This may be the last generation of Christians in Nigeria – SAP

The sickness and deterioration of our country is a reflection of the Church of Nigeria. Church of this nation, when will you wake up from your slumber! Nigeria is one of the highly religious countries in the world, yet our sickness is not healed. In spite of our religious practices, how come we are fifth on the list of the most corrupt countries of the world?

This has set my heart pounding all along. Of what use is the jamboree going on in our churches today? Having lost our priority, dignity and pride, all we now do is to chase after shadows. It is high time we burnt this garment of religion and put on the genuine nature of Christ.

If 120 Christians transformed the entire city of Jerusalem and with the revival of the Upper room liberating several nations, what are the about 12million Christians in Nigeria doing to flush out corruption, immorality, injustice and wickedness from our nation? Where is this form of Christianity coming from? This couldn’t be the church Christ labored and died for!

At this point, certain things must be made clear and the first thing is that we must realize that the fact that a person sings, preaches, pays tithes and offerings, sows seeds, attends programs and sleeps in the sanctuary will never make him or her a Christian of such that can revive the land.

I am sorry for having to break your heart at this point, but I know your pastor has hidden this truth from you because he wouldn’t want to lose your offering and seeds. He is, obviously, not bothered if your soul gets rotten and ends up in hell. He is very much aware that you still falsify figures at work, but has he ever rebuked you? Instead of rebuking you, has he not continued to encourage you and to tie you down with positions in church so that you can continue to fund his so-called ministry?

The blank truth is that you are working for your pastor and his church and definitely not for God. Don’t you think it would be impossible for God to recognise and accept such a labour? I know you have travelled far in this error, but it is not too late to realize that God saved you to make you be like Him in character, holiness and in producing abiding fruits.

To the Church of Nigeria I write: “I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.”

Church, wake up to reality! A number of things have attempted to shake you from your comfort zones, but you refused to shift grounds. Shepherds of the Church of Nigeria, leaders of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and other servants of God, I challenge you in the name of the Lord to strengthen what is left and about to die.

“Seeketh thou a great thing for yourselves?” (Jer. 45:5) Don’t seek for great things for all that is great shall be demolished and destroyed. Stop seeking for power and fame. That’s not what you are called to do. Can’t you see that the lives (Boko Haram members) you ignored and left unattended to have become giants and Goliaths who now defile the name of our Lord?

Uncircumcised Philistines, who at a time had contacted us by attending our churches and being our neighbours, now dictate the present and rob our school girls and youths of their future. To think that you can still walk about in your Babarigas and fly in your private jets make my heart bleed. This is shameful!

It is glaring that because of the pressure to fill up the stomach, Shepherds of the church now find the work of discipleship and true teaching difficult to do. You prefer raising billionaires than raising disciples capable of defending and enlarging the kingdom. Little wonder there is no improvement in the deterioration of our land. In the time of trouble, billionaires, so raised, will only fly off to other countries, while the land is left void of disciples to stand for Christ.

We have heard of Turkey, a nation that was once like Nigeria dominated by Christians; a very religious country for about 1,300 years. Today, the population of Christians in Turkey is less than 0.24% with Islam dominating with about 96.04%. If you should know, Turkey is the old Ephesus where we have the Church of Ephesus that Apostle Paul laboured to build in Christ.

What really happened to Turkey? They forsook God, their first love and although Christ, the Head of the Church, warned them in Revelation 2:1-5, they refused and eventually, their candlestick was removed. The Church of Nigeria is treading on the same path now and unless we arise and repent, this generation may be the last generation of Christians in Nigeria. If we refuse to stand up and embrace the purpose of our salvation, then our story will likely end up as it did for Turkey.

In summary, please don’t keep saying it by word of mouth that you are a Christian. I know, but I strongly believe it is time to stand up and show it by your actions and lifestyle. Don’t advertise your denomination to me; it makes no sense to me and to the world. The only thing that makes sense and capable of transforming lives is for you to allow Christ live from within you. Live the life! Let the light shine! Enough of the jamboree! What we need is revival and Lord, may our land be revived! Amen.

My duty is to follow orders

Even though I know this cannot work, yet I sometimes wish it is possible to serve God on my own terms. Tell me, if this be so, who shall be serving who? Looks more like God serving me!

I am the one created for service, hence I am the servant. God chooses the service; He decides what to be done in the manner it should be done. He goes further to decide when and where it should be done. I am trying to say that God is behind it all when it comes to service. My singular duty, therefore, is to follow His leading and instruction. I simply follow orders!

I have, for this long period, suffered a stunted growth because I do the leading and simply call on Him for backup. I choose What to do and the Where, How and When of the work. He is pushed aside only for me to call on Him whenever I hit a storm. Should this be?

I base what is to be done on the measurement of my ability. If it is what I think I can handle, fine! I go ahead to accept the work. On the other hand, if the demands of the work are reckoned beyond my strength, I coil in. How dare I accept a task from God based on what lies within me as human strength, ideas and knowledge.

I thought He should be the strength in me for His assignments. He is the wisdom and all that I need for the work and not my limited ability. What is to be done will not always fall within my scope of comfort and ease. In most cases, His assignments are stretchy. I must be stretched out of what I am used to; out of what gives me comfort.

He does this to grow and widen my knowledge of Him and to make me ever dependent on Him. I guess He dislikes not being seen in the picture of the work. At every stroke of the painting brush, God must be seen. He is the great God within, without, behind, beside and before a small man called to service.

Now I really wish to serve Him beyond the set lines or boundaries of my official title; beyond what I have measured my capacity to be. Nothing should restrict or limit my service. Once He calls, I move without anything weighing me down and eventually weighing me out of divine relevance.

Where He leads me I will go and what He wants will remain my focus. I do not intend to consider myself before the task. I mean, why should I first want to know how the gains or pains of the work will affect me before accepting to pick up His job offer? Secularly, this makes sense, but nothing of God makes human sense.

Even if He leads me to an island of pains, I should know that these mere earthly pains are ingredients for eternal gains. There is no divine pain without a far weighty gain or glory. As they say, No pain; No Gain. No Thorn; No Crown.

Is the place I am, therefore, called to serve looks so small and little known? This may be, but the song writer says, “Little is much when God is in it. Labour not for wealth or fame. There’s a crown and you can win it, if you go in Jesus’ name.”

So what if He sends me to a big field? Even this big field requires God to be in it if success will not remain an idea from dreamland. Big and intimidating fields are His ways of saying, “I can use the weak to confound the strong; the poor to confuse the rich and the stupid to shame the wise.

Only the weak and humble shall overcome by His strength. “Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord of hosts.

– Burning Bush Boy

Gleanings from John 9

Our God is a God of Splendor. He sometimes ‘allows’ some situations and circumstances to take place in our lives in order for Him to show Himself in ways that will bring pleasure to His name. Please note the word, ‘allow’ is used to show that although God may permit or allow ‘evil’, He doesn’t do evil because only good and perfect gifts come from Him.

In a sense, what we call evil is only evil due to our inability to see the end of God’s wisdom from the beginning. If only babies could talk then I am sure that a day-old baby born prematurely will accuse you of being evil by placing him in a confined incubator with rays of light directed at him. You must be wicked and evil for doing that! Are you not? Well, to the little baby with a limited and undeveloped ‘brainbox’, you are, but matured minds know that you are a loving parent just as God is.

Since God is, therefore, a God of splendor then I should be bold to make Him known to others in every aspect of my life. This also implies that God desires that we experience His splendor in our ministry, marriage and career.

John 9 verse 5 says “As long as I am in the world, I am the Light of the world”. Light illuminates, brings joy (in Nigeria we shout “Up NEPA” whenever electricity is restored), things left undone will be accomplished and hidden things are brought to the open. So, as long as I am alive in this world, I am expected to be a solution provider; a joy to the people and darkness repellant.

In verse 7 of the same chapter, Jesus gave the blind man an instruction and when he acted accordingly, he returned with an instant healing. When God does the miraculous in your life, people will not recognize you again because your status, appearance and sometimes, your name will change. In the case of the blind man, he stopped begging, he was able to change his clothes and people no longer call him blind or a beggar. Finally, when God does the miraculous in your life, you will have reasons to testify and men will seek Jesus through your life.

By the time the people discovered what happened to the man, they began to ask him about the person who healed him. When God changes your story, He’ll bring you before the important men of the society. This man was formerly a common beggar on the street with a beggar’s garment, but when his story changed, he was brought before the Pharisees – an important sect of the time.

When people query your testimony, it does not mean a change did not take place. You must, therefore, never be ashamed to declare what God has done for you when people wish to know about it. Whenever you speak about His deeds, you are spreading the gospel i.e. Good News and the ‘questioners’ will be left to decide on whether to accept the truth or not.

The man did not know Jesus by name, but from His actions, he concluded that Jesus was a prophet. Do your actions depict that you are a Christian or do you have to constantly argue to remind them that you attend a Church and that you even hold a key position there?

The Pharisees went ahead to interview the parents of the man; seeking to know more of him, but his parents answered and said he was of age so he could speak for himself. This implies that there comes a point in a man’s lifetime when he becomes accountable to God and sometimes to men over what goes on in his life.

Why did his parents make that statement? It was because they were afraid that the Pharisees (men) could put them out of the synagogue. They feared men and not the God of the Synagogue and they chose not to acknowledge the work of God, thus denying God.

On the part of the Pharisees, they were willing to acknowledge God, but ready to deny and lay a disclaimer on the Vessel. God will not deny His vessels, so even as we return all glory to God, we must still honour His vessels.

In verses 30-33, the man spoke about Jesus as though he had studied Theology, yet he never attended a Bible School. It was a genuine encounter that gave him a revelation of the personality of Jesus so much that he could give the Pharisees a concise lecture entitled: “The man God uses’”.

Below is a brief outline of the lecture.

Characteristics of the man God uses:

1. He does the will of God.
2. God listens to him and answers his prayers.
3. God is able to perform the miraculous through him
4. He has to be connected to God to do the work, because he has no power of his own.

 

God is counting on you. Will you deny Him or declare Him?

– Ope Sanyaolu

Swimming against the tide of life

Lord, grant me the grace to swim against the tide of life. I have looked around me for a dry ground, but I found none. All I see is a body of troubled waters being tossed here and there by strong wind.

I would have dared to swim in still waters, but in these troubled waters, I dare not risk my precious life. I can’t guarantee my safety in these troubled waters with broken blocks, dangerous particles and terrible animals lying therein. Yet, it is a must for me to cross to the other side for there lies my promised land; my purpose and fulfillment.

How long am I going to tarry and study these troubled waters when God’s will and purpose lie on the other side? I have studied several books on swimming. I have made several researches about swimming in troubled waters. I have even taught several people about swimming against the tides, but none of these will yield any fruit when I’m still afraid of plunging into these troubled waters.

Lord, all I pray for is the grace to swim over these tides of life. I want to go beyond teaching theories. Grant me the boldness to dive into these troubled waters. This generation awaits your manifestation in me and I have kept them waiting long enough; standing here and studying the tides. I have denied some of them the access to their purpose and fulfillment. Some of them have lost hope because of my indecisiveness.

I have no excuse remaining on this side, because it is very much possible for me to cross this tide by your grace. All I need to do is to let go of my life; my fears and to trust in you who walked on the sea and laughed at the storm. It is possible for me to stand for righteousness in this world that is tossed here and there by the tide of unrighteousness. It is possible for me to remain faithful in the storms of lies that force everyone towards one direction. It is possible for me to stand for Christ even in a world where it is so hard for people to remember their Creator.

I submit myself unto you Lord. I submit my will and my all. Let it no longer be that it’s me at work, but your power working in and through me. Help me to swim against tides that force one’s life towards destruction that I may save myself and my generation.

Lord, I thank you for granting my request.

-SAP

Hunger: A need that must be tamed

When a man is hungry, seriously hungry, nothing else apart from eating matters. When a man is hungry, the saying says, he is an angry man. However, when a man is completely down with hunger, he loses the energy to stay angry and starts acting dull. Not too long, he begins to act stupidly and desperately to survive.

According to the Advanced English Dictionary, hunger is defined as a physiological need for food; the consequence of food deprivation. It also defines it as a strong desire for something other than food.

In this sense, hunger, especially when it relates to food, could be seen as a legitimate sensation. Would it, therefore, be right to condemn a hungry person when you know he has not eaten for a considerable period of time? No! Nobody is exempted from hunger, so let us not feel bad when we’re hungry.

 

We should also not condemn ourselves for having a strong craving (desire) for something other than food. For example, having a strong craving for professional or academic excellence may not be considered evil, provided the craving is well managed.

 

What about cravings for something negative? It is not uncommon to notice an occasional desire for something negative, but as long as such inordinate hunger is appropriately checked or dealt with, we need not hang ourselves.

 

It is, therefore, not the hunger that really matters, but the way and manner we intend to satisfy it. When you become hungry, either for food or for something else, my advice is that you keep your cool instead of behaving irrationally. The feelings of hunger, like I said, may not be the big deal, but its management is surely important.

 

To shed further light on this issue, please read carefully the personal account of a beloved brother.

 

I was born a twin, but since I was the first to step into the world from my mother’s womb, I was considered to be the first son and the first child in my family.

 My twin brother’s name is Jacob and just as I must have guessed, his name rings bell in your ears as in the ears of many others. Isn’t it? A lot of people know so much about him (Jacob) than they do of me. I really do not blame anyone for this – I made it happen that way for Jacob. I gave him my throne and allowed him to sit as the heir of my family. I chose to slide into oblivion, although I didn’t quite realise the gravity of my actions on time.

 While Jacob was mummy’s boy, I was my father’s favourite. Isaac, my father, loved me so much that he was prepared to hand over his entire estate to me. Of course, legally, all belonged to me. Never mind; I stupidly truncated his lofty plans as I handed over the opportunity to be the first to Jacob on a platter of a plate of red stew.

 As a hunter, I was more on the field while Jacob would always stay at home. It’s so easy to trace where and how he learnt to cook so well. My mother, Rebecca, had no rival when it comes to cooking and with Jacob spending his day in the kitchen with mum, you wouldn’t expect anything less of him. Surely, he turned out an expert in preparing and dishing red stew!

There was, however, this fateful day I returned home tired and hungry from a failed hunting expedition and unfortunately, it was Jacob who met me at the entrance. I was extremely weak and at such a period, how refreshing would it have been to rest on a brother’s shoulder. My own brother had no such comfort in mind to offer me. He had actually waited for me to be weak enough that he may launch his attack. I pray you will not walk into the waiting hands of such a brother as mine.

 How on earth was I to know that meeting my own blood brother with a plate of red stew would be tragic? I was tired and hungry and since he had food with him, I didn’t know I had to think twice before asking him for some of the food. Why should I have to be on my guard when I’m with my brother!

 So, without thinking I could be asking for too much from my brother, I asked: “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary.”

 Was asking for that same red stew my undoing? Should I have asked and waited for another one to be cooked? Should I not have ignored his plate and go ahead to cook mine, even if it won’t be as tasty as his? These are mere after-thoughts.

 As I waited to hear him say: “You are welcome. Please join me as we eat together,” he went ahead to ask for what had always been in his heart. “Sell me your birthright as of this day,” Jacob replied me.

 

If only I was in my right senses and have not allowed the demands of my stomach to hinder me from thinking straight, the conversation between us should have ended at that point. I was, however, too hungry to think deep on Jacob’s request to have me sell my BIRTHRIGHT to him.

 

Brethren, never you allow hunger to shut down your thinking faculty. You can be hungry and still be sensible to the inner witness of the Holy Spirit in you. Instead of walking away, I was foolish enough to stay back and think I could dine with the devil in my brother’s cloak without having to pay dearly for the meal. Tell me, who has ever heard the devil serving a free meal? I replied Jacob: “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?”

I have never stopped to give myself a knock on the head each time I play back the happenings of that day. Who told me that missing a day’s meal has ever killed a person or will kill me? Honestly, I shouldn’t have believed the spirit that told me I was about to die and talking of a lying spirit; one indeed spoke out of me that day.

 It is a blatant lie from the devil that you will die if you don’t take that wrong means of satisfying your hunger. The enemy will tell you that you are about to lose your life, integrity, home and all that is precious to you if you insist on keeping your sanity and faithfulness. He will tell you that you haven’t got much time and so you must have to sell your birthright to stay alive. He will never tell you that the threatening hunger will not and cannot kill you. He will create a fake sense of urgency to lead you into taking a desperate and negative step. I ask, is it not the mis-management of hunger that kills? Lord, if only someone had told me what I am now telling your children!

 As soon as Jacob spotted that I was desperate and ready to offer the most precious gift in my life for food, he went further. “Swear to me as of this day,” he demanded and foolishly, I did. I sealed the sale of my birthright to Jacob with an irredeemable oath. Jacob walks tall today, because while I gave him something eternal, he offered me back with something temporary. Not a fair deal you will agree with me, but that’s too late now.

You should ask me what happened after he handed over that same red stew to me. I ate and I felt satisfied. My stomach was filled, but my life became empty afterwards. That food drained life and authority out of me. After paying so much a price that cannot be quantified in any nation’s currency for a plate of red stew, I thought I should never be hungry again, but the next day, hunger knocked on the walls of my stomach.

 Let me personify hunger for a moment and tell you about one of my discussions with him – Mr Hunger. I once told him I had already paid with my birthright, so I shouldn’t expect his visitation again, but he laughed and said:

 “Esau, you behaved foolishly in exchanging your birthright for a plate of red stew. Your birthright, the rare rights you have by being the first child was actually your insurance against me. Your birthright comes with the authority to command Jacob (your brother/enemy) to get you your own meal for the day. With it, you can order your father’s servants (angels of God) to fix you your meal at any time you want it. They would have served you with whatever you requested for. With your birthright intact, you could have remained an heir to the throne.

 You were born with authority to rule and you had everything at your beck and call, but you were blinded by the aroma of the stew and the lie that the food would keep death away from you. You thought you would die when actually, you had life in you. You believed you were too tired to forge ahead, yet you could have simply called on the Holy Spirit to renew HHoly hhyour strength. Esau, with your birthright as the son, next to the father, you had power over all, but sadly, you despised it”.

 These statements from hunger have since hunted me, but my dear reader, my own life is now history, while yours is still very much in your hands. Hunger is real. Hunger demands and pushes. Hunger will drive you to take quick, but mostly, irrational decisions. Hunger will keep you from thinking and worse still, it will stop you from hearing the words of wisdom from the Holy Spirit.

 Hunger comes with lies, blindness and deception and in a desperate attempt to satisfy this natural, but dangerous need, wolves sneak up on you dressed up in brothers’ cloaks. What you are about to satisfy your hunger with may actually be a trap to have you exchange your birthright as a child of God. Watch it!

 Do always remember that as a child in God’s family through your faith in Jesus Christ; you have a birthright with loads of power to overcome the deceits of the enemy. Go back to God and let the Holy Spirit define your hunger and give you the details behind it. It is indeed well with you. Amen!

 Lest I forget, my name is Esau Isaac and my story is well documented in Gen. 25:21-34 & Heb. 12:16-17. Thank you.

=Burning Bush Boy

Faith for sale!

There is a lucrative business now in town involving the offering of your faith for sale. The traders in this business are very smart, eloquent, motivating and psychological endowed. These businessmen, though, from a humble background, have grown drastically in their ‘faith for sale’ business to the extent that they do not walk on the ground with common men again. If they must do, there must be legions of bodyguards around them.

It is so amazing to see them going about their business manifestos with armed men around them, yet much gullible audience pay attention to them. They are very smart in milking dry their prey. They will squeeze them with their oratory power and psychological tricks until they (their prey) exchange their gold for faith. (Faith in whom, you wonder.)

The purpose of these ‘Shepherd-turned-businessmen’ should be to present the Author and Finisher of this faith to their sheep (audience), but instead, they keep presenting themselves as the Author and Finisher of their faith. They have made themselves the Alpha and Omega. How dare you talk to them standing! You must be on your knees, crawling and licking their shoes with your tongue before they can attend to you.

