Greetings in the precious name of our Lord Jesus.
I trust all is well with you my be4loved in the lord. Here in Kenya all is well except that our army is in a war with a neighboring Somali in an effort to flush out Al Shabab militants who have been kidnapping Kenyans & tourists. Everybody is in high alert because their sympathizers are retaliating by suicide bombs inside Kenya. But my family is fine as well as the church ministry. I have sent you the most recent pictures of our church. I have continued preaching my heart out, on Sundays doing an exposition on the Sermon on the mount. On the last three sermon series I have preached from Mathew 6:22-24. The first sermon I preached on THE GOOD AND THE EVIL HEART. The activities of the body are directed according to the light which is received through the eye: When the eye is sound and functioning properly & perceiving objects as they really are, the whole body is illumined: But if the eye be blind, or it's vision faulty, then we perceive objects confusedly & without distinction: As a result we stumble as if in the dark & cannot perform our task or journey properly: we are liable to run into danger. In describing the eye as the lamp of the body, Christ used a most apt symbol, since the eye has no light within itself: He used the eye to symbolize the spiritual understanding of the heart: If the heart be well illumined by Gospel truth and the Holy Spirit, it will be inclined to goodness: It will then direct man's life to godly actions: Then the whole of man's conduct & behavior will be pure & undefiled before God. But if the heart is not well illumined, its tendencies are evil & it remains hard, envious, covetous and full of vices of darkness: The whole of man's conduct will be heathenish & ungodly. What a man believes in his heart is what largely determines how he lives . On the second sermon series I preached on HOW SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS LEADS TO DISORDERLY LIFE. Jesus used the word "Single Eye" as a symbol of an understanding & illumined heart: it was the most suitable word pathologically, for a good or sound vision is a Single one: To see double or to look at different objects or different parts of an object with each eye is proof that our vision organs are defective, & a sign of approaching blindness. At Regeneration, the heart is renewed & the eyes of the soul has their vision rectified: The eye of faith is opened: The understanding of the heart is divinely enlightened: God becomes the heart's all-absorbing object & His glory becomes the chief concern of the regenerated believer. In consequence, the whole of life comes under Godly influences: The conscience become well informed: The affections are warmed up towards God, and the will is moved to act in the right direction. This enlightened understanding & divinely instructed conscience are now able to distinguish between things that differ, good & evil, & things heavenly and earthly. This miracle of Grace must happen if the man has judge rightly the the things that matters most to God and to himself: Without that, his vitiated mind produces nothing but disorderly life.His brutish lusts and evil desires eventually plunge his life into destruction. The third sermon in this series was MAN'S INABILITY TO SERVE TWO MASTERS. Christ had earlier diffrencitated between the Two Treasures...earthly & heavenly & between Two Eyes or understandings...single or evil. Now He opposes the Two Masters - stting God over against material riches which is symbolised by mammon or money. Christ's audience were the Jews who entwertained vague notions of happiness & whose minds were engrossed with dreams of carnal prosperity.
They supposed that their expectations of worldly aggrandizement & spiritual happiness were quite consistent. Christ informs them of their delusion & mistake: He asserted that he who has his heart partly on God & partly on self, who desires to grasp of both worlds, deceives his own soul: Such a one is in danger of losing both. Our minds and heart must be supremely fixed upon God: A man's affections cannot be equally divided: Man has no capacity to love the things of this world and love God at the same time with equal effort: If he dare do so, he will certainly fail to love one and love the other more: A man can only serve two masters UNEQUALLY whereby he occasionally do an act of service to one master, while he habitually serves the other whom he love most.
The influence which earthly riches exert upon men's minds, hearts and affections is a danger that Christ would not like us to ignore: In seeking happiness in earthly riches, men are moved to devote their time & energies to acquire them in detriment to the welfare of their souls. These and more were the highlights of the three sermon series. I sincerely thank you for your continued prayers, support, love and encouragement as I preach the glorious Gospel of Christ. My prayers are with you all the time.
With much love. Pastor Francis Ngugi, Nairobi/Kenya
