The Oxford dictionary defines the adjective ‘routine’ as ‘something performed as part of a regular procedure rather than for a special reason’. This definition already hit the nail on the head on what I am to teach today.

A pattern on the other hand is ‘a form or model proposed for imitation’.

So what is a routine regarding the spiritual life? A routine is simply doing things because you found other people doing it or maybe because it is an age old norm that has been practiced for years.

A pattern on the other hand is a model of something. It is a series of steps and/or actions that one takes to reach a desired destination or a goal. A pattern is not a copycat process it is more of a plan or a blueprint that one follows to achieve something.

An example of a pattern can be found in something like let’s say how our hearts beat. They all beat at different times and intervals but the goal is to pump blood throughout the body. Some hearts beat faster, others moderately and others slower but they all do their function.

The same applies to the brain. We all think differently and our brains are wired to think in a specific pattern so that we can achieve our God-given goals. Let’s say, my purpose on earth is to take dominion over the music kingdom. In every music I listen to, I will be very cognizant of the key, voices beats etc. I will know who sings off key, who sings well etc.

Another, called into let’s say architecture, may not even know what a key is. To them music will just be music provided it is sang or has beats. To me as well, when it pertains to architecture, I wouldn’t be able to point out a structural fault from merely looking at a building.

This is proof that we can never be all the same. We have different giftings, anointings and abilities but sadly the devil has brainwashed the child of God through blinding deception that we are all equal, we are all unified hence promoting the devilish agenda of inclusivity.

Like a sharp serrated spear, this fallacy has been driven into the heart of the church. Sadly, most church leaders think that all men are equal and can all access God through a set of processes pre-defined by their doctrine. The musician and the architect are all the same. The anointed man of God and the normal church attendee are just but children of God.

This has led to total confusion and a shepherd-less flock that go astray 99% of the time. They plans often don’t work and they end up blaming themselves that their sin is great before the eyes of the Lord and they need to atone by repenting and with numerous days of prayer and fasting.

It is so sad that so many churches spend months in prayer and fasting but they struggle with the same problems day in day out. To say the least, it is devastating to see the church wallowing in poverty and stagnation simply because they have caged God. They have a form of a legalistic and dictatorial God who has to be worshipped in a particular way, at a particular day and time.

The epitome of sadness in the modern church is that most churches think that God is more potent on Sundays and that He would severely punish them if they do not go to church on Sunday. It is sad that most Christians put on Sunday bests (good clothing reserved for church), put on a fake garment of humility and sanctify their lips with what we call Christianese (The ‘praise God brethren’ and ‘God bless you lingo.’)

Most will ask you which Church you go to and who is your pastor. You will be sharply condemned if you say that you do not go to Church on Sunday and you will be treated as an outcast; an atheist who doesn’t know God.

Some will ask, “What kind of a person are you that you do not even go to thank God? God has given you six days, why not give Him one?” They think that by you going to church on Sunday, you have done God such a big favor. They forget that you actually give God every second of your life.

I am not against going to Church on Sunday. I am against something we call the routine of making God potent on only one day of the week. Jesus also rebuked the Pharisees with their Sabbaths. Most Christians that God will understand that they never made it to church because of work or because they had another event. To them, God is just another boss.

Let me raise the bar here. Do you know where even the name Sunday came from? Well, rumor has it men were worshipping the Sun god. Is Sunday the Sabbath? Isn’t Sabbath just another name of a day of the week? Sunday is not any way holier than Tuesday. The same God who will answer your prayers on Sunday is still the same God who will answer you on Wednesday. He changes not.

The church is into routines. This is why they have timetables and sermon calendars. This explains why most attend for formality; to be in good books with judgmental neighbors and family members. This explains why most are absent minded during sermons, stiff during worship but they crazily gyrate their hips during social events. Quick question: why should a wedding be full of life than a church service?

This explains the pretense and the plastic nature of worship in churches. This explains why most would sneak to chat on their phones pretending to write notes. This explains why it is gloomy inside the church but very rowdy with gossip immediately after the service why?