Foolishly, we have idolized them; sheepishly giving our hearts to them. Whatsoever they say is final; be it right or wrong, we don’t bother to check again. They have enslaved our spirits and cajoled our minds so much that we have failed to realize that they are mere human like us – men of like passion. They have told many lies and falsely established laws from the Scripture, which sadly, they have now taken as their business marketing book.

Examples of such lies and laws are: “Though shall not appear before the Lord empty handed.” Even if you don’t have, go and borrow. “He who believes in a prophet shall reap the reward of a prophet”. In other words, whatsoever these businessmen demand for, you must obey for you to reap the reward (if any) that will come after. “Those that sow with tears shall reap with joy”. This means that for you to reap a bountiful harvest thereafter, you must sow a very huge amount of money which must bring about tears from you.

They have customized and packaged this faith in different forms and sizes. The faith packages include: Anointed Goya Oil, Handkerchiefs, Anointed Pure Water Sachets and Table Water, Divinely Anointed Pen, Anointed Suits and Aprons, Anointed Shoes of Divine Favour, Anointed Powder and Perfumes just to mention, but a few. These faith packages are sold at exorbitant rates – 500k, 200k, 100k and so on.

Special projects never cease in this ‘faith for sale business’. Today, we are building a classic University in the name of moving forward the Mission (expanding the ‘faith for sale business’) and vision (making more money). Though the schools are built from the sweat of common men, yet, the children of these common men can’t afford the fees of these so-called Mission Schools.

We sell our clothes and belongings for these ‘faith for sale’ businessmen to appear glamorous. We sell off our shoes for them to ride on jets. We go hungry for them to feed sumptuously. They ask us to pay tithes without them paying theirs. They ask us to fast while they eat in their own closets.

How long shall we remain gullible and ignoramus? How long are we going to exchange our sweat for these faith packages? How long are we going to keep selling our faith to these monsters that have no human feelings? When are we going to wake up from our sleep? Phew! How long are we going to be deceived and cajoled?

The good news, however, is that the True Shepherd will soon appear and all these business hirelings will be disgraced. He will surely purge His Church. He will turn the tables of the moneychangers and chase them away with His whip. He will heal the broken hearted and revival shall return to our land.

Nevertheless, before the True Shepherd appears, kindly guide your faith with all diligence. Holdfast to that which has been handed over to you and don’t trade your faith for any junk. My faith is not for sale. What about you?

-SAP

Sir, Samuel is right behind you!

There was a time in Israel when God chose to quit interacting with His people. He went as far as not speaking to the High Priest, who was meant to mediate for the people before Him. It was a terrible period of darkness in Israel!

Eli, the unfortunate High Priest at this time went about town with his bogus title, yet he found it impossible to connect with God. Talk of a figurehead priest and you would be right to name Eli as an example. With divine revelation so scarce, Eli spoke without utterance.

Now don’t go accusing God of neglecting His children, for it is not in His character to do so. If God seems so remote from His children, then maybe we should remember that Prophet Isaiah once said this of God: “God’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from God and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He will not hear you. (Isa. 59:1-2)

God did not suddenly abscond from His duty post. He did not suddenly become an irresponsible and unloving Father to Israel. God kept quiet not because He had nothing beneficial to say to His children, but how do you explain it when those who should know Him better, continually and habitually disrespect Him?

Well, if you care to know, God stopped speaking because of the sins of Eli’s family. Do I mean the High Priest? Yes! When those who should be in charge of the oracles of God fail and after ignoring His many corrective attempts, He withdraws.

In the time when Eli proudly went about as the High Priest, God stopped appearing at the nation’s feasts, sacrifices and worship. The people though sang and danced to gospel tunes, yet God kept His distance. He never allowed their praise songs to tempt Him to draw near them. God was so resolute about this!

With time, the people suffered a delusional disorder which made them worship God even when He was absent. Somehow, they allowed themselves to be self-deceived to believe He was present with them. They ended up developing feelings – they felt His presence without an assurance of it. Please tell them that feelings don’t last and they could be highly deceptive.

As Eli led the congregation to pray all the time at Shiloh, nobody was observant enough to note the absence of God in their midst. The music, stage or altar lightening effects, shouts of praise, the ministerial swagger and what have you, all made it unimaginable to think that God was actually absent. Anyway, they eventually mastered the art and science of organising and conducting religious meetings behind the Author and Finisher of their faith.

This horrible situation was, however, not designed to last forever. God was so much poised to return to Israel, but not after He had seen a man willing to hear, honour and carry out His will without any alteration. Not until Samuel came on board, God was missing, so to say, in Shiloh. In 1 Sam. 3:21, the Bible finally and joyfully announced: “Then the Lord appeared again at Shiloh”.

For God to appear again in Shiloh means He had once appeared before. His appearance this time was obviously not His first; it was a re-appearance of a kind. He had once, before things went wrong with Eli and his family, appeared in Shiloh. His first appearance must be at a time when Eli was probably young in faith and therefore, carried out God’s instructions without going into a debate.

There was a time God walked freely in Shiloh; it was the time when Eli honoured God. Eli, perhaps, did not start off on a wrong footing when the staff of office was handed over to him in his early days. He must have once walked upright with and before God and as a result, he lacked no divine revelation.

Would my suspicion be right of Eli that the ascent of Hophni and Phinehas, his two sons, paved the way for his descent? Did Eli’s spiritual sense reduce with the increase in the mischievous acts of his two sons? Somehow, the old man lost control and God withdrew from him and sadly, from the land.

Eli, the Bible told us, was fat and old at this period. He became a MOG (Man of God) too old and too used to his ministry that he ended up compromising divine instructions that once guided his life unto righteousness. He became fat, not just in physical size, but spiritually. He grew up to be too fat to respond promptly to the things of God. He was too fat to stand on his two feet for the truth and the fats blocked both his voice box and his eyes. He overlooked and could not speak to check the errors of his two sons; not even when God registered His displeasure with him.

With his agility now a thing of the past, Eli sat back and allowed iniquity to take over the altar of the Lord, so much that the people disregarded/despised the sacrifice of the Lord. Things, however, changed in the time of Samuel.

As soon as God discovered that Samuel was a willing young lad, He returned and found His voice again – He began to speak. Samuel, who as a child did not know how to hear God, eventually learnt that the only thing required to hear from God was to possess and present a listening heart.

Ironically, it was the old MOG, Eli, who tutored Samuel on the theory of hearing God. “Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord nor was the word of the LORD yet revealed to him…Therefore Eli said to Samuel, ‘Go, lie down; and it shall be, if He calls you, that you must say, ‘Speak, LORD, for Your Servant hears.’ So Samuel went and lay down in his place”. 1 Sam. 3:7-9.

Sadly, it was Eli, who had at this time grown to stop hearing God that instructed Samuel on how to hear God. Eli may have forgotten how it was to hear God, but he could still teach from his past experiences. Although he did not have with him the current practical approach to hearing God, but at least, he kept the theoretical aspect of hearing God at heart. Hmm!

Eli, a man of theory without practice, somehow, remembered that God will only speak to servants and not to lords in their own rights. “Speak Lord, for your servant hears,” he instructed Samuel to answer God. Digging into his past, Eli recalled when he was a servant without any personal ambition or goal. Now that he had outgrown being a servant, the reason for which God kept quiet, he could still teach the theory of ‘How to listen to God.’

I weep when I see our leaders trying so much to teach from their ‘good-old-days in the Lord.’ My heart bleeds when they teach and share wonderful testimonies from their past experiences of how they once walked with God. Now they may still be putting up a front that they are still hearing from God and that all is still well with their relationship with God, but honestly, we have people growing up like Samuel who know that things have gone sour with them.

Do they really know that we know they are merely rehearsing theories and not their current practical experiences with God? Are they aware that we know that they have lost the real time experience of walking and working with God and that they now depend on how it used to be? If I am failing to hit the nail on the head with this article, please help me out by praying that they realise their emptiness and return to God immediately.

Although with their iniquities they have nearly (if not) succeeded in keeping God away from His Church, yet we still listen to them. They have not stopped teaching us how to live right before this same God they dishonor daily by their lifestyle. Of course, we hear them out, because we need them to fill up the space until Samuel matures. We cannot afford to judge them; this we cannot do, but since we can discern aright, we will pick the right things in their teachings and avoid their contrary lifestyle. Pardon us!

Samuel was still able to follow Eli’s instruction and he ended up hearing God. We will listen to them; honestly we will. Like Samuel, we are not going to be rude or corky. “God relates to those who honour Him,” they told us and this shall be our watchword. No matter how fast we grow spiritually, we will learn not to grow to be lords in ministry. We will ask for grace to keep us away from sharing His offerings with Him. We will cry for God’s help not to compromise the faith when we begin to have our own spiritual or biological children.

Dear brethren, you have a duty to grow up in the household of Eli where your big brothers, Hophni and Phinehas, are deeply corrupt; a house where your father had already compromised his faith, yet you must grow up clean enough to re-invite God to your land.

We will not take the evil around us as an excuse to be wayward. We will not go the evil way because we have parents and elders who have forgotten how to live well. We have our lives to live and though evil, corruption, killings, drugs, lying, cheating, etc. may be the order of the day, yet, even as young persons, we will serve the Lord without partaking in these shows of shame.

God is obviously missing in the Church. He has stopped talking, but to keep the Church party going on, our elders have come up with cover-up devices. Some of us are not fooled. Abi? We know that He is not present and all that we see around us are mere makeups and makeshifts.

His absence is making us to search for His peace and joy. His absence has created a vacuum making us to walk about burdened and empty. When our prayers to Him to lift our burdens failed, we simply brushed up and sought for our own solutions. “Why don’t you let us invite the latest Stand-Up Comedian in town,” someone suggested. Hence, as a Church, we have developed various alternatives to His soothing presence.

“Let God be absent, but let the music and jokes be present. These may not heal our sorrows or lift our burdens, but as long as they can make us forget them for a while, we have a good alternative at hand,” we said in agreement. Therefore, instead of looking for God who could have healed or removed our burdens, we settled for a lesser help; which is of course, no help at all. God help us!

Is God still in Shiloh? Is His word still loudly heard in Shiloh? We have men like Eli, Hophni and Phinehas in charge of the altar, but they have joined forces to push God to the background. God could have resisted them, but He left them alone to do things that are debasing and not fitting. Rom. 1:28.

It, however, gladdens my heart to know that even in the midst of this confusion; a young Samuel is quietly growing up in their hands. He will grow without being polluted. He will grow and come out clean of the dirt around him. He is born already and he is growing fast. Ironically, the same men as Eli are his teachers and leaders. He is listening to them and picking up the right things being said, but at the same time, he is being helped by God to avoid their terrible acts.

If the description of this young man, Samuel, fits you, then let me urge you never to imagine you have a glory to boast or brag about. Instead, please pray that you will grow up to fulfill His plan without any form of corruption. The days ahead are indeed full of evil! On the other hand, is the story of Eli similar to yours? If it is, instead of fuming, I strongly believe that you should be glad that God loves you and that He has just used this medium to call you back to Him. Eli once had this chance, but he nailed his fate by responding and saying: “It is the LORD. Let Him do what seems good to Him.” He lived to regret it. Please never dare God!

Burning Bush Boy

Ignorantly noble

 

I have read many times about the first miracle of Jesus at the marriage of Cana of Galilee from the book of John 2: 1-12 and although many have wrongly used this story to defend their addiction to strong wine, I intend not to trade words with any. For me and for now, there are issues of more concern than the matter of wine. Do you recall the story at all?

A man and woman were getting married and as usual, they had a wedding reception. Mary, the mother of Jesus was invited and somehow, someone felt Jesus, an ‘SU’, should also be invited. (It’s rare to invite Jesus to parties these days. He is copiously absent in most parties.)

Anyway, Jesus attended this party because He was invited, but He didn’t go alone. The couple had to make extra provisions for His entourage, made up of 12 or more of His disciples. (Is Jesus a burden to you; the reason you cut Him off your function?)

In the course of the wedding reception, the last bottle of wine was served without any hope of restocking, but somehow, Mary got a wind of it. She immediately approached Jesus for a solution (Jesus remains a problem solver till today) and although He felt it was not yet time for Him to launch His ministry, yet for the respect He had for His mother, Mary, He assisted in rolling off the reproach of the couple.

He called the servants to fill up the available six water pots with water and thereafter, he asked them to do the unimaginable. “Draw some out now and take it to the master of the feast,” he said. ‘Foolishly,’ the servants obeyed without questioning His order.

The master of the feast, also known as the Master of Ceremony (MC) tasted the water-turned-wine and cried out: “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”

What, however, caught my attention and set about the writing of this piece is found in John 2:9: “When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, AND DID NOT KNOW WHERE IT CAME FROM (but the servants who had drawn the water knew)…”

Usually in such an event, you will agree with me that MCs or Chairmen are highly considered or esteemed than servants. The MC is more visible and more respected, but in our story, this MC knew nothing about the party he sat upon as the chairperson. He was completely ignorant of happenings at the party, yet nothing was hidden to the servants.

While the MC stood aloof, the servants had a relationship with Jesus. They knew when the last bottle of wine was taken out of the cooler and served. They understood the implication of not having enough wine in such a ceremony and they presented and yielded themselves for a solution. The servants, not the MC, knew how a better wine replaced the initial seemingly good wine. (Every wine you taste looks good until you taste the wine of Christ.)

Servants take and act on instructions, but MCs issue/dish out instructions. Unlike the servants, MCs are not made to take instructions, not even from Jesus. Servants understand it all and they perform those foolish-looking tasks that keep parties going.

With the party of the body of Christ, the Church, needing a new wine, you can be sure that MCs are kept in the dark about the whole issue. It is rare that MCs would be considered in getting the Church the much needed new wine. Why?

MCs are too noble to put their hands on the sand pan. They are too dignified to pick up buckets of water and go the river to fill up water pots. They are masters in their own rights and they simply cannot do menial things in the body of Christ. They love to be exalted and celebrated, though they are as empty as the word empty itself.

“Next to them the Tekoites made repairs; BUT THEIR NOBLES did not put their shoulders to the work of their Lord. Nehemiah 3:5

While almost everybody in town, across professions and families, did one thing or the other to get the wall of Jerusalem back in place as led by Nehemiah, some noble men felt they were too big to be involved in the mixing of sand and cement. That they did not put their shoulders to the work means they were not ready to shoulder any responsibility. These were big men; too noble to make themselves available for God’s use.

The servants took instructions from Jesus and laboured behind the scene. Their labour, though quiet, however, soon announced itself. To the embarrassment of the MC, they brought about the restoration of the party and saved the couple from disgrace.

Nobody knew how they did what they did. They laboured in silence and went through tough situations without complaining. All they wanted to see was the restoration of that party and if they had to act foolishly, so to say and carry out an instruction no one has ever obeyed before, they were ready. Servants have hearts made-up to go the extra mile for revival and they will do anything scripturally correct to see life being brought back into the body of Christ.

As for the MCs, they are too busy enjoying the glamour of the Church; delivering lifeless messages in lifeless Mortuaries (Sanctuaries) and receiving ego-blowing accolades from people. Covered up with fats, they sit heavily on ministries emptied of wine. Will someone please tell them that without wine, their party is tending towards an embarrassing end?

Anyway, thank God for true servants. I am sure that what these true servants are busy doing secretly, will one day affect the entire body of Christ positively. The expected new wine will come and the body of Christ will glow again.

“For [simply] consider your own call, brethren; not many [of you were considered to be] wise according to human estimates and standards, not many influential and powerful, not many of high and noble birth. [No] for God selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame.” I Cor. 1:26-27Amp

Imagine that while dignitaries sat in their gorgeously looking dresses, these servants put on their overalls, carried their buckets of water on their heads and left for the river to fetch water. People disdained them, yet nobody knew they were at work for the good of all.

They were not influential by the world’s standards, yet they influenced the party. You won’t call them wise people, but these servants, by their seemingly foolish acts, eventually revealed the true foolishness in those the world considered as wise and noble.

Thank God for servants, for if all were to be like the MC and the “awaye wa jeun/j’aiye” (I’m in this world to eat and enjoy) guests, the party would have ended up in shame. Thank God for servants who did not waste precious time debating or deliberating on the instruction of Jesus. Had they done so, the nakedness of the party would have been exposed to all. The body of Christ, just as this party, is doomed without such servants.

While it was a good thing that the couple invited and allowed Jesus, it was more important that Jesus had the services of these servants at the party. Think of what would have been the situation if Jesus was present, but servants were missing. The presence of Jesus without men to run around and carry out His instruction to the letter would not have made any difference. Without sincere servants, the presence of Jesus will hardly matter much.

The only time you will see Jesus in a helpless situation, so to say, is when you have MCs and VIPs around Him. Revival will tarry when we all clamour for the seat of the Master of Ceremony with nobody willing to serve. Who, but servants, would let go of the pleasures of the moment to labour in fetching water? Who, but servants would have done away with the shame of bearing pitchers of water while others sat comfortably with men waiting on them?

Mary avoided wasting her time approaching the MC about the problem, because she knew the disposition of most MCs. What would the drunken MC have done? Do we expect him to buy wine from his personal money? Such a sacrifice is far from MCs. Nothing good comes out of them. We know them!

What good can you expect from a man who was ignorant of the presence of the King of glory in the party he sat over? How will a man without a relationship with Jesus approach Him for solution? Mary did, because she had a relationship with Jesus.

Tell a MC, “Whatever He says to you, do,” and watch him react with pride. How dare you give orders to a Master of Ceremony without envisaging any problem? Are you surprised that Jesus has since kept quiet in such places where MCs are dominant? He will rather wait and watch until servants emerge.

MCs and VIPS are in our Churches just to catch fun, as they say. They are merely interested in the Church entertainment and once it is over, they jump off to any other interesting thing or place in town. They are with us to criticize, but don’t ever think they will lift up their fingers to put things right. MCs are known to run their tongues, but their shoulders they keep away from responsibilities. They are not response-able (responsible) but mere merrymakers.

“Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human.

 

It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death–and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion. Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth–even those long ago dead and buried–will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ.” Phil. 2:5-10

 

Jesus had all that could make Him act as the Master of Ceremony here on earth, but He chose to serve and His example is what I intend to follow. What about you?

Burning Bush Boy

Beyond the Alphabets

I am not sure of your disposition to the Bible, but what you are about to read may just bring about the much needed light to understanding the Bible better.

God is, obviously, not the only person whose words or actions are documented in the Bible. We also have the words and actions of both the good and evil people as you may call them, in the Bible. In fact, the devil also has a space in the Bible. To make the Bible a balance book indeed, you have the good, bad and ugly words and actions of people.

The Bible is, however, called the Word of God, because God is the ‘Publisher/Author’ and ‘Editor-in-Chief’. He dictated and allowed all that were written therein and although He has the power to delete or modify certain words or occurrences, He left them all for our benefits. For example, He could have presented David to us as a strong man all through his life, but He allowed his weak points to be recorded as well that we may learn from both sides of his life.

However, this article is particularly presenting the Bible as a book containing words beyond what the 26 letters of the English Alphabet can truly express. I am of the opinion that God’s thoughts are deeper than what any alphabet of the different languages can bear and express. However, since human beings are limited to alphabets, He found a means of reducing His words using letters of the different languages of the world.

Yet, it will be a terrible error trying to read and understand the Bible as a mere English textbook. Without trying to cover up anything here, but since God is Spirit, so are His words; they cannot be understood with our physical mind. Need I add that we cannot understand spiritual alphabets; hence the need for Him to trim down His mind using our own earthly and limited alphabets.

Can any English Dictionary, for example, really interpret His mind? NEVER! I am, however, not saying that you cannot use the dictionary to ‘emphasis’ some scriptural words, but no earthly dictionary will precisely ever express the heart of God.

“These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  (1 Cor. 2:13-14)

As you read your Bible, be sure that God is obviously saying more than what the alphabets of your language are presenting to you. In fact, it is for the very reason of interpreting God’s mind to us outside our own alphabets that Jesus Christ prayed for the Holy Spirit to come as the Teacher.

