Just when you think some of our West African brothers have run out of spiritual innovations, there’s one more.

Like every October, the Hallelujah Challenge crowds take us by storm, this time asking to “dress like your miracle.”

Image: Chidy/pexels

I call them “crowds” because they remind me of the crowds who endured following Jesus on foot in John 6, yet it was not the Messiah they were interested in; it was the bread, the wheat. Jesus’s response cut through their materialistic pretense.

“Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.“ (John 6:26) The bread of earth motivated more than the bread of heaven.

“You had your fill.”

They saw the Son of God and couldn’t see beyond “provision”—a Messiah prophesied and anticipated, they treasured like a ‘mere’ baker.

Physical appetite replaced awe for the divine. The void was in the intestines, not the soul. Apostle Peter, who probably witnessed it all, later writes and says the angels “longed” to look at such an age in which the Messiah had come (1 Pet 1:12), yet these he came for only longed for more wheat; their bellies drove their behavior.

Likewise, most spiritual innovations in our pulpits today cater to life here and now, and so do the preacher clips on WhatsApp status. Many preachers today would, for example, be dumbfounded if they were asked to preach at a funeral; they can only declare and decree and sing “too oiled to fail”—they’d rather “dress like their miracle.”

We all, we often always, follow Jesus because “we’ve eaten and had our fill.”

Aside from drooping after changed circumstances, we have never been awakened by God’s Spirit to taste the miracle of a new heart promised by Ezekiel and Jeremiah and later fulfilled in the New Testament. We are clueless.

Salvation, to us, is not an admiration of things angels treasure, but a ticket to cushioned earthly life. Christ, the secret of contentment Paul talks about, we have never known.

The only things our spiritual tongue has ever treasured are God’s gifts, never himself. Yet, what you do with who Jesus is is what places you in the ‘sheep’ or ‘goat’ category. In fact, Paul adds and says even our Christian transformation is rooted in what (and who) you are beholding.

Jesus’s harshest betrayal came from a man who loved “helping himself from the moneybags.” (John 12:6)—Judas Iscariot. His position among the disciples seemed so close, yet his heart was far; his heart (namely his emotions, longings, and desires) had never been captivated by the reality of the bread of heaven, who walked beside him as flesh and blood.

He proved so in the end. The stony heart remained in his chest even as he daily accompanied the only one who could replace it. His heart had never experienced a miracle. But maybe his dressing did?

Unfortunately, Judas’s legacy continues among many of us who are often spiritually busy but distant in our desires. Lord, may the outpouring of God’s Spirit realized in changed hearts be our portion. May we see more growth and grace in Christian character than cash in our motivations.

May the countries we live in (West African inclusive) drop off the corruption rankings as a result of the Jesus we speak and sing about so loudly. May the world look at our Jesus and want how he’s transformed us, more than what he may have given us materially.