Because there is no freedom during the service, men are just reminded of how sinful they are, how they have gone against the law of the Lord and how the wrath of the Lord is upon them. God is not potent in most churches and anywhere there is no Spirit of God there is no joy, peace nor freedom.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom

2nd Corinthians 3:17 NIV

So where is the church going amiss? It is simple. They have limited the Holy one of Israel by caging Him into routines that form their religion. They believe that God has to be talked to only in a certain way with decorum, humility, folded hands and in an apologetic tone and he has to answer in a swift small voice.

They forget there was a man (Elijah) who was so troubled by a woman and told the Lord, “I Want To Die” and the Lord immediately talked back. They forget Moses told God, “Kill Me” and the Lord answered by telling him to source 70 men so that he can pour his spirit (Moses’s) in them.

In short God was replicating the spirit of he who wanted to die (Moses) into 70 men. They forget there was a very strong man (Samson) who just came from sleeping with a prostitute and the Holy Spirit came powerfully over him.

To the church, the Bible was done and dusted and that was the only guide they need. They totally believe that the Bible ceased to be written and they cannot continue writing the Bible through their works. This is why they will always ask you, “Show me where it is written in the Bible.” They totally render useless the words of Jesus when He said, “More than these shall you do.”

They forget that the Bible is simply a documented piece of men that chose to walk away from the routine of religion. In turn, people saw that these stories are worthy to be jotted down and shared to the entire world. They have so much lied to themselves and have distanced themselves from the Bible naively claiming that it is the word of God. They forget that it is just stories of people who chose to become like God.

This is why they cannot interpret it as well. And because they serve a God they do not know, in their own intellect they look for routines that look ‘Holy’ and form a religion out of it. This explains why we have so many sects in the Bible; we have those who say they don’t believe in praying in other tongues, others say they only believe in baptism, other say that Jesus is not the only way to heaven etc.

If they are all reading from the same script which is the Bible, how is it that number one is interpreted at number twenty?

The Pharisees had their own way of doing things and to them Jesus was just a mere human being who came to do things His own way. They had their religion, coined from the law of Moses. They were to get a pattern from Moses on how to be intimate with God but they crafted a routine on how to worship Him.

The same scenario replicates itself fulfilling the scripture in Ecclesiastes 1:9 NIV that says that there will be nothing new under the sun. That, what has been will be again and what has been done will be done again. The same scenario replicates itself with the church today and the remnant.

The remnant follows a pattern and worships the Lord in truth and in spirit. He captures the spirit of God and can do exploits. He makes a resolve to fully engage in the life of the spirit come what may. He believes that there is something bigger and better and he knows that his life is at stake if he fails to live a life of God.

The religious chap on the other hand is always offended because worldly theological knowledge coined from routines and processes puffs up. Just the same way the Pharisees were antagonistic with Jesus, the religious chaps only sees fault in a person who has committed to bring the agenda of God onto the earth.

Just like Jesus, the remnant will remain an enigma to the church. He will seem off because to them, he will be defying all the laws of their legalistic God. He will be against what they know and they will stamp all sort of names upon him calling him a cult, a heretic, a false teacher etc.

The routine church that does the same thing year in, year out, expecting different results will go against the remnant who changed how he viewed and dealt with the Lord. He will always be happy, free and will abound in all things. He will defy all the laws set by the religious church and he will create lots of envy.

The remnant will be discussed in the jury of the religious and will be judged by religious men who understand not his ways. They will talk of how he misleads, how he has entangled himself with things like new age religion and they will even tell others to watch him closely as he will not last long.

Secretly, the religious church will try reverse engineer the ways of the remnant. This coincides in how the Pharisees wanted to reverse engineer the workings of Jesus and his disciples to no avail because physical routines and spiritual patterns do not relate.

How is a remnant identified?

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Acts 4:13 NIV

Remnants are unschooled, they know zero about theology, church structures nor the history of the missionaries. They are ordinary men in the society but very lethal and bizarre in the spirit. There is something constant about them, “Men will always say that they are not on their own, they must have followed or are following someone.”