“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. John 14:25-26.

The Holy Spirit opens our mind to have a far reaching understanding of the Scripture than what meets the eye. Have you not read only a verse of the Bible and by the time you are putting what the verse seem to be saying to you on paper, behold you ended up writing pages from that seemingly simple and short verse?

That simple English word you came across in the verse has now been interpreted beyond its original English meaning. How did the expansion of that verse come about? It is the Holy Spirit who enlarges and expands the interpretation of a simple Bible verse. Sincerely, the word of God is a Spirit; it is beyond letters and truly, the Holy Spirit is our Teacher.

I have always told myself that to get the best out of my study of the Bible; I will do well not to approach it with my intellect. The truth is that the Bible is far deeper than what it seems to be on the surface. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you who do not believe… John 6:63-64.

It is the Holy Spirit who knows the reason behind the usage of some difficult words you come across in the Bible. The truth is, as long as the author of the Bible is still very much alive, we should approach Him without being high-minded. Let us do away with pride and approach God by His Spirit for I am very sure that He is more than willing to explain His mind to us.

You cannot correctly discern His words without Him.  Having the knowledge of Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew is good, but do not forget that the language of the Spirit is beyond these languages. Reading the Bible without the Holy Spirit is reading pure letters.

A study of the Bible with the Holy Spirit connects you to the mind of God. “For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 1 Cor. 2:11-12.

Did you get that? You can still miss things already freely provided for you if you put aside the Holy Spirit and try to work things out yourself. You will never understand God’s mind from that Scripture if your life is void of the Holy Spirit. This is the bitter truth!

Instead of twisting the word of God and arguing blindly, you can pray for the grace to tap from the abundance of the ever-flowing spring of the word of God and remember, it is the Holy Spirit that makes the difference!

Permit me, but I’ll like to say that the Bible, in terms of size this time around, is simply too small to capture all that God has for mankind. You simply cannot have all He has to say written in alphabets and in a single book. “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” Amen. John 21:25.

Lord, while I respect the choice of letters of the Bible, I want to experience the Spirit embedded in your word. I want beyond what my eyes can pick; beyond what my understanding can fetch me and beyond what my understanding of the English language will ever expose to me. Lord, kindly speak to me in the language of the Spirit and as I discern it correctly, I know my life will never remain the same.

Burning Bush Boy

Showing love to new converts

 

Everyone responds to love, even though the response may not be immediate; but when love is continually and persistently expressed to an individual, there will be an eventual response.

Showing love to a new convert goes a long way to portray the unspoken words of what Christianity is about and what it means to be a part of the fold. A person leaving his old way of life, friends and sometimes relatives, would expect to find an unusual and fulfilling love that would keep him in the fold and sustain him in the new path he has found.

One of the essential ways to show love in this aspect is to visit.

Visitation is an important aspect of church ministry that is fast dying due to growing telecommunication systems, hence the use of text messages and e-mails. These means of reaching out are not wrong, but they cannot replace the feeling or sense of belonging a convert has when a member of his new found family (the church) comes to visit in person.

Visitation enables the visiting person to see for himself what the person being visited is going through physically, emotionally, spiritually and even financially.

The person who has gone to visit is also able to observe the convert and probably share with him, be it the Word, food, gist, emotions, prayer requests, etc. as the case may demand. All of which would not have been possible with only a bulk SMS to invite them for another programme in our church after their first encounter.

Awake! Oh Church and rise to your duties. In Acts 16:15, Lydia needed the visitation from Paul and Silas to affirm her acceptance into the family of believers. Luke 19: 5 shows us that Jesus had to visit Zacchaeus for him to receive total salvation. The Lord had to send Ananias to Saul after his conversion on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:11), the list goes on.

Who would you visit today?

Ope Sanyaolu 

A killer’s confession

 

There is no day that I do not have this realization in my heart that I am responsible for the death of some people I do not precisely know. I strongly believe that somewhere, some people have died and even as I write, they are dying and please look no further for the man behind all this evil. I think I may just be responsible.

Are you puzzled and thinking of inviting the police? Well, if it is going to help the matter on ground, I suggest you go ahead, but unfortunately, I doubt if the police will have anything to prove their case against me. Should I, therefore, rejoice that I am responsible for the death of many and without any evidence to incarcerate me? Will I rejoice knowing that my hands are stained with blood, yet these are stains no man on earth will ever be able to detect?

I am writing for all to know of the guilt locked up deep in my heart and I won’t celebrate the fact that there is no physical evidence against me. I want the world to know who I am and although many of you may not be different from me, yet I have this feeling my confession might just help to get some of you stop this evil we commit against humanity.

Are you eager to know what this is all about? I will now reveal my evil deed, but please note that as a Christian, I cannot say much without referring to the Scripture. Although I hate to link my evil life with the Bible, the Holy Book of God, yet in this instance, I cannot help but dig out my life from it.

This is my story:

I once read from Exodus 3, verses 7-11 and there in my heart, God tried and found me guilty of killing a number of helpless people He created. We can do the reading together if you don’t mind:

And the LORD said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people, who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittittes…Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt.”

It would be a long story trying to explain how the Israelites ended up in Egypt, but you will recall that the search for food (survival) led them to Egypt. They initially enjoyed the land, but when they did not think of going back to their own land before the Pharaoh who received them died, trouble started.

The newly installed Pharaoh tormented them and for 430 years, they served as slaves to the Egyptians. Eventually God showed up, but not to those in trouble in the land of Egypt, but to Moses, their proposed deliverer, somewhere in a faraway land of the Midianites.

When God got Moses’ attention, after many attempts, I suppose, He told him He had come for the deliverance of His people having seen their afflictions and heard their cry for help. Interestingly, these people, who might have gotten themselves into trouble, were still called God’s people. No matter what name you gave to them, God was not ashamed to identify with them.

It is beautiful to see that God is still seeing His people (wanderers) in whatever terrible situation of life you may imagine them to be. Are you surprised that God is already aware of the unspeakable oppression of that sister? You may choose to call her a prostitute and do away with encountering her with the saving grace of the gospel, but God says, “She is my child.” While she may have knowingly gotten herself into prostitution, because of bread (money), yet she is God’s child. Aba God!

You may keep arguing, but God says, “I saw them being oppressed by sin, poverty, diseases and many other afflictions of life by the devil’s slave masters.” He sees them even as you read and you keep wondering if this has anything to do with you.

In addition to seeing them, He also heard them crying. Can you imagine these people actually crying out to God for help? While I thought they loved their sinful lives, God came out clearly to say: “They have been crying to me all night to be delivered.”

I sincerely thought they loved their chosen circumstances and that they should not be disturbed, but it’s amazing that God is now saying they have been crying; longing for a way out of their predicaments. God added, “They may pretend to be outwardly strong, but they are inwardly empty and indeed very helpless. Please ignore a sinner’s bold face. All na sakara!”

They are still crying, “Lord, please send someone to deliver us. Please let these Christians visit and set us free.” They are still crying even as you read. Will God hear the cry of the helpless and not respond? He told Moses, “I have come to deliver them.”

This is the good news. God intends to stand and deliver His children. The Pharaohs of this age should know that you don’t toy with God’s children and get away scot-free. I was, however, taken aback when I noticed that instead of God personally confronting Pharaoh, He said, “Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh…” Send who? Me?

He left His throne, so to say, to deliver His children, but instead of carrying out the deliverance Himself, He wanted to push up Moses as the deliverer. God wanted to confront Pharaoh through a man. If the people would live or die, let us ask Moses. If they would live, he would have to respond and take a quick step, but if they would die, let him simply look the other way. However, while it is easier to look the other way, it’s costlier in terms of the number of lives that would perish.

At this point, kindly permit me to excuse Moses. He is not the one being tried out here. He is long dead and buried, but I am still alive and this is my trial; my story and my burden.

There is no gainsaying that thousands of people are dying around me or within my reach. As a born again child of God (Am I?) and a disciple (Really?) in some proud and lofty settings, I walk around with my head lifted. I am proud of my salvation and too eager to serve the Lord in my restricted place of worship – MY CHURCH! I do all I can to please my Pastor and to make MY CHURCH well-known in town. I am so eager to be known as a child of God in some privileged places.

I observe my quiet time every morning although before God, it is not more than a lousy and noisy time. Not with the manner at which I bother God with my requests will you say it is a quiet time. Instead of standing in the gap for the lost, I’ll rather press God for my undeserved rights. This cannot be anything else to God, but a lousy prayer session.

Yet in all, He kept telling me of the need to arise for the sake of His people in Pharaoh’s bondage. I honestly saw them in their situation, but I didn’t know God had so much interest in them as to hear them crying. They may have been crying for someone to deliver them, but should their survival depend on me? Why should their freedom be my responsibility? I have mine, don’t I?

The other day, someone paid an amount of money into my bank account, but how would I have known the money was an answer to the cry of the poor somewhere out there? I spent the money the way I wanted to and I gave thanks to God for providing it. I even asked Him for more. Hmm!

How was I to know that I got saved because of them? I thought I was righteous; a product of grace and mercy and in this, I rejoiced. I kept away from sin, the obvious ones at least, yet I didn’t realise how sinful it is to live without any consideration for others to enjoy what it is to be in Christ. Is this not a sin of omission? Is my life not a bundle of omissions?

They cried and when God heard them, He handed over to me what they needed to get them freed. There were times He attempted to bring me into the picture, but I faded away too soon. Yet they kept crying. Many cried until they died crying. They died, not because they did not cry for help, but because I did not rise to perform my duty as the help raised up for them. Oh the number of people I have killed with my nonchalant and selfish faith!

“My money is mine. I work so hard to earn a living and I cannot afford to have it spent on a bunch of lazy and unfortunate poor fellows. I cannot speak; I am still a youth; I am not yet standing in faith; I need more time; I want this and that first, etc.” You can add to the list of excuses.

I have unnecessarily postponed their deliverance with my flimsy excuses. However, while we pile up our excuses, let us not forget that they must not cry in vain. While we linger contemplating, they are getting leaner and dying.

Lord, please bring about an end to my excuses. I am sorry for the lives that cried and waited in vain for my arrival. I am sorry that I was too busy to hear them crying. I am also sorry for disappointing you. I felt you urging me to go on, but I didn’t realise you were so much interested in them.

Many are lying critically ill at the hospitals because of my self-centred prayer life. How many more will cry out in vain for help? How long will I continue to have my hands stained with the blood of the helpless and hopeless?

Take a closer look at your own hands; I guess they are also stained with blood. I wish to tell you that someone is somewhere waiting for your arrival. He needs you to survive and please, go and keep him alive. Stand up and step out right away!

Burning Bush Boy                                                                                                                 

The Monkey Business: Nothing out there is different in here

 

If you are seeking to save the unbelievers or the unsaved, as we call them, the tendency to look everywhere but the Church is high. Ironically, a large number of them are now in Churches, because we are no longer in the days when Satan dreaded coming near the Church – the body of Christ.

Overcoming his fear and somehow gaining entrance into this same body of Christ that once troubled him; we now see the devil opening doors and allowing people to flood the Church. Hmm! I am suspicious of this move. Can anything good come from the devil to the Church? Is he now a supporter of Jesus Christ?

With the different attractions he has helped to provide, majority of us now love the Church. The body of Christ, which once used to be repulsive, has suddenly become so attractive. I feel like shouting hallelujah, but I am afraid and how unfortunate this may be that many of those trooping into the Church, I hate to admit it, are walking straight into his waiting arms.

You ask me how? Is the devil no longer the pillar behind some servants of God? Is he no longer receiving people in the name of the LORD? Has he stopped deceiving them that they have come to Jesus, the Fountain of life?

The body of Christ is daily becoming interesting and attractive to people, because she, the Church, has perfected the art and science of turning herself into an extension or annex of the world. Nothing out there is different in here! What you have out there used to be different from what you have in here, but have we not resolved our differences with the world? “Friends, come right in for you have nothing to lose by being a member of the Church,” we tell (lie to) the people. Hmm!

All that makes the world the world – its systems expressed in music, dressing or fashion, associations, etc. now have their improved versions in the body of Christ. Findings have shown that people now crowd the Church because they really do not see any difference between the Church of Christ and the World of the devil. The place we invited them is looking exactly like where they came.

While Church leaders rejoice in the seemingly increase in the number of their members, God is in tears, permit me to say, for all He sees are men going about with a strange kind of salvation. Hold on! I know salvation is not meant to be in kinds; you are either saved or not, but ours is a strange generation with strange happenings.

I recall attending a Praise Night Programme of a particular Church in Ibadan and without exaggerating, the very moment I stepped into the Church auditorium, my mind flashed back to the days of Havana Night. (Havana night is a social night organised by the Sigma Club, University of Ibadan).

There was something about this supposed divine night that sparked off memories of this social night. Was it the music? Was it the rowdy people (members) or their dance steps? Whatever it was, something about that church event was similar and re-connected me to the past I thought I had deleted. Hmm! I didn’t know that Church meetings had such power to bring back things from my Recycle Bin. The next time I’ll be attending a Church, I better be going with a formatted disk (mind).

Nevertheless, I am of the opinion, and who says I can’t be wrong that the Church must see herself as a fisherman with anointed hooks and nets to fish without having to compromise and becoming a fish herself. The belief of playing a monkey to catch a monkey should not hold sway in our midst as a Church. Hmm! Let’s dig further.

When do you really intend to be done with the work of transforming these monkeys into godly men? After all, it has been a while since you made yourself a monkey and involved the Church of God in the business of luring and catching monkeys (unbelievers). Tell me, how many monkeys do we now have playing around the body of Christ, as though it’s a Zoo?

Haven’t they remained monkeys from the very day you tricked and supposedly caught them as monkeys? They are still monkeys because it is obvious you have forgotten how to live again as a godly man before them. True monkeys are now bereft of the opportunity of interacting with men capable of standing upright. No one is man enough to offer his lifestyle as a pattern for monkeys to imbibe; hence, we all have become monkeys.

I do not intend to be derogatory by calling anyone a monkey, but let’s just say that I am only using this common monkey saying to illustrate my points; should you think I have any. All the same, I doubt if you have not considered it easier and therefore, accepted to live the life of a monkey than engaging the grace of God in you to live godly in a godless and challenging world. In the world we live in, it takes a man to remain being a man and of course, it is a lot easier to take up the life of a monkey; jumping around from one tree to another.

I am, however, afraid of seeing you live perpetually as a monkey since there is always one monkey or the other to catch, As long as there is always one around the corner, when will you ever live again as a man created by God to tame wild animals, including monkeys?

With your ulterior motive to win souls and enlarge your ministry, the monkey game may not just leave your altar. If this continues, you and those in your Zoo may eventually end up where God reserved for monkeys to live eternally – a place different from where He intends reigning with men who chose to stay in God’s own image and likeness.

The question is, “Why should a fearfully and wonderfully created man choose to be a monkey?” God has placed every creature, including monkeys under your feet and you should, therefore, not degrade your life. You should rather work towards making them upgrade theirs.

It is a lie from the pit of hell that we must make the Church attractive to sinners by all means. It is a dangerous deceit to say that the Church must become worldly to save the world. “The servant grew up before God–a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum.” Isa. 53:2-3. The Message Bible.

Although Jesus dinned and wined with sinners, yet they knew he was not a monkey. Without having to play the monkey game, sinners knew He possessed a kind of life different from theirs. They simply could not comprehend the light in Him. (John 1:5)

How come He did not apply any mascara or facial make-up to forcefully make Himself attractive to the world He came to save? How come He did not water down His teachings in a bid to gain acceptance with the majority? Can we ever understand why He allowed (permitted) those who left Him because they could not abide by His HARD TEACHING?

Since He came to call sinners, I thought He should have enticed them back to His side, instead, He said to others still standing by: “Do you also want to go?” John 6:67. Haba! Was He not bothered that His followers were dwindling?

True monkeys will continue to call us fools as they watch us crouching. They will not stop to wonder why it is easy for us as men created in God’s image to lay aside our endowed glory for a life of a monkey. I am moved to tears knowing that the life we are doing away with is the same life they are longing to have. Some of these monkeys really wish they could live uprightly as you are, but before you got them transformed, you also picked up the very life they cry silently to dump. What a tragedy!

That young boy would have since been converted if only you lived an exemplary life of a man for him to study and accept. You would have made him a pride amongst his old monkey friends and he would have, by now, been making men out of other monkeys, but sadly, you chose to be a monkey yourself.

The Church as well as her monkeys is deceived. You keep thinking the young man will soon learn to live as a godly person, but knowing what you expect of him, he puts up a godly-like form of lifestyle and foolishly, you celebrate his conversion. Who will convince you that he is still a monkey and that you are the reason he remains one?

If I truly love these souls, I should choose to live and confront them with the truth and yes, I will do so lovingly. Can I love them more than God who created them? If He wants them saved and if He has given the undiluted word of life as the means of salvation, then He has so chosen. I cannot overrule Him and should I attempt to do so, I’ll be giving you an opportunity to declare this generation cursed with lifeless Christians.

This is the truth:

No man ever comes to the Lord’s side without a displacement. You have to leave where you are to get to where He is. No man ever dies and rises without a new body and please do not mind us, the Church and the world are two parallel lines that will never meet; not even in eternity. You cannot eat your cake and yet have it.

The Church is not and cannot be an extension of the world. Forgive us for hiding this truth from you since the day you thought you became born again. We hid the truth from you to encourage your heart to join and stay with us.

We are so ego-driven about this thing we call ministry and we get freak-out by numbers. We want you to come as you are, yes, but forgive us; we lack the power to transform your life. Ever since getting you to be on our side became an obsession, we chose to continue to live the monkey life you had always, (until you met us), wanted someone to help you take away.

In our helpless condition, we told you it was alright for all of us to remain being monkeys for the sake of other monkeys out there. We lied to you by saying that nothing out there is different in here. However, the truth that ought to have been said long before now is that everything out there is different in here with Christ as the head of our family. We hate to see you leave us, but we cannot continue to hide the truth from you. We are not monkeys, but men created to live as Jesus Christ and in here, in the body of Christ, we are not governed by the world system, but by His word alone.

BURNING BUSH BOY

Most religious people are brood of vipers – John the Baptist

 

John the Baptist is a widely known prophet who spits out the truth without any regard, especially for those in high places. Everything about this young prophet in his early thirties is weird. He dresses in garments made up of camel’s hair with a matching leather strap and he enjoys eating locusts and wild honey. Weird!

Determined to have a chat with him, The Refiner’s News Agency (RNA) crew travelled the rough terrain to the wilderness of Judea where he lives and preaches. We met John holding a baptismal service for thousands of people who had come from different walks of life. After waiting for about four hours and after much persuasion, he finally agreed to speak with us. We bring you extracts. Happy reading!

Refiner’s News Agency: Sir, we are glad to finally have you speak with us.

John the Baptist: Thank you for coming and please pardon me for keeping you waiting. It is good to know that the press is finally waking up to seek and disseminate the truth capable of setting us free in this country; for why would you be visiting me if not to hear the truth. Once again, you are welcome.

RNA: Sir, going straight to the point – Who is John the Baptist?

JTB: Well, my name is John Zachariah, but the people call me John the Baptist because of what I do. I baptize people. I am the only child of my father, Zachariah, a priest and my mother, Elizabeth, a housewife. My parents were very old when they divinely had me and because an angel of God told them I was born to serve the Lord in this manner, I grew up with the understanding that I must drink neither wine nor beer. This information guided my life as I grew up and unlike many of my colleagues, I didn’t have any problem driving towards my purpose in life. It was very clear where the LORD wanted me and today, I am His dream come true.

RNA: How is your ministry different from those we see around? Is there anything unique about your calling?

JTB: Thank you. I have always told people who cared enough to know that John is nothing but the voice crying in the wilderness. My message is centred on preparing the way of the LORD and in order to achieve this, I urge people, through my messages, to repent from their sinful ways and be baptized.

