The ability to see the future is like any other gift. Like the ability to run fast, throw javelin, sing beautifully, punch or play football. It does not make you a man /woman /son/daughter of God or of the Devil.
And just as athletes use steroids to enhance performance; there are techniques and drugs too, to enhance so-called spiritual “powers”.
It is a grave and often costly error to automatically brand possessors of these gifts “prophets “or “people of God”.
Most “prophets” who scream about on the pages of newspapers, television and radio about who and who will die next year and the number of air crashes are low –grade clowns who are smart or unscrupulous enough to commercialize their gifts. They are not sons, but bastards of God.
Still talking of these psychic gifts: there are spiritual gifted thieves; gifted womanizers; “spiritually’ gifted fraudsters;”spiritually “gifted opportunities etc.
Therefore, wondering why [Dr.] Prophet so so so should turn out to be a 419 maestro is as ridiculous as wondering why gifted singer should swindle you.
When our society gets its definition of “men of God” right, fewer seers of vision and dreamers will rush to establish churches of their own.
Also, strictly speaking, seeing visions or dreaming dreams is no sign of any “power”. Most seers have no power to change what they foresee.
They can only prescribe precautions.
If a prophet tells you, you are travelling abroad next year, don’t make that mistake of sprawling to him in gratitude as if he is a god. He didn’t cause it . You would still have traveled abroad all the same whether or not he foresees it. All he’s done is to foresee what is in the womb of time.
Of course though, such prophecies’ have their advantages. They give hope to despairing souls who never knew the good things in store for them.
What really marks out “men [and women] of God “ is how they use their gifts in their dealings with fellow men. And that includes all gifts –from singing to boxing, to inventions, drama and animal husbandry.
But who really are men [women] of God? That brings us to another interesting phenomenon in our so-called “modern”, “enlightened “ society.
In the original African society, there was no fuss about man of God or woman of God. You were judged by your contribution to the welfare of society, you were either eni re [well-behaved person] or eni ibi [evil person…] Son of God or man of God was sparingly used – and for good reason.
However, the advert of foreign ‘fashionable ‘religions, especially Christianity and Islam, has allowed a lot of hypocritical confusion . Now, all shades of God–shouters pass for men and women of God. They don’t even wait for people to call them that. They scream it all about.
The roguish Christian who goes to night vigils eight days in a week; the dishonest Muslim who prays six times a day; the saucy lady who readily goes into trance; the swindler who donates generously in church-all beat their chests as special sons and daughters of God.
It is all bull-shit!
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If God is really good, sons of God are simply those who take after Him in demonstrable good deeds and /or intentions.
But the penchant of human beings for favorable self–delusion and religious duplicity can be amazing.Even when deep in them they feel uneasy about their claim; they still scream it all about.
Not all card–carrying members of a political party are committed to the party. But of course, all of them scream the party’s slogans for various shades of personal reasons or ulterior motives. And the tendency is the for the least committed to shout the loudest. It’s a simple rule of human psychology.
It is the same way with the ranks of God shouters. They feel safe and sung identifying with God . The more nosily they do it, the safer they feel. And so they pack in all outward activities to still nagging fears of their inadequacy.
They praise God, flatter Him, cajole Him, and coax Him. Some even claim his best to command Him. All to convince Him that they are on his side .And that is the root of fanaticism.
But Aldus Huxley (1894-1963) got them all when he declared: “Defined in psychological terms, a fanatic is a man who consciously over-compensates a secret doubt.”
After years of God–shouting, you discover they have merely succeeded in building a gigantic faith in God without building their character. Beneath all the façade of glamorous religiosity, you find intact, the petty, vices-greed duplicity, callousness, insincerity, rudeness- the eradication of which is the primary qualification for “son ship of God”.
Your immediate reaction to this might be to laugh, but when you see, how widespread is this plaque of misguided zeal, and the caliber of otherwise intelligent persons so caught up in this false paradise, your heart sinks.
It is not easy to be like Jesus. It takes great efforts and sincerity to be a “son” of God.
Every chemist knows that Gold plating is easier than actual transmutation into gold. The call on men to be sons of God is a call to transmute our natures, from the dross of human vices to the Gold of refined character.
All those outward acts of godliness we often put on but which are never true reflections of our natures are mere Gold-plating. However, this really is no sin. The real sin is the failure to back up the Gold-plating with gradual but sincere effort towards actual transmutation of our natures into the pure Gold of real, soul-deep Godliness.
Next in importance is the identification of sons and daughters of God by their nature is their identification by their activities.
Most of us are agreed that God is a worker, a builder-up ,a creator , a bringer-in to-being. Otherwise we won’t all be here today. Thus, a working definition of sons/daughters/men women of God should be easy.
All men and women engaged in activities that contribute to the upkeep, welfare and progress of God’s created world.
That brings us to an interesting poser. Who really is doing the work of God-fellow who spends hours on end praising God and cajoling Him to grant some requests or the grave scientists who spends sleepless nights in the midst of jars and chemicals in efforts to discover a vaccine to cure cancer?
