal stature shows us how dead we are and how alive and active we have raised up to life to walk in a kainos new way of life to the glory of God.(Kainos Amplified)

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.(Esv)

The gospel is good news proclaiming life, peace and salvation to all and even as Prophet Isaiah said “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion , your God reigns”(Isa 57:7)

The gospel sounds too good to be true. How can the gospel just be about peace, good tidings, salvation? The ‘Gospel of grace’ has been misconstrued as the ‘free’ ‘easy’ gospel. I have heard of many accusations concerning a firm radical proclamation of the gospel.Many are the times people who preach this gospel have been considered s heretics, people who appear to be too easy and cosy with sin .

Lets go back to the heart of the matter. If we have been raised with Christ and are sited with him in the highest seat of heaven. If indeed we are heirs of God and co heirs with Christ, if we are the prime recipients of what David was seeing ahead that blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven (Psalm 32:1) then why do we want to go back to the grave and resurrect the dead while we are living ?

Why should you and I be grave cops? This is indeed what we insinuate when we say that we should continue sinning that grace may abound. To be a grave cop is to inundate yourself with the duty of being a grave cop and always reminding people of their sins. That even though they have been forgiven and their slates washed clean that they will indeed never be free from sin as long as they live . If indeed we are waiting for death to make us finally free from sin as Pastor Benjamin Dunn says, we have then made death our savior. We have hence deposed Christ and installed death as our savior.

I am usually at pains that as believers we take pride in thinking ourselves as fallen, sinful, miserable people who each and every time will always need an ounce of God’s grace to come through the travesty of life at least as the one who as escaped a fire by a whisker .we think its humility to think ourselves as nothing, as sinners in the hands of an angry God. With humility I say this is a great scorn at the cross, its to demean the on who can cleanse you until you become clean indeed.

Another misconception we have is that of time. We think that we are not Christ like because it can’t be possible on this earth. A lot of evangelicals believe that sanctification is a lifelong process which basis can be argued (this is a Pandora’s box for another day). We sometimes believe because we are thinking wrongly then we are not truly sanctified or rather something is amiss in the process. I would only think time as a servant that is meant to reveal something we have eternally in us. We simply have to renew our minds and believe the spiritual realities that have already been accomplished in Christ. Then as we believe, we realize that we already. The scriptures take emphasis to reveal what we already have not what don’t have and especially scripture s that speak of what Christ has already accomplished for us .

Why do we continually take pride in pampering your sinful nature, (if you believe you have any still) and wallow ourselves in self pity, always being unaware that we have been bought at a price and indeed have been born of the imperishable seed(1st Peter 1:23) I call this being a grave cop .

I am not insinuating sinless perfection here. I am trying to say that we should be righteousness conscious. Even though we sometimes succumb to the deeds of the flesh and sometimes our actions betray who we are, we should always go back and look at the cross of Christ, from whence our sins are washed away and our slates made clean.

By no Means! How can we who have died to sin continue living in it? How could we possibly go back to the grave and urge the dead corpse so to say live again? Am saying this with full awareness of the fleeting desires that seek to entice us . For a believer sin is no longer within but its on the outside trying to entice itself in us. The scriptures attest that our old sinful man was cut away /circumcised from us : Col 2:1-15. This was a glorious operation which happened in Christ to completely remove sin and its influence in us.

We have been baptized in Christ. I wrote about baptism in the last post to show that we have been sunk into the nature of Christ. We have been baptized into his death, buried through baptism in his death and also raised to live a new life. This represents spiritual realities already accomplished in Christ so that we who believe in Christ now might be to the praise of his glory. This is what I believe what Paul was communicating in Ephesians 2.

If we indeed have left the old country called sin and are no longer citizens of that city, why would we want to be grave cops again? If you think you can satisfy that urge to always be conscious of sin then I have some news for you, Christ died once and for all and when he comes again he won’t be coming to open up the old scroll called sin again.

To many grave cops out there, I do understand the incessant urge to preach against sin and uphold God’s holiness. I just have one thought. You cannot extinguish sin by preaching more sin, you cannot extinguish darkness by talking more about darkness, you simply have to switch on the light

Arise n shine for your light has come !

Good news the baptism of Christ In which we share In an equal stature shows us how dead we are and how alive and active we have raised up to life to walk in a kainos new way of life to the glory of God.

Christ was raised so that we too might have the experience of new life in him, It cant get any better than this, any holier than this, any more serious than this. It’s a done deal . The light is shining deep in the darkness of the world. Darkness will never triumph over light. No more grave copping, we are the city of light exposed upon a hill that we may shine for the whole world to see and come to the light.

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[1] Similarly we cant die more or lesser than we have already died, Dead is dead and alive is alive . The talk of dying daily is out of context .The only thing that remains is to renew our minds that our mental faculties catch up with the reality of what has already happened in our spirit .