RNA: Can you give more details about the LORD, whose way you are sent to prepare? Many of us out there believe you are the Lord. Are you not the LORD – the coming Christ?

JTB: Ah! No o! Let me use this opportunity to reiterate what I told those sent some days ago to ask me this same question. I am not he LORD. I say it again with all emphasis that the coming Christ is mightier than I am and if I must be candid with you, I am not worthy enough to bear his sandals. He is the main character that people must focus upon, because He is the only one with the ability to unite the lost human race back to God.

RNA: We watched you conduct your baptism some minutes back and we heard you calling the people, “Brood of vipers.” Sir, is this not a cruel statement to describe those stepping out in repentance?

JTB: I try as much as possible to be blunt, because it is clear that the cajoling messages from many of my colleagues are not changing the lives of the people. I call them brood of vipers, because they are cunning and excuse me, how else do you describe people who religiously step out for baptism only to deliberately sneak back into their waywardness? Pretenders! No minister should get carried away by their crocodile tears of repentance.

Someone must make them realise that they are only deceiving themselves, since God cannot be mocked. The help they need from us is to be point blank with them – sin has no other name; it is sin. It is sin when it is either found in the life of a white or black man. It is sin when it is either found in the life of an illiterate or an educated man.

These are people claiming to have Abraham as their father, but this affirmation cannot save them, because unlike Abraham, they continually live against God’s will. I see a situation whereby God is forced into raising children from stones, instead of being constantly saddened by these ones. Your religious background or parentage is not the point; not even the title you go with in your place of worship. What God is after is for you to live a righteous life. Do you have a pleasant relationship with your Creator?

Permit me; I can also see that the axe of the LORD is set on the roots of fruitless trees to cut them off and if cut down, such shall be thrown into the fire. You may call this a cruel message, but this is the saving truth that must be told as blunt as it is. This is why I am different; I call a spade no other name – IT IS A SPADE!

RNA: Are you not afraid of becoming unpopular with the people and especially triggering off the wrath of those in government?

JTB: That would not be strange, because even before my conception, everything about me had been different. I really do not seek the acceptance of men because if I do as a servant of God, I will actually get it, but I will surely end up losing God’s acceptance. It is only a foolish person that would consider throwing God away to go with mere human beings. I am not a fool.

As for the government, I know I am already in their black book, especially in that of King Herod. But as long as my name is in the book of life, it doesn’t move me a bit. Is it not sad to see that no one among the members of the Pharisees and the Sadducees, not even the High Priest, was bold enough to challenge the evil manner at which Herod “took over” his brother’s wife? I am singing this loud and clear for Herod to hear: “Your actions are evil and I am not afraid of being arrested or even executed!”

(The boldness at which he spoke was amazing and although we felt we should continue with the interview, the number of people pressing for baptism was beginning to constitute a great distraction. Nevertheless, we could not resist asking this last question.)

RNA: Sir, considering your level of grace, why have you decided to limit or restrict your ministry to this wilderness, when in the cities your contemporaries are making waves?

JTB: Hmm! I will be brief on this. The whole world is God’s mission field and if He has engaged you as a labourer, you do not, of your own, choose the portion of the field to work. I have learnt to focus on the portion He chose for me and as you can see, although I am in the wilderness; preaching an uncommon message, the people are still trooping in their thousands, even from these so-called cities you have the popular ministers.

It does not matter where you are; one thing is certain, God will surely remember where He has His jewels. As an advice, please make sure you are where He wants you. If He has not ordered you to relocate and you do, His allocation for you will forever evade you. Remember, “Little is much when God is in it.” A word is enough for the wise.

RNA: That was a powerful advice to ruminate on. Thank you sir and we hope to be received when next we call.

JTB: Thank you. It was nice speaking with you.

Interview conducted by: Burning Bush Boy

Burning Tit-bits:

 

Lord, you know that I lack the desire and thank God, I even lack the power to compete. I don’t want to be the first to achieve this or that. Records are set to be broken; yet I am not without an ambition. My prayer; my ambition is to only be the man you created and endowed for a purpose. I just want to be a good me. For me to be better means you have compared me with another. If I’ll be the best, it means I competed with many and came out tops. Lord, it is good enough that I am just good. A good me is me without comparison or competition. That is me! Emi ni yen.

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Forgive me, but I honestly thought I was already a grown-up…then these new responsibilities surfaced and with them around, I’m having a re-think. I can’t be that old stagnant grown-up man, because as long as I have life, challenges will have to keep me growing. Who is ashamed of growth? I’m not. Are you? If you are not, I pray that your responsibilities and challenges will keep you growing.

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Millions are dying of thirst, not because there is no water, but because the available water is branded & reserved for registered members. Stop branding CHRIST! Let the LIVING WATER FLOW out of your Church. Is Christ a Methodist, Anglican, Catholic, Pentecostal, Aladura, Cele, Redeemed or Deeper Life?

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My Jesus and I – we’ve been through the hills and valleys; cried, but eventually laughed together. Together with Jesus, don’t dare me. We can do this again. My Jesus and I – a formidable team!

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I have discovered that on the long run, sin pays. Rom. 6:23.

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How much are you willing to be paid to render your dream a mere dream; one that will never manifest?

Knowledge Update

Life is transitory in nature. The person you are today is different from the person you were 10 years back and obviously, you won’t be the same person five years ahead. What you knew years back is probably no longer relevant today. Today’s technological gadgets were not anywhere around 15-20 years back. Developmental changes will continue to occur until the end eventually comes.

Knowledge is, therefore, constantly changing and you’ll be the greatest ignorant person if you are found living in the knowledge of the past. Knowledge, like time, keeps moving and surely, it would soon walk past where it is today.

Life is ticking by the second; it cannot be held down. It’s only intention as it walks is to leave you behind and unless you appreciate this fact, it will soon and surely turn you into an irrelevant person.

If, today, you adjudge yourself to be wise, you should not forget that you have a duty to continue to build on the wisdom you have so acquired lest you become a fool bragging about with obsolete wisdom.

Who is foolish but he who thinks he knows it all and closes his eyes to see the need to improve on what he knows. He sees everyone around him as being too low to learn from. Such a person discovers too late that knowledge not updated soon expires.

As long as those he considers to be fools are improving on their knowledge, he will soon turn around to serve them. Yes! The “undeveloped wise man” will soon be tagged the fool of the century. Tell me, how long does it take for a wise to turn foolish.

The burden here is that you should aspire to develop and update your primary knowledge; for what you have to know is transient in nature. You have to keep moving with it and you should always treat today’s knowledge as primary, one which must be updated. No matter how resounding your knowledge is presently, please consider it a primary knowledge that must be improved upon.

There is always a secondary knowledge waiting somewhere to be tapped and without which, you may have a stunted development. It shouldn’t be confusing that immediately this secondary knowledge is acquired, you should go ahead and make it a primary knowledge that must be updated. When you stick to this cycle, you cannot rest on your oars. There is always something for you to know and update.

What you have at hand is fast becoming obsolete and if you continue to sleep, you will wake up to realise it can no longer serve you. For instance, where would you have been today if you had failed to update your knowledge of the computer operations of the early 90’s? Certainly, the constantly changing modern computer operations would have made you a good example of an inconsequential man – a man whose knowledge is insignificant to him and to his generation.

As a leader in any capacity, it would obviously be wrong to be nonchalant about issues of knowledge update. You can only go far and deep with those you lead if your data bank (knowledge box) is constantly being updated.

A student limited to only what is being taught in class will surely turn out an average student. It shouldn’t be out of place to surprise your lecturer by giving answers beyond or outside the box. I will, however, caution that you should be sure that such a lecturer thinks outside the box himself. Surely, a knowledge-handicapped lecturer will not accept answers beyond his confined thinking box. God will grant you the wisdom!

Job applicants who solely depend on paper qualification will surely lose opportunities to those who have gone beyond paper qualification to widen their knowledge about the organisation and other related issues surrounding the job being applied for. Tell me of an employer who will not prefer applicants or employees with wider scope of knowledge. Earn a good degree, but please in addition, widen and update your knowledge.

What you studied and acquired will remain stagnant within you if you fail to keep up with the countless number of other things you must know. No matter the big size of your knowledge, it will still remain so little compared with the size of what you should know and what others around you are already accumulating.

How else do I put it? Try and read the following slowly:

• He who knows not and knows that he knows not, but tries to know is wise.
• He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool.
• He who knows not and knows that he knows not, yet refuses to know is a compound fool.
• He who knows and knows not that he needs to know more is a brother to the compound fool.

My submission is that knowledge is not stationary and I see no reason why you should be marching on the same spot. Get moving for what you know is already becoming obsolete by t second.

Burning Bush Boy

News from Scripture land: Council members advised to go easy on the Christian sect

An elder councilman, Hon. N. Gamaliel, has advised religious council members to tread softly as they may be fighting against God in their bid to stop the Christian sect from spreading across Israel.

The Refiner’s News Agency (RNA) reports that Gamaliel gave the advice on Saturday in an emergency State Council meeting held at the Council’s secretariat in Jerusalem, Israel. The meeting was said to have been summoned to find ways of immediately checking the upheaval in town due to the recent activities of the sect.

Gamaliel, a highly respected teacher of the Jewish law, said it was obvious that no form of intimidation could stop the sect and he, therefore, called for subtlety in addressing the problem.

“It may interest you to know that we imprisoned these people yesterday, but this morning, the guards are yet to explain how they got out of prison. Although they met the prison gates locked, these people were found already preaching at the temple. How can you explain that? Instead of them to escape, they came back more determined to establish their faith right in our midst. I am, therefore, of the opinion that nothing from us will ever be able to prevent them from spreading their belief across the land.

“Instead of getting furious and planning to have them killed, I humble suggest we tread softly and wisely with them. These people will not chicken out no matter the threat,” he said.

He added that he was sure the sect will end up the way of those who had earlier attempted to indoctrinate members of the public against the Jewish law, but failed.

“Men of Israel, take heed to yourself what you intend to do regarding these men, for some time ago Theudas rose up claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about 400, joined him, but when he was slain, all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing.

“After this man came Judas of Galilee in the days of the census. He too drew away many people after him, but when he was also killed, his followers dispersed. And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it – lest you even be found to fight against God,” he said.

After some minutes of deliberations, RNA reports that members rose with a resolution to release the leaders of the sect, but not after they were being flogged and warned never to speak again in the name of Jesus Christ, the one Christians claimed died for the world.

A mild drama, however, followed shortly after the flogging exercise. People within the temple premises were astonished to see those flogged singing and dancing. They were so much full of joy to the admiration of the people.

The sect’s spokesperson, Simon Peter, told RNA that they were happy, not because they were released, but as he claimed, they saw the flogging as an opportunity to share in the suffering of Jesus Christ.

“We are indeed very glad that the council, by their actions, has given us the privilege of being dishonoured on account of the name of Jesus Christ. This is actually a dream come true for us and may we use this medium to announce to the world that it would be impossible for us to stop talking about Jesus. How are we ever going to ignore the person who chose to die for our sins? If not Jesus, who else is there to talk about? Herod?

“We are not going to appeal against the flogging, for it has helped to renew our commitment to Jesus and henceforth, we shall speak of Him every day to everybody,” Peter concluded.

Editor’s notes:

Peter and others were so happy to go through pains for the sake of Jesus Christ and I sincerely wish that we still have such Christians around in our days. If the early Christians were so much like me, the name of Christ would have long vanished off the land and the mind of people.

Although they were warned not to speak of Christ, they found it impossible to comply with an order I would have gladly obeyed to stay alive. Would you not have loved to be released from prison on the condition of denying Christ?

When was the last time you spoke or acted in proclaiming your love for the LORD? When was the last time you “campaigned” for your Leader? Going by the way you talk, we know you are an ardent supporter of a particular football team or a political party, but God is waiting to confirm your keen love and support for Christ. Will you keep Him waiting forever? (Story Source: Acts 5:33-42)

Burning Bush Boy

Lead-a-Sheep: I will not labour in vain

You will please have to forgive me for I have recently written so much about Moses. Could it be because I bear the name as well? Anyway, I do not intend to have this debated.

Unarguably, the Bible is made up of lessons drawn from the high and low points or moments of men and women like us. We are to avoid their mistakes and emulate their strong sides. This has been the exact thing I have been trying to do as I check the life history of the man called Moses.

Moses was a man of many sides and of great exploits, but he was involved in an incident that got me really trembling and actually sent me on my knees to pray. This article is about lessons taught and learnt from this incident. Do have a meaningful reading!

Introduction: You will recall that after a failed attempt to achieve his God-given vision at the age of 40 years old, which also led to his self-exile in the land of Midian; God re-called him when he was 80 years-old. Eventually, he was able, through God ni o, to liberate the Israelites from the Egyptians.

Truly, Moses was too significant to be ignored in history, but it you are in doubt, you know I can book an appointment for you with King Pharaoh and I am sure that by the time he is done with sharing his encounter with Moses, you’d be left without an iota of doubt.

However, in spite of the glorious ministry he had, he died at the age of 120 years without actually fulfilling God’s purpose for him. Although he is, today, enlisted with the Cloud of Witnesses, the part of his story that revealed he did not get to the land of promise has never stopped to make me cautious and as we usually say, “I feel for Moses.”

He was 80 years old when he received his two-in-one assignment from the Lord, but as he ran along with this assignment, he ended up only fulfilling a part of it. In the book of Exodus 3-4, God tried so hard to ‘persuade’ him to take up the task of getting His people out of Egypt and in the contract papers he reluctantly signed, Moses was not only commissioned to lead the people out of Egypt; he was also entrusted with the responsibility of leading the people into the land of promise. He was to take them out and take them in.

He led them out quite alright, but along the line, he committed an error which moved God to change His mind about him leading the people into the land of promise. Thereafter, no matter what Moses said or did to convince God to have a re-think, turned out successful. God’s mind was made up!

Brethren, it could be a terrible experience trying to convince God to change His heart when we had waited too late to have Him take a decision against us. There is always a time too late to attempt to make God change His mind in your favour.

The beginning of the end for Moses:

The setting was the Wilderness of Zin. It wasn’t the first time the congregation of Israel would lack water as they journeyed towards their land of promise. It wasn’t the first time they would murmur and speak of going back to Egypt in anger. It wasn’t the first time they would query God’s plan and His choice of servants. It wasn’t the first time they attempted to bring Moses to do or say things contrary to God’s instruction, but this time around, they eventually succeeded in pushing him against His God.

The murmuring and the crying against Moses for water was highly intense. They lambasted him and Aaron as babies, yet they had seen God at work through them before now. How could they be so shallow minded, forgetful and in fact, very wicked?

As they queried the genuineness of Moses and indirectly that of God, Moses did the right thing by approaching the Lord with their complaints. Who do you run to when people see no good about you and interpret your good intentions as being injurious to them?

“So Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the door of the tabernacle of meeting, and they fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them.” Num. 20:6

As Moses and Aaron ran towards God, they were warmly received and rescued from the scourge. The glory of the Lord appeared to them as though to receive them to a place of comfort and solution. Lord, please let me find a place of solace in you anytime your children bit me for thinking that I have done them wrong by carrying out your instructions.

Nobody, sincerely, runs to God with a problem and comes back without a solution: “Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Take the rod; you and your brother Aaron gather the congregation together. Speak to the rock before their eyes and it will yield its water; thus you shall bring water for them out of the rock…” Num. 20:8

I’ll be right to add that nobody leaves God’s presence confused than he came. The above instruction was so clear that the Bible did not record that Moses asked for further clarification. He understood what God wanted Him to do, but…

What happened to Moses at this point had probably happened to you before. He returned from God with a clear understanding of how to make water available. He stepped out with the heart to go and carry out God’s instruction without any omission, but somehow and at the end, Moses, just as you have done before, ended up doing something else. What happened?

”And Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock; and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came out abundantly and the congregation and their animals drank. Num. 20:10-11

At this very moment and by this singular act, the ministry of Moses crashed. The portion of his contract that gave him the rare privilege of bringing God’s people into their land of promise was torn off. By the time Moses and Aaron gathered the people, (how I wish they could go ahead with God’s instruction without having to gather the assembly), everything he heard from God got mixed up.

Oh, the assembly of men can be terrible! It can be a herculean task having to carry out, in words and in deeds, God’s exact instruction before a mean congregation. Tell me that Moses was weak when it comes to handling his emotions and I will ask: should the congregation, therefore, play on his weak spot?

By the time he stood face-to-face with the boisterous, naughty and inconsiderate assembly, poor Moses ended up speaking to the people instead of speaking to the rock. “The rock is lying peaceful, so why speak to the rock,” he must have told himself. “This ingrate and murmuring congregation must be silenced and what better way is there to silence them than to speak some sense into them,” I imagined he told himself.

My Lord, grant me the grace to be silent and never to imagine that I have the right words to address, either to confront or calm down, an impatient congregation.

They whined on until they got Moses talking to them in rage instead of allowing him to speak calmly to the rock. Oh dear Moses! How did you allow them to confuse you? Why did you allow them to push you against God’s ordinance? You had, before now, managed their excesses in many ways, but this time around, they broke your resistance.

He was still boiling with rage when he took his rod and went for the rock. The peaceful rock, wondering why it had to be hit twice as Moses vented out his anger, still yielded its water. The rock waited to hear a soft voice from him, but instead, the congregation had played a fast one on him. He bore out his frustrations on the innocent rock.

Brethren, please join me to pray that God should open our eyes to things we are doing wrong, yet giving us positive results. Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it and yet water came out. What the people wanted was water and what they got was water; never mind that Moses acted in disobedience to get the water.

Lord, how terrible it is to know that miracles can still be wrought in disobedience. While the people are shouting your praise, you know you had just flouted God’s instruction. How confusing it is to identify true servants of God by the volume of their miracles. These things (miracles) do come out in disobedience as well.

It’s a trap when a man lives in sin and yet records miracles. It is a set-up when a man leaves God’s presence with an instruction and ends up doing something else; yet getting good results as though he had acted in accordance with God’s instruction. The means will always justify the end.

As the people celebrated the water and probably appreciated Moses and Aaron, God invited His servants to an indoor meeting and from there, He terminated their appointments.

Lord, why should I be openly celebrated only to be rebuked and sacked in the closet. Baba gba mi! A man can be openly distinguished while at the same time, he is being rejected by God in the corner of his heart. Hmm!

Behold God’s verdict: “Because you did not believe me, to hallow me in the eyes of the children of Israel therefore, you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them. Num. 20:12. While Moses went on to live a little longer, Aaron, within the same chapter, was stripped off his priestly garments and shortly, he died.

This miracle, yes it was indeed a miracle, shattered his dream of stepping into the land of promise. He missed the land he laboured for with all his life, energy and time. God halted Moses’ labour because the people got him to react to their murmuring. He was a leader made to fall by his disgruntled congregation. God, kindly send help to our spiritual leaders!

Moses did not give up. He pleaded:

I wept when I read the following words from Moses and realised that this mishap happened to him when he had just started to enjoy God.

“Then I pleaded with the LORD at that time saying: ‘O Lord GOD, You have begun to show Your servant Your greatness and Your mighty hand, for what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do anything like Your works and Your mighty deeds?

“I pray, let me cross over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, those pleasant mountains and Lebanon.’ But the LORD was angry with me on your account and would not listen to me. So the LORD said to me: ‘Enough of that! Speak no more to Me of this matter. Deuteronomy 3:23-28

“Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift your eyes toward the west, the north, the south and the east; behold it with your eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan. But command Joshua, and encourage him and strengthen him; for he shall go over before this people and he shall cause them to inherit the land which you will see.’”

“You have begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand,” he said. Just when he was about to begin to enjoy God’s greatness and mighty hand, an end came to his work. Did you get it at all?

All his life, he had experienced one great move of God or the other. The burning bush was wonderful. The 10 phenomena he performed in Egypt were great. The parting of the Red Sea was awesome. Many more like that and even the water from the rock, was another great move of God.