Remnants are always linked with someone. Religious men are always linked to routine. That’s why they will always ask, “Where do you go to church?” And don’t get me wrong, I am not against people going to church. The remnants of God and the religious church do not speak the same language. The former follows a spiritual pattern and the latter’s knowledge is coined mostly from theology and/or routines from theologians.

Remnant do not sit in the crowd. There are at the top of the mountain where it is snowy, cold and lonely. No matter the harsh conditions at the top, they choose to stick to them because they have a bird’s eye view of all the kingdoms of the world. They are in a place of dominion and power. With this, they remain a mystery.

This explains why Elijah was in the wilderness alone, why Moses was at the top of the mountain, mostly alone, why John the Baptist was driven to the wilderness alone, why Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness to be alone and why John the revelator, a blind man was in the island of Patmos, alone.

So how do you catch on a pattern?

There is a reason why the Bible says, “…they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.”

A remnant is identified by someone. Someone goes ahead of them. All through the Bible, there are men that went ahead of others and other men are supposed to capture their spiritual pattern. E.g. Noah went ahead of the people and so was Moses, Jesus among others.

These men capture the true pattern of God Himself and it is so evident in how they commune with Him. They get to know the Lord from the how and not the what. They become models to follow based on their spiritual actions and not merely physical actions. It doesn’t mean that because Elijah prayed seven times for something to happen, I should also pray seven times. That is the what.

The religious church has focused on what draws men to God, what pleases God, what to do when the Lord seems far etc. The remnant on the other hand focuses on the how; how do I draw close to God? How do I please this God? How do I move Him etc.

While the religious church will focus on the what – mostly prayer, fasting & holy communion (all done out of the tune of the Spirit of God), the remnant will focus on the how. He will ask himself questions like: how do I minister to this God so that He ministers to me? How do I draw close to Him so that He can draw close to me?

While the religious church focuses on the flesh, how to sanctify themselves by asking God for forgiveness and how not to sin, the remnant will focus on how to posture himself in the spirit. He will not seek for perfection in the flesh but rather will become vulnerable and genuine to the Lord. Unlike the religious chap who goes to him grumbling, he will teach himself how to rejoice always.

Religious people catch on routines that lead to their ruin. E.g. Suppose a sermon is taught in church that someone should always pray while rejoicing, most children of God will always go to pray with fake smiles and fake joy because they just took an instruction and made it routine.

A remnant on the other hand may not feel so good because maybe their lover or family may have hurt them. They will be so genuine with their feelings and have themselves feel the hurt at its core right in their belly. They will then go to God with that hurt and tell the Lord, “God, someone has really hurt me and it is making me having difficulty praying. I really do not like how I feel. I do not like this feeling.”

You catch up on a pattern by being genuine. Men who walked with God were very genuine and vulnerable with God. It is through vulnerability that one is able to capture the spirit of a man. While the religious church through deception thinks that all men are equal, the remnant knows that there is someone who is more knowledgeable and went before them and they need to capture their spirit.

It is so easy to capture a routine. This is why the devil will emphasize on routines like, “Read your Bible and pray everyday” to keep men in a loop of a religious routine that has got no God. Religious routines are meant to justify you in your own flesh and that’s why most Children of God go to God saying, “Lord, I have served you in church, I have not slept with anyone nor take drugs but I am suffering.” Religious routines make man think that their good deeds saved them.

God is a God of patterns. He already has a pattern for you and that’s why He says that he knew you before you were born, he predestined you and that He orders your steps. He told Moses to follow a specific pattern:

They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”

Hebrews 8:5 NIV

God hides your secrets in Himself and that’s why He says:

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

Proverbs 25:2 NKJV

Do you think that you can search the matter above through a routine? The matter can only be searched out through a spiritual pattern. What does it take to get the pattern? Submit. Teach yourself to be vulnerable and to be lowly, forget all you know and know that the answer is in men. That’s why God had to come to this earth as a man because man has dominion here.

Even the person writing this article that baffled you is a man who knows something deeper. The simplest way to catch a pattern is to just subscribe and keep feeding from this spiritual revelation. You can read through other posts and you can even go deeper and ask, “Where does this person fellowship from?”

For starters, I urge you to come to Limitless Worship and follow the man Prophet Elvis Mbonye