You may conclude that he had seen it all, but for him, he knew it was just the beginning. He was just only starting to enjoy God and with the land of promise so near; for he could see it from the nearby Mount Pisgah, what better time could there be for him to enjoy God.

Sadly, at this time, his joy of stepping into the land of promise was cut short. Excuse me, but that was what he lived for. Entering the land was his goal and that was why he pleaded many times with God to be forgiven, but the LORD ordered him to keep quiet and to forever keep quiet.

As though not stepping into the land was not painful enough, God allowed him to have a peep into the land and from there he saw his life ambition, so to say, afar off, yet he was not allowed to step in. He saw the fulfillment of his labour ahead of him, but now, he must hand over the work unto another man.

What a heartbreaking experience it was for Moses when God declared he could go up and view the land of promise from afar, but that he should erase the dream of ever stepping on the land from his mind. Baba! What then is the reward of his labour? O fi arugbo ara se ise iranse, sibe, ko ri ere e. He laboured in his old age, yet he was not rewarded with accomplishment.

Cry out to God, oh ye servants of the LORD. Let those who lead God’s children in any capacity not keep silent. Let us open up and ask for help; for why should those we lead make our labour end up in vain.

God, I know you documented his story for me to serve as a guide. Is there a vision ahead of me? Lord, may nothing and may nobody cause me to disobey you so much as to miss my target. Is there something waiting to waste my labour of many years? Baba, you will have to deliver me.

Jesus, grant me the grace never to peep into my dream without stepping into it. Christ, kindly let your hands of mercy see me through, for why should it be suddenly brought to an end at the time when it was just starting.

Let it not be over with me when I am so close to the land of promise. Grant me the grace never to have to stand afar only to imagine what the land would have been like if only I had not disobeyed you.

Friends, while this article may be ending here, please, do not allow the prayer to cease. Go ahead and pray for grace to see you through to the very end. Since you started it, it’s only good that you end it well. I pray that your reaction to people or situations will not make you to lose the reward of your labour. Amen.

Burning Bush Boy

God will by HIMSELF and for HIMSELF work things out

“My son, God will provide for HIMSELF the lamb for a burnt offering”… Gen. 22:8

He demands an offering and He decides what is to be offered. He is the same person who knows how to get what is to be offered. He is God and anything He is working out in me is actually for Him.

 

In the case of Abraham, he (Abraham) didn’t have much to do than to present and make himself available for God. When He demanded for an offering, it was the same God that decided the lamb (Isaac) to be offered.

 

When God requires an offering from me, I pray to be able to wait and hear Him pick what He wants of the things I have to offer. It is not of me to give anything I wish, but He picks whatever He wants from my hand as His offering.

God told Abraham that out of all he had, Isaac was to be offered and although this was demanding, Abraham obeyed. If God gave the son of promise and He was now asking for him as a lamb to be sacrificed, then let it be.

Abraham reckoned that even if Isaac was killed, God, who gave him the son at his old age, was able to bring him back to life. With this in mind, he set out to offer Isaac as a burnt offering.

However, when Isaac asked for the lamb to be offered, Abraham spoke as though God had not already decided on the lamb to be offered. He told the lad (Isaac), “The Lord will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering.”

By the time Abraham was saying this, the Lord had already provided for Himself Isaac as the lamb, but he spoke as though the Lord will have a change of mind and at the end, what he said actually came to pass – the Lord provided for Himself a lamb. It was no longer Isaac, but an animal – a lamb indeed.

The lessons:

• It is the Lord that decides and works out what is to be offered. Will He ask me to offer what He hasn’t made available for me?

 

• The Lord will provide for Himself. He is the Lord and He knows how to make available what He needs as an offering. He is the Jehovah-Jireh, which means the The-LORD-Will-Provide.

 

• Isaac observed the fire and the wood, but did not see the lamb and this made him to ask his father, “Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” There are times when everything looks set, but the lamb to be offered is unavailable. The idea is set and the mind is set. Steps have been taken, but the lamb is just not available. In such a situation, be rest assured that the LORD will provide. The LORD is a provider.

 

• In a corner of his heart, Abraham knew that Isaac was the lamb, but he prophesied that a lamb, apart from Isaac, will be made available and truly, “Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns.” Gen. 22:13.

 

• Behind me is the lamb already made available by the LORD. Behind me is a ram already trapped, so to say; held down; tied down by the LORD for me for His sacrifice.

 

My duty is to follow the Lord’s instruction even when I cannot really understand His points. I should, again, be relaxed to know that He will make available whatever He needs from me.

Lord, I may not have what you really want, but I know that you will make it all available for yourself, because you are the one working in me both to do and to will of your good pleasures. (Phil. 2:13)

God will by HIMSELF and for HIMSELF work things out! Hallelujah!

Burning Bush Boy

Lead-a-Sheep by assumption

Lead-a-Sheep by assumption

If you have ever read through the book of Joshua in the Bible, you probably noticed that Joshua was not too enthusiastic about becoming the next leader after the death of Moses. He looked as though he was going to turn down the opportunity others would have ceased without batting an eyelid. Who would not have loved to succeed Moses?

I noticed as I read the Bible that God had to personally announce the death of Moses to Joshua and I wondered why this should be. Could Joshua have truly been unaware of the death of Moses, his master? Was he truly not interested in leading the Israelites? Why was Joshua reluctant?

Not being able to invoke the spirit of late Joshua to get answers to these questions, I went to the Scriptures and from there, I got my answers. It is my desire, therefore that this article will address leadership by assumption and enlighten those already in leadership positions and those aspiring to be. ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

“After the death of Moses the servant of GOD, GOD spoke to Joshua, Moses’ assistant: ‘Moses my servant is dead. Get going. Cross this Jordan River, you and all the people. Cross to the country I’m giving to the people of Israel.’” (Joshua 1:1-2 The Message Bible)

BBB: Dear Joshua, it’s surprising from your writing above that God had to personally come to announce the death of Moses to you. I mean, you were his Second-in-command, so how come you did not hear of his death? If all Israel and even faraway nations knew about his death, why would you not know? If you knew, would God be announcing the obvious? I know that God does not babble, so there must be a strong reason behind His announcement.

Joshua: Your observations are quite right. Would Moses have truly died without me knowing? Hmm! Anyway, I’ll be glad to share with you why I appeared reluctant to pick up the leadership baton. It all began with the lessons I learnt from Moses’ experience.

You see, Moses at a time addressed the entire congregation of Israel and he told us that God told him he was no longer going to make it to the land of promise. From that point, we all knew he was going to die without being able to achieve his goal of stepping into the land he laboured so hard for. This was indeed painful!

I recall his words with emotions: “…I pleaded with the LORD at that time; saying…‘I pray, let me cross over and see the good land beyond the Jordan, those pleasant mountains and Lebanon’. But the Lord was angry with me on your account and would not listen to me. So the LORD said to me: ‘Enough of that! Speak no more to me of this matter. Go up to the top of Pisgah and lift your eyes toward the west, the north, the south and the east; behold it with your eyes, for you shall not cross over this Jordan.’” Deut. 3:23-27.

I had no doubt in my mind that Moses would soon depart and that God had planned that I take over from him. God had earlier told Moses about this: “But command Joshua and encourage him and strengthen him; for he shall go before this people and he shall cause them to inherit land which you will see.” Deut. 3:28.

So when Moses eventually died, the entire universe knew about it; including yours truly. He was such a man whose presence and even absence could not be ignored.

BBB: So why did you have to wait for God to inform you of his death and to probably move you to take your place as his successor?

Joshua: Well, from the earlier pronouncement made about me, even from God, it was logical for me to take my place as the new leader, but I held back from taking over, because I didn’t want to make the same mistake Moses made as a leader.

BBB: Moses’ mistake held you back from stepping into your leadership position? How do you mean?

Joshua: Good! At every spare time we had, Moses never stopped sharing his experience of how he once assumed the role of a leader in Israel and how he paid dearly for it. Sincerely, his experience guided me in life.

BBB: Please go ahead.

Joshua: I hope I’ll be right to say that Moses knew that he was born and raised up to lead God’s people out of Egypt; making him to be among the few people with correct information about what God really wanted them to do.

Moses made it so clear to me that he was very sure of his task as a deliverer, but that he fumbled when he assumed the position of leadership without waiting for God to give the go-ahead. His mother must have rightly told him that he was a special child, but instead of crosschecking with God, he jumped to the forefront of leadership and shortly, he dropped to the background.

BBB: Pardon me, but can you substantiate what you are saying?

Joshua: Oh, sure! Is your Bible with you? Well, if you do not have it with you, let me read some passages from mine to support my explanation.

In Acts 7:23-25 “Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian, FOR HE SUPPOSED that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. Did you get that?

BBB: Get what? Please go ahead and expatiate.

Joshua: I should think that it’s all spelt out, but if you didn’t get it, maybe you should read it again. Have you? Then, let me ask, “When can we say life truly begins? Is it in the womb or when a child is born?

BBB: Simple! Life starts from the time conception takes place in the mother’s womb, but we do not reckon much with it, that is with the life, until the child is born. But please, is this question relevant?

Joshua: Oh! It is quite relevant! I agree with you that earthly life starts in the mother’s womb, but don’t we believe that life matures at the age of 40? No wonder we say that “Life begins at forty”.

Moses, probably, believed this as well, because when he was 40-years-old, a thought came into his heart and without confirming the thought with God, he acted on it as a big man. He visited his people and saw an opportunity to express what he believed was his ministry. He saw an opportunity to defend his people and he went ahead with great zeal, except that he lacked divine understanding.  

From the above passage, Moses started work on the basis of assumption: “For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand…” He assumed that his brethren would understand that he was their deliverer, but will they ever accept a man who stepped out to introduce himself when God had not. This was one huge costly assumption for Moses.

No doubt, God had earlier carved him out for the work, but to assume leadership position without due and divine permission could be so dangerous. How could Moses be so careless to think that his people would understand divine arrangement when he did not go about ‘his ministry’ divinely? Nobody gets positive results by interpreting divine plans with carnal minds.

It was costly to assume that God wanted to go about delivering his people the way Moses went about it. He grabbed his leadership stool on the grounds of assumption and when, the next day, he was confronted with a question he had no answer for, he ran out of Egypt.

“And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’ But he who did his neighbour wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?’” Acts 7: 26-27.

BBB: Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Hmm! What a loaded question!

Joshua: Oh! Thank God you realised the weight of that question. Moses told me that with the supposed victory he recorded the first day of his ‘ministration’, he was too eager to jump out again the next morning. He added that without bothering to report back to God, to at least hear from HIM if he had done well or not, he continued with what his heart dictated to him; he forged ahead with his leadership by assumption style.

The question, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us,” was all he needed to get back on track. He was taken aback by that seemingly simple question, but since he knew he could not point at God as the one who made him a ruler and a judge, he fled the scene. He told me that it would be foolish of him to announce it was merely his thought that pushed him into acting as a ruler and not God. Sadly, it took him another forty years to get a sincere answer to this question.

BBB: Forty kini! Did you say forty solid years? My goodness!

Joshua: You will recall that forty years after, the LORD cornered him on Mount Horeb and with his re-commissioning, so to say, Moses went back to Egypt with an answer to that question. In fact, I’ll love you to see how Moses insisted he got an answer to this question from God.

“Then Moses said to God, ‘Indeed, when I come to the Children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them? Ex. 3:13.

“Once beaten, twice shy,” they say. Forty years before now, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us, was the question that made him an exile, but now one-on-one with God, Moses told me he was not ready to go back to Egypt based on assumptions. He must have said to himself: “Should they ask, ‘Who sent me’, as it is similar to ‘Who made me’, what would be my response? I was asked forty years back and I could not give an answer, but this time around, I must go with an answer’”.

Not desiring to play the fool the second time and knowing the pains of taking up leadership role on the basis of assumption, he took time to secure his ‘clearance papers’ from God. True to his expectations, the LORD spoke and gave him an answer: “And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.” Ex. 3:14

If only Moses had this assuring answer from God forty years ago, he would not have ended up in exile. Although he grew up knowing that God had a task for him, he could not boldly announce to the Egyptian that challenged him that I AM WHO I AM made him a ruler and a judge.

If a man sends himself, who does he introduce to challenging situations when they eventually arise against him and the work? You are, therefore, on your own if you cannot introduce God to your challenges. Of course, you are aware He did not send you.

BBB: Hmm! Now I see why Moses was not afraid of approaching Pharaoh when he eventually got back to Egypt. He was now bold because he knew he was not back in Egypt based on assumption. He had been with God and he had heard His voice. He had spent some time with God to understand His heart for the work, but if only he had done all this forty years back!

JOSHUA: Abi o! Please pardon me for taking you through this long story, but I hope you have been able to see why I waited for God to personally come to announce to me the death of Moses and to urge me to take the leadership baton.

Rushing for the leadership stool would have made me the greatest fool available, but I had learnt my lessons – no assumptions! The truth is that nobody living on assumption can avoid being disgraced.

Eyes had been on me even before his death and when he eventually died, people expected me to step out, but I held back. It is true that God had earlier chosen and announced me as a leader, but should I because of that be in haste to lead? I could have acted on previous information from God, through Moses, but somehow, I felt I should wait for Him to give me fresh instructions. I don’t know about you, but I strongly believe in receiving fresh and updated information from God.

Whatever information Moses had about his leadership ministry, I wish he had waited for a fresh confirmation. He could have asked if God was willing to back him up the morning he supposedly left to visit his people, but he left God behind.

Brethren, I was very much aware that Moses died, thereby, leaving the leadership seat vacant, but I needed to be told by God to go ahead. I needed to hear God telling me it was time to act. I needed to hear God saying that He would be with me. I needed to be sure I have answers to questions from people and situations and it was a great relief to hear God speak directly to me.

I took up the leadership baton, because HE asked me to and not because my heart suggested it.

“Moses, My servant is dead. Now, therefore, arise go over this Jordan, you and all this people to the land which I am giving to them…No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life: AS I WAS WITH MOSES, SO I WILL BE WITH YOU. I WILL NOT LEVAE YOU NOR FORSAKE YOU…Be strong and of good courage…for the LORD your GOD is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:1-9

Folks, if I had taken things for granted and attempted to lead based on assumption, I would have missed the above soothing and encouraging words from God. I waited for Him, because I didn’t want to make the same mistake Moses made.

I didn’t want to jump into the work based on assumption. I didn’t want people to ask me questions I do not have answers to. When God, therefore, came and spoke to me, I became encouraged and admitted it was time to step into the field of work.

My conclusion is that it can be very dangerous to assume leadership positions without first being cleared and given the go-ahead by God. Let God announce you and let Him declare the work start.

BBB: You have spoken and sincerely, I have nothing more to add than to reflect on my own stance on this matter. I now have a better understanding why you appeared reluctant initially. I didn’t know you had seen and learnt from the mistakes of others.

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My dear friend, the Bible records both the great and weak moments of His saints for us to learn from and God allowed Moses to document his errors so that you do not have to commit the same, just as Joshua did not. What excuse do you have for still committing the same errors the Bible documented for you to avoid? Please reflect on this!

Burning Bush Boy

Please arrive before winter

I stumbled across this portion of the scripture and I got interested immediately. Please permit me to share my thoughts.

Paul was very versatile in writing letters. He had to write because there was no way he could be in all of the churches he planted across the gentile nations at the same time. To get in touch with men he put in-charge of these churches, Paul had to write.

Why should he give up writing? He couldn’t, because he believed so much in following up, passing across instructions and above all, sharing divine revelations with his brethren all over. His heart was not shallow and callous to forget those he left behind.

Paul had different reasons for writing. There were times he wrote to correct or check wrong doctrines. He wrote to warn erring Christians and to let them know of the pending or looming dangers. Paul wrote to let believers know of the importance of forgiving one another in addition to following the examples of Christ in all things.

Was there anything he did not write about? Thank God he wrote!

Today, the Church is well informed about the mind of Christ because he took it upon himself to write. When he could not get his own hand to hold the pen, he dictated his thoughts for others to write on his behalf. Whichever way you look at it, we have reasons to thank God for Paul’s writings.

And so there is this particular writing of his which addresses doing the right thing at the right time and in the right way. Reading through his second letter to Timothy, one of his sons in the Lord, I got to know that every good thing has a good time frame and a good manner in which it must be carried out, lest it loses its goodness.

Confused?

Of course you know that whatever good thing done at a wrong time makes the good, bad. What sustains the goodness in every work is, therefore, the time and manner it is done. Let it be done at a wrong time and in a wrong manner, then the seemingly good thing or act turns bad.

Be diligent to come to me quickly…2 Tim. 4:9

He had earlier instructed Timothy, the head of the Church in Ephesus, about many things he should know as the leader. However, Paul desired and requested for the presence of Timothy. Longing to see his son-in-service, he urged Timothy to come, not at his convenience, but quickly. If Timothy must leave where he was and go over to Paul, he must do so diligently and quickly.

Timothy must not leave what he was doing carelessly simply because he must get to Paul quickly. Did you get that? The call from Paul should not be an excuse for Timothy to jump out without carefully tidying up and planning his journey.

Timothy must go quickly, yet he must be meticulous about it. His brain must be coordinated. “I must go on time, yet I must not be unruly, careless and messy about it,” he told himself.

How many of us can handle being quick with being diligent or meticulous? Some are slow and meticulous, while others are quick, but messy. You have to report on time; make haste to leave, but don’t bungle things up.

Timothy must do his best to go to Paul, because according to Paul, “Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world and has departed for Thessalonica – Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me…” 2 Tim. 4:10-11a.

Paul must be feeling lonely.

Timothy must not linger, thinking that others are there with and for Paul. He must not hold back on what he must do on the assumption that others are there to do it. In case Timothy is still thinking that Demas should still be around to keep the company of Paul, let someone tell him that Demas has since gone back to the world. Demas is no longer with Paul.

In trying to get Timothy on his feet, Paul made it clear that Demas, who was once recognised as his co-labourer in Colossians 4:14 and Philemon 24 had found the world more interesting than the pangs of the gospel.

“Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world and departed for Thessalonica.” Brethren, is there something the Lord is urging you to do? Kindly rise up and move to work immediately, because the godly men you think are available are no longer doing the work as they should. You may still see their hands on the plough, but the truth of the matter is that their hearts are far looking back.

Let me sound it loud and clear that the Demas you think are there with the LORD to keep Him company, have all departed to the world. They have all forsaken the LORD to leave for this present world and please, do be diligent to get going quickly. The LORD is expecting you and there is no time for delay.

The LORD is still lonely; permit me to so say, though He still has men like Luke and others He had sent to the different fields of the world.

Paul added, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for ministry.”

As quick as Timothy must be in getting to Paul, he should not be unmindful that there is a Mark somewhere he must bring along – a Mark so much needed for the work of the ministry. Lord, as I ‘rush’ to report for duty, help me not to overlook or pass by the Mark I must get to travel along with me.

On sighting Timothy, the first person Paul will ask for would be Mark. “Get Mark and bring him with you,” sounded as though Mark would not be easy to find or be willing to travel. In any case, Timothy must not travel and arrive without Mark, for he is so much needed in ministry.

In addition to Timothy getting Mark, he must not also forget to get other important things that Paul requested for. “Bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas when you come – and the book, especially the parchments. 2 Tim. 4:13.

What could be more specific than this? What else do you expect of a specific instruction? Timothy must report quickly and he must be mindful of things he must bring along. You just don’t rush out into God’s work without taking note of specific details; no matter how minute they may be.

Your work is timely and it must be diligently executed. Get the cloak, but not just any cloak. The cloak Paul wanted was the one he left behind with Carpus and where in the world can this man, Carpus be?  Troas! Although Timothy must move fast, yet he must find a way of getting to Troas to look for Carpus and bring along the cloak. In all of these, he must remain coordinated without missing out anything.

Within the short period he has to report to Paul, he must tidy up his ministerial assignment by handing over to capable hands; he must get and bring Mark along; he must get to Troas to pick up Paul’s cloak with Carpus and in addition, he must get the book, especially the parchments.

How much can you handle within a short period of time without getting confused and disorganized? Paul seemed to know that Timothy had the grace to be so organised and comported under pressure. Timothy could multitask and still come out neat. He could open many windows at a time, yet not forgetting to close them all. Men of his kind are few.

Let’s now take a long leap to 2 Tim. 4:21: “Do your utmost to come before winter…” That is it!

If Paul will not die due to the chilling winter, Timothy must not delay in coming. If the expected winter will not be disastrous for Paul, Timothy must not arrive empty. He must not forget the cloak, for it would be needed this winter period. He must not also forget the parchments, for Paul would be spending more of his time indoor during the winter. Mark must also be brought along for he would be needed for the ministry during the winter period. On a lighter mood, was Mark an Eskimo?

When do we expect winter and how much time do we have before winter? We may probably not experience winter on this side of the world and please note that the choice of the adverb, “Probably,” is deliberate. I could have said “We would obviously not experience winter…, but with the constant change in weather, nothing is obvious. We are getting to a period when you’ll wake up in the middle of the night feeling cold, only to discover in the morning that your rooftop and doorways are covered with snow. That is aside this article!

With the coming winter, can Timothy afford to delay? Can Timothy afford to postpone his journey? How much time does he have to get things set and be with Paul?

Should Timothy arrive before winter, but without the requested person and items; you have at hand an example of a fruitless journey. Should he arrive after winter, yet with the person and the items required; you have an example of a right thing done at a wrong time.

He must get his acts together within the time frame he has. He must do the needful at the rightful time. He must arrive, not during and not after, but before winter. At the same time, he must not arrive empty or with the wrong person and items.

God is lonely because some of His labourers have forsaken Him, while some are far too busy with the work He assigned for them. Men like Luke may still be around Him, but He needs you to come to Him quickly before winter. I pray that you will be able to do all that you have to do in good time and with diligence, not missing out any of the details.

Please remember that your arrival must be before winter – it must surely not arrive before you do!

Burning Bush Boy

Lead-a-Sheep Series: When the sheep are not ready-made

After the anointing had dried off King Saul’s head, (never mind that he still commanded the Armed Forces of Israel), David was the next anointed king in line. However, nobody was willing to risk his life to accommodate David, for anyone found associating with him stood a chance of being killed by Saul. David, therefore, became a fugitive, so to say, to keep his dear life.

This is one long write-up set to address leaders on the need to review our disposition to issues of followership. Leadership, herein called, Lead-a-sheep, has to do with a leader being able to interact, teach and bring or make the best out of the sheep following him.

With David as a study case, there was a time in his life he had no option than to keep running from one cave to another mountain. Though he was, at this time, the anointed king of Israel, but as long as Saul lived, David could not get to sit on the throne. This time was so critical that out of confusion, he attempted to take refuge in Gath, a Philistine city. By this, David concluded that one could find a friend in an enemy outside when the friend within turns to an enemy.

He fled to King Achish of Gath, thinking he would not be recognised, but the servants of the king identified and exposed him. To get out of Gath alive, David had to feign madness. (I Sam. 21:10-15) He left Gath disappointed and using the Bible word, “He escaped to the cave of Adullam.” (1 Sam. 22:1).

I wouldn’t know how long he got to the cave that people got wind he was there. He had barely pitched his tent in the cave; I want to imagine, when he was informed that four hundred men were waiting to see him.

From his cave-closet, he wondered in his heart who could the four hundred men be. “Were they spies from Saul or even from the Philistines? Were they visiting as friends or enemies? Remember, he was the most wanted man in Israel, with a million dollar price on his head, so you wouldn’t blame him for being suspicious.

Wondering why these men would risk their lives coming to him, David stepped out to receive them. His suspicion was, however, expunged when he found out they were his brothers and men from his father’s house. It was pleasing to know they weren’t strangers, spies or enemies. They heard (How? I don’t know) that David was there and they felt like going to pledge their allegiance to him.

As they settled, David, very happy now, made a fast calculation in his heart. He was glad to see that those on his side had increased by 400 soldiers. It was relaxing receiving these 400 able men, but his nerves didn’t relax for long.

I was not present in the cave, but in my mind, I saw David trying to ask these ‘great men’ their areas of specialty. He wanted to know the area of strength of each of them to be able to place them rightly in the various departments he had in his army. For where? David was, however, shocked to his marrows when he realised that these were discontented men in distress and debts. They were not soldiers at all!

Oh no! These were not the kind of men David needed at this trying period of his life. My God! If for anything at all, he needed soldiers, qualified men that could fight with the least of instructions. David needed MEN and not a bunch of failures who could not even manage their finances and other aspects of their personal lives. No! He did not want men without vision.

He sank into his seat and went into a brief, but a deep thought – “Oh my Lord, how will these men move forward my course? I thought my burden was heavy enough, but with these men, how will they not add to the burden in my life?”

My dear reader, these are not friends you wish to have in such a situation David was. The idea is, when down, you need men to pull you up and such men should at least be in better positions than you are. David needed men with sound mind and not those careless enough to run into debts and now that they are on the run from their debtors, he will have to protect them, pay their bills, feed and clothe them, yet this same David had his personal overwhelming problems.

He must have prayed for moneybags and soldiers, but when God would answer his prayers, he was not sent ready-made men, but men he must have to build up from the scratch. He didn’t get spirit-filled associates from the LORD, but men the Bible later referred to as wicked men of Belial. (I Sam. 30:22).

Lord, as a leader, I pray for the grace David had to see beyond the obvious in men you have sent to labour with him.

That they were in debts and discontented, even with life, was obvious. Nevertheless, David saw beyond the obvious. He saw the greatness and the might that were buried in them and although it would take him a long while to unfold these potentials in them, he wouldn’t mind sharing his life, bread, joy and sadness with them.

He accepted them warmly and enlisted them as part of his team. They weren’t the best hands in town, but David was ready to bring out the best from their hands. They weren’t trained to fight, but David knew that as long as he could fight and kill Goliath without having to go through Israel’s Defence Academy, these men could also become great warriors in a matter of time.

Those concerned may not even have seen this and more about themselves. They probably associated with David because they wanted his daily fish, but instead of David giving them this, he saw he could train and bring out the fisherman potentials in them.

Today, they may appear as liabilities, but as the LORD opens your eyes, may you behold His great deposits in them. Someone, you to be precise, must lead the sheep and bring out the best in them. It is time to stop looking for ready-made hands and start working towards making hands ready for the things of God.

Oh, the grace in David! These men were really problematic, but I tell you, David had an enormous abundance of grace to manage them. He had a heart to accommodate their excesses.

You will recall a chance came for David to kill Saul, but because of the fear of God in David, he spared him. Before this, David’s men told him in 1 Sam. 24:4, “This is the day of which the LORD said to you, ‘Behold, I will deliver your enemy into your hand that you may do to him as it seems good to you.’”

In their hearts, they saw an opportunity for David to finally put an end to Saul. You can imagine them quoting ‘the mind of God’ to David. They were eager to push David to kill Saul and what better way can you move a man of God to do a thing than to quote him the word of God, rightly or wrongly. “Thus saith the Lord – This is the day of which the LORD said to you,” they quoted to him. However, David knew what God wanted and he did not rely on their scripture-coated words. (Tell me, were they there when God spoke to David?)

Nevertheless, they eventually succeeded in getting David on his feet, but thank God that instead of him rising up to kill Saul, he merely cut off a part of Saul’s robe. At least, true to what his men told him, David did to Saul as it seemed good to him. They could have prompted him to kill, but at the very last minute, instead of going for the life, he went for the robe. Even at that, David felt sorry and repented of his actions.

Brethren, the sheep you are leading may ignorantly or willingly suggest you do things that are against your peace in God, but in such a period, I pray you will have beyond the grace of David to do the right thing.

You will expect these men to be as sorry as their master, but instead, they saw him as a foolish leader, incapable of capitalizing on an opportunity to rise to stardom and greatness. They called him names and although you won’t find these names in the Bible, the quoted scripture in the next paragraph suggested to me they were displeased with David for not killing Saul.

When the pressure became too much on him, David took his stand and voiced out: “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my master, the LORD’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, seeing he is the anointed of the LORD.” So David restrained his servants with these words and did not allow them to rise against Saul. (I Sam. 24:6-7)

How easy can it be to lead a flock of sheep as this? In this, David pushed on. He did not give up, because as I mentioned earlier, he had seen beyond their present state of immaturity in dealing with spiritual matters.

In another occasion, Abishai, one of David’s men, had a great opportunity to end Saul’s life once and for all, but again, David prevailed. In Sam. 26:8-9: “Then Abishai said to David, “God has delivered your enemy into your hand this day. Now, therefore, please, let me strike him at once with the spear, right to the earth; and I will not have to strike him a second time!” But David said to Abishai, Do not destroy him; for who can stretch out his hand against the Lord’s anointed, and be guiltless?”

Dear leader, while you may have an understanding of God’s heart concerning the vision at hand, men with you may not. Since they saw David as being too weak in striking down Saul the first time, Abishai was willing to stand in David’s place.

Abishai saw Saul as an enemy of progress and truly, Saul was a pain in David’s flesh. Again, Abishai saw rightly too that God was behind how Saul was constantly falling into David’s hands. However, Abishai did not have the understanding of David that you do not have to kill to get to the throne. You do not suppress a life to have yours elevated. You do not terminate the vision of others to have yours established. For Abishai the sheep, he saw a chance to prove to his master how proficient he had become with the use of spears. “I will not have to strike him a second time,” he boasted to David.

When the sheep are stopped from displaying their so-called skills in the wrong way, they really can get frustrated and see you as a stumbling block to their progress in ministry or wherever they believe they must get to in life. All they desire is to prove to you that they can do what you are not ready to do. Lord help you, because once you advise against this, they conclude you are not happy seeing them grow. They may even say that you are jealous of the grace of God in them. In such periods, I pray the grace of God to see you through.

There is this occurrence in I Sam.30 in which I am so sure David almost gave up, but for the grace of God.

David had made another futile attempt to sojourn in the land of the Philistines. Yes, leaders are prone to making mistakes and whenever they do, they should apologise and move on. As David and his men returned to base in Ziklag, they discovered that the Amalekites had invaded their camp and had taken their wives and children as captives; setting ablaze the rest of their properties.

It was indeed a terrible day for David and his men, but especially for David, the leader. Men wept as babies for their wives and children, but David, being the leader, bore the brunt of the day.

“Now David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of all people was grieved; every man for his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God. I Sam. 30:6.

Those David gave his life to protect; those who dined at his table, those he provided for and those he shared his time with, must now hold him responsible for what the enemy brought upon them all. They actually wanted to stone David as though he too did not suffer any loss. For heaven’s sake, David’s wives were also captured!

Dear leader, may you find strength in God when men you serve with your life, time and energy suddenly turn against you. If not for God who was on David’s side, they would have ‘deleted’ him from the surface of the earth.

However, great leaders are known to bounce back quickly from their shocks. David, having found a way out and his strength renewed in God, immediately picked himself up and went after the Amalekites. He thought he was leading a determined and purposeful recovery team of 600 men, but they didn’t travel far before he realised that 200 of those who were crying some hours back and who sounded so determined to recover their losses, were actually not serious-minded men.

“So David went, he and the six hundred men who were with him and came to the Brook Besor, where those stayed who were left behind. But David pursued, he and the four hundred men; for two hundred stayed behind who were so weary that they could not cross the Brook Besor. I Sam. 30:9-10.

I may be wrong, but I think it is good to have this Brook Besor incident in our lead-a-sheep experience. It will at least help us to separate the men in our team from the boys. How terrible it is for any leader to think he has 600 determined soldiers, not knowing that 200 out of the 600 are men without purpose.

Imagine the joy in Gideon’s heart when he realised, by obeying God’s word that 22,000 out of the 32,000 soldiers he boasted he had (Think of this great number) in his Army were actually fearful and afraid.

“Now, therefore, proclaim in the hearing of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and afraid, let him turn and depart at once from Mount Gilead, And twenty-two thousand ofhe people returned and ten thousand remained. Judges 7:3.

These men joined the army for the fun of it. Had they got to the battle ground, they would have endangered Gideon’s life and those of others. It is a terrible experience to take such men to war or to work.

In lead-a-sheep, large figures or numbers can be deceptive. A lot of people sign up for assignments for different reasons, but for the real reason. God help you if you rely on that large figure on your attendance sheet. How many of them will eventually see the work to the end? They don’t get far before they back out!

Anyway, with the available 400 men with David, they recovered all without a single loss. The story, however, remains a sad one. Immediately the 400 men calculated the spoils, they came out with a strange sharing formula against the 200 men who didn’t go with them.

“Then all the wicked and worthless men of those who went with David answered and said, ‘Because they did not go with us, we will not give them any of the spoil that we have recovered, except for every man’s wife and children, that they may lead them away and depart,”

But David said, “My brethren, you shall not do so with what the LORD has given us, who has preserved us and delivered into our hand the troop that came against us. For who will heed you in this matter? But as his part is who goes down to the battle, so shall his part be who stays by the supplies; they shall share alike. 1 Sam. 30:22-24.

If not for their sharing formula that betrayed them, we would never have reckoned, not to talk of addressing them as wicked and worthless men. We thought David had influenced them well enough to be good and kind. When they found and fed that dying Egyptian in I Sam. 30:11, we never knew they were fooling us into believing they had been well trained and had become spiritually matured.

Thank God for gold and prosperity. When gold and silver surfaced, their true persons jumped out – hearts were immediately revealed. Can you truly define a man’s character until you see him handle gold? Gold is a revealer of intents.

How did David feel knowing he had been keeping company with wicked and worthless men? Yes, they may have enrolled as worthless men, but after years of staying together with David, should they not have changed for good? They boasted they recovered the spoils by their strength, but David corrected the notion. It was God who gave them victory and therefore, everyone must stand equal.

Surprise, I have come to accept, is part of lead-a-sheep. Just when you think you know your sheep so well, they have surprises rolled up their sleeves. One day, an act or a saying from them will throw you off balance. In any case, you should not give up on them, because they still have this beauty lying in them to be revealed.

“Philip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long and yet you have not known Me, Philip?’” John 14:8-9. Jesus was surprised that after spending so long a time with His disciples, Philip (and others who kept quiet pretending they knew the Lord), could still be ignorant of the person of their Master.

“…’Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did? But He turned and rebuked them, and said, ‘You do not know what manner of spirit you are of: For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them. Luke 9:54-56.

They had been with Jesus for a while now, yet they still had this fiery spirit to destroy – a spirit they never saw in Jesus in their daily interaction with Him.

“So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him. Then Jesus answered and said, ‘O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.’” Mat. 17:16-17. The inability of the disciples drew out a question from Jesus. “How long do I have to be with you before you get things right and start living with me? Jesus, however, did not quit.

Eventually, David’s men got things right. Although they came in and lingered as weaklings, with time and with a mindful brooding and interaction, the Bible referred to some of them as becoming David’s great men.

“Now these were the heads of the mighty men whom David had, who strengthened themselves with him in his kingdom, with all Israel, to make him king, according to the word of the LORD concerning Israel…Now three of the thirty chief men went down to the rock to David into the cave of Adullam…”  (I Chro. 11:10;15)

Maybe not all, but some did eventually become strong and mighty. They eventually saw that David was right in not having to kill to get to the throne. They saw, through his life that the word of the Lord will surely come to pass without having to push or back it with natural ideas. At last, they played their roles in the right way in making David the king of Israel. Kudos to David for the manner he accepted and transformed these men. Through the toils and pains they stood and rose with him from the cave to the palace.

In Acts 4:13 the high priest and the elders of the land, seeing the boldness of Peter and John, concluded rightly that they must have been with Christ. These were the same disciples who were initially frustrating, but as Jesus laboured on; their lives eventually reflected His person.

The sheep can be demanding, but with the perseverance and the grace of God in a leader, things will eventually work out. If you are, therefore, reading this piece as a leader, in whatever capacity, don’t just pray for a ready-made followership, but pray for the grace to nurture and bringing out leaders from those following. Let the glorious end, which is around the corner, drive you.

Go back to work with the hands sent to you by God with the knowledge that He does not always send leaders ready-made hands to work with. God bless you.

Burning Bush Boy

Points for Christian Writers

These are some points I observed concerning the Christian writer from the book of The Revelation. (Rev. 1:1-12)

There are, obviously, many things in God’s heart that He wishes to reveal to His creation. The Holy Spirit reveals such things to the public through His servants – writers, preachers, etc.

Whenever God reveals His heart, please note that He does so expecting an action to be taken based on His revelation. The first person to act, therefore, is the Christian writer. He or she takes the first action of having to meticulously record/write down God’s revelation, before going forward to transmit same to those concerned.

Nobody should, therefore, write when he or she is yet to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. His voice, and not the thoughts of the writer, determines what to be written.

 “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, saying I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last and What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches…”Rev. 1:10-11

 To hear the voice behind, the writer must learn to wait on God.

 “Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way walk in it.” Isa. 30:21.

 For the portion of the scripture in Isaiah 30:21 to happen, you must have learnt to return and rest on the Lord. This is more like being in the Spirit and when you are in the Spirit, you are calm and waiting.

 “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength…”Isa. 30:15.

 For John to have heard the voice behind him, he must have maintained a position of stillness in his heart. John was to write all that he saw or better put as all that was shown to him. Christian writers will do well to write on issues divinely revealed than imagined or cooked up.

A written revelation sinks faster in the heart of men, because you cannot downplay its weight. Revelations from the mind of God are weighty and if carefully pushed on in writing, great shall be the impact.

The voice propels your wheels. The voice controls your steering or navigation. The voice is the power behind your existence and ministry. Every writer should, therefore, learn to listen to the voice and in fact, endeavour to see/understand/comprehend the voice before pushing forth his/her writing.

Burning Bush Boy

Where are the Sons of God

The human mind has always been a victim of deceit. Certain things which ought to be embraced are abhorred, while detestable things are pursued. Even among God’s children, this is not a strange occurrence. Why?

Should a man be deceived only on few things, maybe it would salvage him from destruction? Or, what could be the impact if a life is deceived on fundamental things of life? I know too well that missing on the fundamental is not the same as the derived.

The cross, which must not be trivialized, is the main issue in our lives as Christians. It is the most important ingredient in our salvation. It is indeed, a symbol of addition that added the human race to God’s race; changing mankind to God’s kind.

God has done all He needed to do to give us the gift of “life” – eternal life, which includes saving us from sin, sickness and eternal death. He has also made the provision for a help that will strengthen, lead and guide us into all truth. This same help will mature us into sons, so that we can manifest the nature (character) and power of God in our lives and generation.

“For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.” Romans 8:19 (KJV)

In our own days, more than ever, it is quite evident that there are very few sons of God all over the world and this explains the reason for the emergence of decay and rottenness all over. In every nation, crime is increasing daily and iniquity is abounding.

The children of the devil have taken over the reign at all quarters. Sin, oppression and terrorism are everywhere and it seems as if God is long dead in our lands. Where is the evidence that God yet lives? Where are the sons of God to be a living proof?

In John 10:10, Jesus says: “… I have come in order that you might have life – life in all its fullness.” (GNB)

If I may ask, where is the life that Christ bought for us at the very expensive price of His blood? Eternal damnation is visible everywhere, even in the church. The Bible says that the son of God was manifest to destroy the works of the devil and yet, we see the works of the devil everywhere, even in our own lives. What and where is the problem? Does this not suggest that there are no sons to declare God’s glory, i.e. manifest His presence in our generation?

The power to become sons:

 “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name”  John1:12 (KJV)

 

It is okay that you have believed, but you have not, by default, become a son yet. You have only been given the right to become a son. When you believe, the power is released unto you so that you can become and the question is, have you actually become a son of God?

A son is a matured being who can handle things on his father’s behalf without the father suffering any loss. Do you manifest God everywhere and every time? Do you declare His glory everywhere you go, like Jesus did when He was physically here on earth? Even in your own personal life, are you not being defeated daily by sin and other works of the devil? Are you a son or you are just a ‘child’ of God?

“Now I say, that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.”  Galatians 4:1-7 (KJV)

 

When are we going to become sons?

The provision to become a son had already been made. Christ has come to redeem us from our depraved state and God is also ready to send the Spirit of His Son in increasing measure into our hearts. The more the increase, the more the maturity.

However, the truth is that we have not yet come up to be sons. Many Christians enjoy being babes and children. All they want is to be fed with milk and honey, and for God to grant all their trinket desires anytime they cry “uwen! uwen!!”

They want to keep hearing messages that massages their backs like we do to relieve babies after feeding them so that they can belch – throwing up the wind they had sucked while eating. This is exactly what many preachers do. They dare not preach a tough message and if they do, they quickly massage their audiences’ backs so that believers will not be uncomfortable in the church.

When are we going to grow into Sonship? The message of the cross is no longer on our pulpits; therefore believers are not growing into disciples and sons capable of manifesting God in this generation. Without the cross, there can’t be growth.

What is the Cross? 

 “And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.  For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gains the whole world, and loses himself, or be cast away?”    Luke 9:23-25 (KJV)

 

A child is dependent on his father and all he wants is for his needs to be met. He does not consider what he can or should do for the father. In fact, he believes in his heart that he cannot do anything for the father, but the father should and must do all things for him. This is the attitude of most believers, little wonder the Bible records in John 2:23-24:

 “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men.”

 He knew that they were children only seeking to save their lives. They were not ready to lose their lives for His sake. The issue is, if any man wants to become a disciple, a son of God, he must be ready to lose something and that thing is, “HIMSELF.” He must be willing to give “his life” to Christ.

To those of us who claim to be saved or born again, I wonder what we proclaimed to have done at salvation. What exactly did we give? Till now, what we claimed to have given is what we are still and always protecting. We claimed to have given, yet our eyes are half-opened to monitor our lives.

“Bless me, keep me, provide for me, kill my enemies,” are the items on our prayer list and not, “Lord, what will you have me to do for you? What in my life is it that is hindering your glory? How can I be lost into You and be useful for You?”

To carry our cross, we must first deny ourselves that is, lose our identity and then choose to do God’s will wherever His will crosses ours. This is the cross we have to carry and it is only then that God will release the Spirit of Jesus to possess and lead us. Until we are possessed with this Spirit, we cannot mature into sons of God. Little wonder, Apostle Paul said: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”  Romans 8:14 (KJV)

No man can simultaneously follow two opposing directions. It is either you follow the dictate of the flesh/human nature or you follow the Spirit of Christ. However, before you can follow the Spirit of God, you must have denied yourself and taken up your cross.

Whenever you are following the dictate of the flesh, you are actually obeying something that is not God. The flesh had already been bought over by the devil (Sin) at Eden. There is, therefore, no neutral ground. You are either serving God by His Spirit or Devil through sin. When you are not obeying God, you are obeying the Devil.

The church has probably forgotten or is being deceived not to teach the message of the cross anymore to believers as they are being added to the church. Therefore, we have many babies in the body of Christ. Baby Christian brothers marrying baby Christian sisters and then in the homes, there are lots of noise and quarrels like we have in the kindergarten classes.

Pastors, (if they are not babies themselves), have to keep changing diapers and filling feeding bottles with milk every time. They run here and there to settle quarrels and issues both in churches and homes. Are these not pointers that we are yet babes?

Why not teach the truth that will bring growth and maturity and set the people free from sin and self that we may mature into sons of God. God must help us.

LIZZY

Your stone for bread

Goliath stood as a visible, but an invincible challenge to God’s children, the Israelites. He intimidated them daily and nobody, but God and David knew that a mere stone was enough to end his reign of terror. (I Sam. 17:49)

King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of a great image whose splendor was excellent. Its head was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze. Its legs were of iron and its feet partly of iron and clay.

This singular gigantic image represented different ungodly kingdoms, but when God stood up to check their reigns, a mere stone was all He needed. (Dan. 2:34)

Jesus had just finished a forty-day prayer with fasting and naturally, he was hungry. Satan was the first person to proffer a solution: “…Command that these stones become bread”. (Mat. 4:3)

The stone! What about the stone? What are the implications of stones in a life?

To view this “Stony issue,” you will have to forgive me for breaking some rules guiding the interpretation of the Scripture. If you do, there is every tendency that you will touch God’s help packaged in this article.

Back to the Sunday School days: The story of David and Goliath.

When Goliath stood boasting and parading himself as an unconquerable warlord, he didn’t bargain for what David had to dish out.

Goliath was so intimidating that soldiers trained to fight battles fled at his appearance. He was so mightily built that not even King Saul, the one ordained to lead Israel to battle, could stand before him.

When those trained to stand against people like him could not, Goliath became bolder and more daring. He grew from intimidating the army of Israel into speaking against the living God of Israel. Do you blame him? This is exactly how we bring shame upon God when we, His soldiers, crumble before imposing situations as though we have not a mighty deliverer in God. Oh that the Lord will forgive us for making unbelievers speak light of Him!

Goliath cursed as he saw David approaching him without the usual armours of war. He expected to see David dressed up in helmet, breastplate; carrying spears, javelin, bows and arrows and the likes, but David simply, but confidently, approached and confronted him with a sling and five stones.

David declared as he approached Goliath: “Then all this assembly shall know that the LORD does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the LORDD’s, and He will give you into our hands…Then David put his hand in his bag and took out a stone; and he slung it and struck the Philistines in his forehead, so that the stone sank into his forehead and he fell on his face to the earth. I Sam. 17:47-49.

Lord, it was a mere stone that silenced the trouble of David’s days. Nobody in Israel and Philistine would have imagined a stone doing the job. Not in anyone’s wildest imagination. A stone, guided by a divine invisible hand, did a neat and thorough job on Goliath’s forehead.

King Saul advised against it. Trained soldiers believed that David was attempting a suicide. Goliath felt insulted, but David knew the power in the stones he had. He was aware of God’s plan to secure victory for Israel through the use of any of the stones he had in his bags.

Although Goliath was heavily armed to the teeth, yet his forehead was exposed. This opening was good enough for a stone and not a sword. Brethren, we need to know that every seemingly invincible challenge has an exposed part well enough for your stone.

And now to Nebuchadnezzar’s image.

For God to bring down this synergy of ungodly kingdoms, a stone, cut out by an invisible hand, had to be engaged. The stone struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay to break it all into pieces. The flying stone exploited the weak spot of the image that looked so fortified from head to toe.

Looking at the image from afar, it would be impossible to miss its head of solid gold. You can’t miss its chest and arms, which were made of hard cast silver. How do you think of ever penetrating or confronting such a solid image; an image whose belly and thighs were made of rock-solid bronze?

However, just as Goliath had an opening well enough for a stone, this image had feet partly made of iron and clay. Thank God for the clay feet; they were soft enough for the stone to do its job.

It gladdens my heart to know that every imposing challenge before me has a weak spot waiting to be hit and brought down by the stone I am, hereby, throwing. Even when, like David, I am not aware of an opening, the decision to engage my stone will always be a good idea.

What if David had held back from casting his stone; giving too much attention to the size of Goliath and his fortified garments? What if David suddenly lost the confidence that his stones were good enough?

Brethren, challenges have remained, not because they cannot fall before us, but because we are too afraid to throw our stones. Let that stone fly and watch with amazement the downfall of what had intimidated you for years.

So what about Jesus?

And now Jesus became hungry and all that Satan had to say was that He should convert the stones around Him into bread. What if Jesus had done this?

Well, apart from being a terrible thing to heed an instruction from the Devil’s mouth, Jesus would only have been able to satisfy his hunger, a temporary situation, with the bread. He would have been the only one satisfied by the bread and generations would have remained under the Devil’s grip till date.

Turning the stones into bread could mean turning what God has given you to knock down giants into what will only satisfy your immediate needs.

Imagine the high rate God’s children now convert their gifts into bread at the point of hunger. Whenever hunger knocks, we are quick to convert God’s gifts given to us as stones to bring down Goliaths of our time, into money.

To satisfy the hunger for fame and riches, the gifted in songs have succeeded in converting their singing stones into bread. The stones are now feeding us, but unfortunately, they are harmless against Goliaths. When we cast the stones, they simply bounce off these imposing situations. The stones, God’s gifts or grace in your life, can no longer take advantage of the exposed parts of these giants. Have you not converted them all into money making ventures?

Gone are the days when your gift was anointed. It was so powerful back then. Once you cast it, images collapse before you. The kingdom of darkness dreaded you, because you had a stone cut out for you by an unseen hand. I feel I should ask, “Is the story of your stone still the same? Has bread not taken over?”

Today, you sing, but the stone of singing had ceased to have impact on people. You pray, but since the day you monetized the stone of prayer, it stopped knocking down Goliaths. You once had different gifts from God that stood as stones and just as David’s five stones, any of the stones could have been alright for Goliath’s forehead, but since the day you turned them all into bread, you turned to Goliath’s prey.

What if Jesus had also turned the stones into bread based on the excuse of being hungry? He would have prayed and the devil would have laughed at His empty prayer. He would have died and remained dead past the third day. Resurrection would have been a failed dream.

If what you consider first before using God’s gifts (stones) is money or personal satisfaction, you are already converting those stones into bread. No doubt, bread, the new state of your stones, will satisfy your inordinate hunger, but remember that bread has no record of bringing down imposing challenges.

I believe that the Church and the nation can still be revived. I believe that ungodly governments can still be broken into pieces. Challenges facing God’s children can be eliminated. These are all giants with exposed and soft parts in them. However, the big question is, “Where are the stones to be thrown to give us victory?”

It is sad that the situation on ground is such that divine stones are daily being converted into bread. The Kingdom of God is now daily being emptied of stones capable of knocking off giants. The stone era, so to say, is being overridden by the days of the bread.

Excuse me, but can you announce what you have in your bag for the giants waiting for you in 2014? What do you have to throw against the ungodly government set to rule your life, home, ministry and nation in this New Year? Do you have stone or soft tasty bread? What has become of your stone?

Lord, in your mercy deliver us before we convert all our stones to bread.

Burning Bush Boy

Chosen for Glory

In time past, God had always made His choice of persons, not because they were good or better than others, but in mercy and sovereignty. He chose to favour Noah when He wanted to destroy the world at that time.

“And the LORD said I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air, for it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. Gen 6: 7-8 (KJV)

No one can query God for making Noah His choice, just in the same manner nobody can query you for deciding on which of the clothes in your closet to wear at a time or for an occasion.

Abraham was another choice God made. He was called out to be set aside as a person through whom God intended to raise a people unto Himself.

“The Lord said to Abram, “Leave your country, your relatives and your father’s home, and go to a land that I am going to show you. I will give you many descendants and they will become a great nation. I will bless you and make your name famous, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you. But I will curse those who curse you. And through you, I will bless all the nations. Gen 12: 1- 3 (GNB)

From the above, we can see that the choice of God calls for a separation from friends, family and former ways of life. However, it is a great privilege and a demonstration of love and mercy for a mortal man to be beckoned by God.

Another thing to take to heart is that whenever God is interested in blessing a nation, which is always for a purpose, He looks for a channel/vessel through whom the purpose in His heart can be accomplished. (See Ez. 22:30). He puts out a call, as though advertising for a vacant position, to a/some person(s) who would consider His call. Apostle Peter describes this choice of God in this manner:

“But you are the chosen race, the king’s priest, the holy nation, God’s own people, chosen to proclaim the wonderful acts of God who called you out of darkness into His own marvelous light. At one time you were not God’s people, at one time you did not know God’s mercy, but now you have received His mercy”. 1 Pet 1: 9-10 (GNB)

This is amazing! Can you identify with this? Do you know that you are a chosen person and your walk must be tandem with what God has called you to be? Have you ever accepted God’s call to come out of darkness into the light that Jesus Christ is?

“Jesus spoke to the Pharisees again, “I am the light of the world, he said, whoever follows me will have the light of life and will never walk in darkness”.  John 8:12

As this is an opportunity for you to join the chosen race, God’s own people, I sincerely congratulate you if you have made or now making the decision.

There is, however, yet a matter to be considered. The two-in-one issue of appreciating and living up to the expectation of the call cannot be trivialized.

At a particular time the descendants of Abraham said to Samuel: “… No! We want a king, so that we will be like other nations, with our own king to rule us and to lead us out to war and to fight our battles”.   1 Samuel 8: 19-20 (GNB)

What a loss of identity! For them to have forgotten who they were reflects a pathetic condition of the heart. Have you also forgotten who you are in Christ Jesus? Are you also yearning for another king to rule over your life?

If you are not conscious of who you are and have not totally surrendered your ‘will’, which is your life, to the LORD Jesus, there would be so many things contesting to rule over your life. These other gods, particularly mammon, would appeal to you so that it could rise to take God’s place in your life.

Are you also in the rat race to win the world and be like other people? Please sincerely check if you have not taken your life back from God; back from the altar of sacrifice where you claimed to have surrendered it to God.

Have you ever considered the fact that there is uniqueness in being unique? This choice is unto separation from the world and worldliness. You can no longer dress and live like other people in the world, because you have been chosen for God’s glory.

Do not forget that this choice is for a purpose. God, through your life, wants to exhibit His glory that is, His nature that was lost at Eden. With your life, He wants to bless the nations of the world and it is not by making you rich and popular, but by exhibiting His nature in you.

Your life, resplendent of God’s glory, should condemn sin and worldliness that people may be reconciled to God. For this reason, you must be grateful that you are His. Appreciate His Lordship over your life as you allow Him to rule and reign in your life as your King and LORD.

A woman of God once said: “The Christian life is the most exciting life in this world; there are only two things you need to do: (1) Do what God tells you to do and (2) Don’t do what He tells you not to do. Living the Christian life is not a bunch of ups and downs. It is a total sell-out to Jesus so that nothing else makes a difference”.

What a privilege to be chosen! Remain distinguished and separated unto the LORD as you pray in the words of Apostle Paul: “Giving thanks unto the father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.

God bless you.

Lizzy

Lord, let it not be the ‘Cut Down’ year Luke 13:6-9

A certain man had a big vineyard and at a time, he decided to plant therein a fig tree. When he did so, he hired a gardener to ensure the fruitfulness of the fig tree. He provided all that was needed for the growth and development of the fig tree, because he was never known to be associated with failure or barrenness. In whatever he invested in, he expected profit.

Believing that he could never be caught dancing to the tune played by failure, he woke up one day and decided it was time to visit his farmland. His expectation was clear. He expected nothing short of an increase in his investment. However, for the first time in his life, he knew what it was to be disappointed.

Getting to the farmland, he discovered that the fig tree was still not fruitful despite all that was said and done to ensure its fruitfulness. Of course, he was really sad and could not help asking questions:  “What did I do wrong? What could the gardener have asked for that I didn’t give? Was there anything needed that I did not make available?”

Eventually, he concluded that his side was well tidied up. The gardener also did not see what should have been done that was not done. So, if everything needed was provided, what then could be responsible for the barrenness of the fig tree?

In any case, both the owner of the fig tree and the hired gardener did not give up. They were both willing to give it another shot and they set a period of 12 months; agreeing to intensify their efforts on the fig tree.

Year 2

At the end of the second year, the owner visited the fig tree again to check if it had made good use of his provisions by way of bearing fruits, but just like the first year, he was disappointed.  Wait a minute! Did I say, just like the first year? Let me withdraw that and rephrase: He was now troubled and of course, much more disappointed than the first year.

If the experience of the first year was shocking, the disappointment of the second year was beyond a shock. He stood confused, panting and crying deep inside. He queried himself, “Not again! What have I done wrong again?”

He immediately summoned the gardener and of course, there was nothing new for the gardener to say. The poor gardener was not the lazy type. He was diligent, but the fig tree was showcasing him in the negative. In a way, the barrenness of the fig tree was painting him and the owner as incompetent managers of life. Yet, none of them was incompetent, but the fig tree had, sort of, made up its mind to colour them useless.

Perhaps in an attempt to prove to his master that he was up to the task, the gardener pleaded for another year. Surprisingly, the rich man granted his plea and approved another year to correct whatever went wrong in the last two years.

Year 3

Since time will always continue to tick, the long day fixed eventually came knocking. 365 days expired in a twinkle of an eye and I will not like to bore you, because the story of the fig tree remained the same.

Do trees have their own minds? Well, this tree seemed to have its own and what a terrible mind it had. It was certain that nothing else could be done to persuade the tree to yield to what it was being fed with. This was one tree with a made-up mind to waste whatever was provided for its growth.

If the tree had its own mind, so did the owner.

“Then he said to the keeper of this vineyard, ‘Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?’”

You could say that was a mean statement from the owner, but since the tree was living outside its purpose of existence, the owner felt it was time to pack it all up.

Each time he came checking, it was not for any other thing about the fig tree, but its fruits. He invested so much in the fig tree for the main purpose of being rewarded with fruits. The only thing that mattered to him was to meet his tree fruitful, but this was not forthcoming.

Unfortunately, what was important to him was not considered important by the fig tree. It merely made use of all that was provided to enrich what it thought was important, not minding the happiness of the man who planted and laboured to keep it alive.

Tell me, could the fig have existed without being planted and watered by someone? It couldn’t have sustained itself, could it? If not, why then was the fig so selfish and callous? Why was it so heartless; denying its owner the joy he expected? Why was it bent on rubbishing the efforts of those who laboured on it?

Tired of the many fruitless promises of the previous years, he spoke up: “Cut it down! It’s just taking up space and wasting nutrients supplied by the soil. Better if another tree was in its place.”

Hmm! The owner was tired of wasting valuable space and nutrients and he was seriously considering giving another tree the chance that was being wasted. Lord, is my fruitless life pushing you to begin to look for an alternative?

Although the owner of the farm was finding it difficult to continue, the “frustrated” gardener made one last uncertain plea.

“But he answered and said to him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and fertilise it. And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that, you can cut it down.”

Did you see that from the construction of what the gardener said, he was not sure that the fig tree will repent of its decision to remain barren? He was certainly uncertain about the ability of the fig tree to bear fruits…“But if not, after that, you can cut it down,” he said.

Although he said he would dig around and fertilize the fig tree, yet he was not sure these would work. My take is that he must have done these before now without any success.

What kind of a fig tree would frustrate both its owner and gardener? What kind of a fig tree would ensure that nothing provided for its life worked? What kind of a fig tree would waste divine resources and efforts?

What manner of a fig tree are you? When will your barren life change to bring God joy? Why will you continue to frustrate God’s efforts and those of the men He had appointed to build you up?

Have you been fruitful in this passing year? Are you not asking for another chance in 2014 to continue to waste grace?

In any case, I have reasons to believe that God is still willing to offer you another chance in 2014, but you should please be mindful that as longsuffering as God may be, there is always a year of reckoning.

Is this your third year? Lord, may you hold on the order: “Cut it down for wasting divine resources!”

I may represent the gardener in the place of prayers, but the fact remains that your life is in your hands and the ball is in your court. Despite the lessons of the driving school of life, you are responsible for steering the wheels of your life in the direction you so wish. The key to the door has been given to you and the decision to either live a fruitful or a barren life will always be yours.

 

Burning Bush Boy

Are we becoming less human?

Although it’s not my style to pass comments on public issues, but you will please have to forgive me for not being able to resist the temptation not to write on what you are about to read. I am deliberately taking a fall for this temptation with the hope that others will, through my fall, rise up on their feet.

When God created the universe, you will recall that He created human beings last. Adam and Eve came on the sixth day to take charge of every other thing earlier created by God. In their own case, they weren’t called forth to appear as did the herbs, moon and stars; rather, they were made.

God had to call a conference: “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Gen. 1:26.

Unlike animals and other creatures of God, man was made after a pattern and that pattern was that of God. He didn’t create them as other creatures, because He knew that if they would succeed in the responsibilities He planned giving to them, they must be made in His own very image and likeness.

Now, I don’t know your belief, but you were created in the image and likeness of God. You may presently not look like God in character, yet there is a kind of God in you waiting to be refined and polished.

I am going somewhere.

When Adam and Eve finally came to be, they were appointed by God as supervisors of all that He had earlier created. They were to stand as managers of God’s empire on earth and in doing so, they supervised the running of God’s investment and every other creature, especially the animals, looked up to them with due respect.

I don’t know of any man who will commit his multimillion dollar investment or project into the hands of a dullard? If you won’t, why should God!

If none would be so foolish, it could then be said that God, at that time, made the best decision to appoint Adam and Eve as the head. It had to be Adam and Eve, because they had highly developed reasoning faculty that far exceeded that of the big Elephant. The lion? Yes, the lion, no doubt, was strong and fearless, but God did not deem it fit to hand over the reins of affairs to the lion king. Can a lion think deep enough? Can it even think at all?

In God’s wisdom, no other creature than those He created in His own image were good enough to manage things as though He (God) was personally in-charge. A major quality that God saw and that differentiated man from the lower animals was, therefore, the ability to think and to think constructively. Animals don’t think; they cannot reason, but you and I can; at least if we want to. (Pardon me!)

God, therefore, made the right choice in putting highly developed and deep-thinking human beings in-charge of His investments. It is, however, sad to see that things are no longer the same. I strongly believe that we are no longer in-charge of the ability that differentiated us from the lower animals.

I am trying so hard to be mild, but sincerely, if I have to go by what I have seen human beings do lately, I cannot, but say it bluntly that we are losing the thinking ability that made us the Head of operations in God’s business empire.

I am sure that you know that animals are tamed and trained to do things for human beings. By the training we give, we try to impact in them some learning and thinking skills. Well trained dogs have been known to serve as lifesavers and also help as guides to physically challenged people. Train an animal and at the voice of your command, it will run errands for you without hassles.

Train an animal to drive a motor car and I will downrightly tell you with what I know of animals that it will successfully drive the car in accordance with the simplest instruction you gave it. I will tell you that the animal will keep to all the road signs and traffic regulations you introduced to it.

If animals can and would keep to rules they were introduced to, why should things be different with the trainers – human beings? I shed tears in my heart to say that, today, an animal behind wheels is proving to be a better driver than many so-called educated human beings.

Please pardon me if I appear to be rude in my presentation, but what can I say when it is obvious that we are losing our values as human beings. Help me out, but I think taxonomy classified human beings in the Animal Kingdom just as lions, elephants and pigs. In a sense, we are, therefore, animals; mammals for that matter, but we are of the higher animal kingdom. We are remarkably different from the lower animals, because God created us to think logically. Can’t someone get this for heaven’s sake?

I may have taken too long to strike the head of the nail, but I am particularly concerned about the way human beings of the higher animal kingdom drive their cars on the highways. I am bothered that we drive our cars the way a trained monkey will not. Is someone seeing my heart? I have no intension to insult anyone, but I have questions pertaining to why human beings are doing things the way animals will never do them.

I ply the Alaafin Avenue road at Oluyole Estate, Ibadan, five days in a week and from my observations on that road, I regret to say that I have concluded that the human power is drained. How do you explain good looking men and ladies driving as though they (and not their cars) have lost their brain boxes?

I, honestly, used to think that once a man says he is educated and goes about in suits and ties; especially once he drives an air-conditioned car, he is a gentleman in all sense and purpose. I thought he should be well behaved and cultured, but of course, I was wrong. Too wrong!

I have seen bankers, servants of the Most High God, government officials and educated elites driving and facing oncoming traffic in a bid to arrive at their destinations on time. In their quick rush to work or wherever they left home late for, they end up creating unnecessary traffic jams. These are people you erroneously thought should know better.

Folks, I now know better that being financially buoyant does not make a man a gentleman. I have seen men do things lower animals will never do or think of doing, if ever animals think. Why should we continue to ignore what makes us human?

I am ashamed to announce my foolishness, for indeed I thought once you can afford to travel to any of the developed nations of the world, (abroad we say), the person should be cultured, civilized and developed in his or her thinking.

Go ahead and laugh at me, but I assumed that since they would never dare to drive recklessly when they are in the UK, for instance, why should they now drive abnormally when they are at home? Is it our mentality to be unruly as Nigerians?

If you have an appointment to keep up with, why don’t you just take time to plan your journey and leave home early? Did you suddenly know that you would be taking your children to school before heading for work? Even at that, why should you expose your true colours for all to see on the open streets?

What makes us human beings outweighs the ability to mate and reproduce; lower animals do these as well. It is not all about being able to move, eat and respire; all lower animals can also do these. What God formed in us that earned us the mandate of authority is a developed brain. The brain helps us think and act logically, that is, sensibly. Do we need to take tutorials from the ants? Do we invite a flock of birds to teach us how they fly in orderly processions?

Do you realise that your person is defined, not by the things you have, but by the way you behave? Did I hear you saying that you are educated and therefore, better than the commercial bus drivers? My take is that you cannot possibly be. If anything, you are worse. You can’t be better.

While a Danfo driver (commercial driver) may be an illiterate, you went to school to become an educated citizen and a help to your community. You attended school to learn how to reason and come up with sound judgment under stress, but you have constantly proved that being in the four corners of a school has nothing to do with a man’s ability to think reasonably.

To whom much is given, much is expected, they say. You shouldn’t be the one seen causing a public nuisance; at least not with your car stickers suggesting the different religious affiliates and professional bodies you belong to. Nowadays, cars are born again Christians, but not the person behind the wheels.

Where are the ladies? They hardly exist; at least not behind wheels. Forgive me, but ladylike attitudes are gone off our roads. I am not sure if the ladies are not trying to prove that they are better players than the men.

You know that I also do not think it is fair for the older generation to accuse the younger ones of driving carelessly on our roads. Sincerely, the oldies should stop preaching what they are not doing and not willing to do, because whatever you say they are, you first were. They saw and copied from you all that you are now accusing them of. How dare you condemn your reflection!

As we pray for a better nation, we must realise that it won’t be fair on God to expect Him to do what He had already empowered us to do. Did He not create us with brains to fashion out things the way an animal will not? Why should we forget that He created us fearfully and wonderfully?

Nigeria, as a nation, needs ‘human beings’ on our roads, in our offices and in government positions. Brethren, it is time for us to be orderly and let go of this unruly nature. The lower animals are watching and it won’t be wrong to say that they are surprised that we are not ashamed doing what they would never do. Now is the time to stop indulging in things we trained them never to do.

In conclusion, I hope that my failure to resist the temptation not to write this article will make people reconsider their driving manners. If it does, then I have not fallen in vain.

Lest I forget, I give kudos to officers and men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) for coming on board to instill sanity in drivers on that particular road. You guys are doing a great job!

Burning Bush Boy

Paul, Apollos and God

This article may be of interest to you if you have already started or probably, you’re just thinking of starting or growing a business, ministry, project or the likes.

If this is so, then I can guess that your dream is to see whatever you are involved in, become enlarged and prosperous. Am I right? I have no doubt that you really would love to see your little, but promising project grow without limits. Your expectation, as I think I am right, is to see your efforts bringing out so many results, for in this lie your satisfaction, joy and peace. I pray that your desire will soon come to pass in Jesus’ name.

However, in seeing your vision come to pass, a wisdom revealed in the Bible, which is the Book of books may be of great help to you. This wisdom, I strongly believe is still very much relevant in our days.

The Corinthian Church was at a time experiencing a turbulent period as brethren divided themselves among the leaders in the Church. While some preferred Paul, others felt Apollos was worth following and this brought a sharp division in the body of Christ. As a result of this evil practice of sectarianism, Paul had to bluntly address the issue.

“…For where there are envy, strife and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal?”      1 Cor. 3:3-4.

Paul reacted further: “Who then is Paul and who is Apollos, but ministers through who you believed, as the Lord gave to each one?  I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. .” 1 Cor. 3:5-6.

Although the division brought about by preferring one leader to another in the body of Christ was addressed by Paul many years back, unfortunately, we still have it among us today. It is sad when you see Christians vehemently looking up to a particular denomination or leader, yet not being able to see at all, Jesus Christ, the Author and Finisher of their (our) faith. We know our leaders so well to know nothing about Christ. We talk so much about our denomination with nothing to say about Christ, the Head of the Church. Lord, please help me not to deviate from the subject matter of this article.

I am back on course!

From Paul’s argument above, I got to know that every work that will succeed needs to undergo the practice of “Division of labour.”  The duties to be carried out must be clearly spelt out for the different people to do them. In another word, no man is an island. You need others around you to succeed.

If your endeavour is increase, then you must pay close attention to what Paul said. He claimed that while he planted, it took Apollos to do the watering and at the end, God brought about the needed increase. Increase, therefore, becomes elusive, if we jump ahead of the steps highlighted by Paul.

Let’s go about it this way.

You need to first identify what must be done and the persons to carry out the itemized duties. We can identify the following from the Bible passage: (1) Planting must be done by someone. (2) Watering must also be done by another and finally, (3) increasing the work is the duty of another. Three things must be done by three different persons.

Brethren, prior to the expected increase, the planting of our efforts was the first work Paul identified. If you have, therefore, not planted anything while you keep dreaming of increase, you better wake up and get to work.

After due planting is carried out, then comes the watering. The efforts you have sown or planted must be watered or nourished before the increase finally comes to reality.

We now move to the players.

If the first work to be done is planting, then who does the planting? Interestingly, the first visible player in this project is not God or Apollos, but it was Paul and in this case, you are the Paul. God has already given you the seeds; you already have the gifts and the enablement, but He cannot do the planting for you.

It is easy for us to “yell” at God for increase and even blame the stunted growth of our projects on not having enough supporters, but we need to be true to ourselves and ask personally: “Have I really planted anything worthwhile to be watered or increased? Can I say that I have actually sown my efforts or sweats for others to water and for God to increase?”

If you have really planted, then your Apollos is around the corner to water you up and who knows, he may just get to you before you finish reading this piece. He could be anybody out there waiting for signals to move towards your planting. He may not be able to plant, just as you may not be able to water what you have planted, but one thing is certain, he is gifted to water and in Jesus name, your Apollos is approaching.

Apollos has the ministry of watering up projects of others. He sponsors projects financially, spiritually, materially, and all the “ally” your project needs. I repeat, the grace that the man sent to water you has, is not to plant or start a project, but to supply all that an already planted project needs to survive.

It is, however, unfortunate that many of the faithful Apollos (others are not faithful o) with the gift of watering are waiting in vain. They are idle, unable to use their gift of watering, because those of us gifted to plant have refused to do so. A wake up cry in my spirit is that if you continue to avoid the rigours of planting, he, your Apollos, cannot express his own ministry of watering.

For different reasons, largely due to lack of faith, we have had to keep away the seeds in our barns instead of going to the field to plant them. Planting takes a lot of efforts. You may have to wake up very early and work at odd hours. You may have to go back to school to study what is needed. You must have to leave your comfort zone, because in the real sense of it, you cannot do the planting in your living room.

In addition, but sadly, many of such seeds have died and many more seeds are dying, because we keep telling ourselves that we must be the one to water them. We want, at the end of the day, to proudly announce that we started and finished it all without the contributions of others. Ego at play!

Well, you may end up finishing the project all by yourself, but going by the word of God, two are always better than one. If you had allowed others to play their own role as directed by God, the project would have turned out better. Do you need to be reminded over and over again that they have been gifted to do what you cannot do? Please allow them to water your efforts.

“Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “See, (open your eyes widely) I have called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship to design artistic works, to work in gold in silver, in bronze…Exodus 31:1-5 (Emphasis mine)

Although Moses was the one given the vision, yet he was not gifted to interpret the vision himself. He could picture what he wanted to see on ground, but he had no such gift to make it happen. If he would ever see his vision come to reality, he must have to trust and allow the Apollos of his time, Bezalel, to make use of his gifts in craftsmanship. Moses, just as every leader, therefore, needs a Bezalel to water up visions.

If only you had focused on your own part and left the rest for whoever God had ordained, you would probably have been smiling by now. Brethren, it is not too late to do the right thing. Give others a chance in your vision.

The Big man in this whole picture is God.

God comes last to bring about the increase that will, at the end, make everyone involved in the project happy. He will patiently wait until you have done your own part of planting and allowing Apollos to water. Don’t ever dream of having an increase outside God!

It does not matter the quality of the seeds you planted or the amount of water Apollos generously poured on your seeds; the key player will ever remain God. He makes all things work together at the end for the good of the project.

This drops to mind.

Please never assume that your project will experience an increase once you have a sponsor. I can imagine you crying that if only someone will sponsor the project, things will happen. Well, I really do not think that anything big can happen until the Big God breathes upon both the planting and the watering. It is good to have sponsors, but they cannot grow the work outside God.

Are you Apollos?

Have you seen that your ministry or desire is to water peoples’ projects? If so, you must never adjudge yourself as the person needed to grow the work. God has not transferred and He will never transfer the power to increase a work to you. He has the exclusive rights to bring about the increase of any project He has ordained to start. Please don’t play God in this matter!

“So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.”          1 Cor. 3:7.

Need I say anything more about the obvious that without God, both he who plants and he who waters are nothing? Yet, in our state of nothingness before God, we are still expected to faithfully carry out whatever we have His grace to do no matter how small it may look in our eyes. Take your own step or steps and wait for God.

One more thing of note:

Just before you begin to think that you are permanently a planter, who has no business in watering, I need to quickly check this thought. The truth is that you can either be he who plants or waters at different times and situations.

Just while you may be busy planting your own project, God may at the same time be requesting you to serve as Apollos to another person. At this point, he who plants becomes he who waters and vice versa. My candid advice is that you stay tuned to God and try to understand what He wants you to do per time.

Let me also sound this warning that as he who plants, you should never get used to a particular Apollos to water your efforts always. If you do, you are walking the boundaries of disappointment.

“So he (Elijah) went and did according to the word of the LORD, for he went and stayed by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening; and he drank from the brook. And it happened after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.” 1 Kings 17:5-7NKJV

To beat the drought, God asked Elijah to stay by the brook and from there he got water as the ravens fed him. It, however, happened that the brook dried up, but not after another Apollos had been prepared for him.

If God notices that you are depending more on His Apollos than on Him, He has the right to dry up the brook; the Apollos He provided for you. What will you then do if you had laid all your life and hopes on this particular Apollos? To you Apollos, what will you do if you had made yourself the all-in-all?

“Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you.” I Kings 17:9.

The brook dried up, but God had provided another Apollos; this time, a widow. Brethren, go ahead and despise many things (at your risk), but never despise God’s Apollos to you. Elijah could have questioned God for providing a mere widow as the person to water him, but that was God’s choice. His chosen vessel for you may never match the one you have set up in your imagination.

Finally brethren, please do away with laziness and cast away fear and doubts. Rise up to the fields, till your land and sow your seeds and I promise you that by the word of God, there is an appointed Apollos waiting to water your seeds.

Let all chosen Apollos also rise up and be faithful to their calling. You have the water in the right amount and the buckets or watering cans are available with you. Do not allow the seeds you must water to die.

Let Paul be faithful to plant. Let Apollos be committed to watering. God is waiting to bring the increase.

I wish you all a blessed and happy planting season coupled with a glorious watering experience.

Burning Bush Boy

Jottings: Faith in action (Heb. 11)

Without faith, it is impossible to please God. Faith comes by hearing the word of God and on the word, your faith hinges. The first thing is to hear about it; the next is to choose to believe it or not.

Belief is of the heart and until steps are taken based on what the heart believes, you have not acted in faith. Faith is, therefore, an act and not a thought. Faith is your thought (your belief) in action. It is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen and by it, the elders obtained good reports from God.

Your belief or conviction cannot be seen, but your faith can be seen, felt and touched. You make what you believe visible by the demonstration of your faith. It is a substance; an evidence of your convictions. Until you act, no man, not even God, can see and appreciate what you believe. If you believe it, you will act in faith.

Please note that faith is different from belief. They may be synonyms in the English Language, but  faith is a step ahead of belief.

Faith is no faith, when actions are based on what is clearly visible. Acting on the obvious is no faith at all.

Acting on what you can figure or had already figured out is no faith. Faith is acting on what you have no clue about. It’s like a blind step into the unknown world.

It’s the unknown, not because you don’t know what the Word is saying. It is an unknown world, because you cannot physically bring or work it out. The act of faith is leaving the known for the unknown and it makes you look or sound initially foolish. The act of faith will make you an object of ridicule before men.

I could have done away with faith, but the Bible says: “Without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God” – Heb. 11:6 Faith is required to please God. A life without faith is a life of impossibilities before God.

Do you believe in your God-given dream? Prove it by your act of faith! Do you believe in God? Prove it by your act of faith based on His words. You do not declare or confess faith with your mouth. Faith is an act and not a mouth confession. It is not a written statement hung on the wall. It is an enigma driving your legs and moving your hands to act.

If you believe it, do something. Faith is not about talk, talking and talk. It is about act, acting and act.

Burning Bush Boy

I may have been seeing in the dark

A man is billed to see in the light, but when the light suddenly goes off, his eyes grow dim immediately and everything appears dark to him. He is thrown into a temporary blindness.

However, if he stays long enough in the darkness, the pupils of his eyes adjust to the darkness and before long; he will begin to see in that same darkness.

Yes, he may not be able to see as well as when there was light, but you can be rest assured that he will still be able to do certain things in the darkness that covered him. If the person is familiar with the environment he is, he finds it very easy to maneuver. He knows where the bends are and therefore, finds it easy to walk about.

He may be slow, but he would at least be moving. This goes to say that there is still an amount of work that can be done in darkness, especially when the eyes have adjusted to it. However, I cannot guarantee the quality of such work done in darkness.

If such person has no hope of having light restored, he settles down and rejoices over the work he is able to do in darkness. This is indeed a terrible state to be.

My God is light and in Him, there is no darkness at all.

I know that there is a possibility that I am already seeing in darkness. I have reasons to think that after staying too long in darkness, my pupils have adjusted to the little amount of light in this darkness. Due to the fact that I now can move around with ease, I am erroneously thinking that I am in the light.

Lord, like the hymn writer, I say, “If I have not forsaken all in answer to Thy loving call. If I’ve kept something back from Thee, Lord, give me light that I might see.”

I want to stop seeing in darkness and I want the light of your word to guide my steps in life. I am aware of the danger in walking and working in darkness and I pray not for such an experience.

Burning Bush Boy

Anointed to kill

“Then said Jesus unto him, put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” Matt.26:52.

Beloved Man of God, I bless the name of the Almighty for His grace upon your life and I sincerely appreciate the living God for the privilege extended to you to represent His interest in the body of Christ. I cannot, but give God the praise, for whenever you call upon His name, He answers.

Meanwhile, I have this deep concern that you need to check if you have indeed been representing Jehovah’s interest in the Body of Christ. You may also need to pass copies of this bulletin across to servants of God who may have been building differently from the pattern of Jesus Christ, the Chief Cornerstone. Such ministers must be rescued from their fruitless labours in God’s vineyard.

From the above scripture, Jesus was trying to teach Peter and the rest of His disciples how to handle the sacred law of liberty, which many, in our days, have turned into an instrument of threat.

From the scenario, Peter was trying to defend his master, Jesus, but He saw things differently. Jesus saw a man without an understanding of the Kingdom. This should remind us that we need to depend on Him at all times before we take decisions. Remember, He sees and responds to situations differently from us.

Although you may kill with the sword and go scot-free in the secular world and especially at warfronts, it is a different story in God’s Kingdom, where you don’t wound or kill with the SWORD!

Permit me, but in my own little understanding, I believe the Sword of the Spirit, which could also be interpreted as the Word of God, (Eph.6:17) should be handled with fear and trembling. Come what may, I strongly believe that the written Word of God should not be seen and used as an instrument of threat or intimidation against God’s people.

It is, however, sad to observe that in trying to defend God’s interest, we have ended up becoming His enemies. If we had known the efficacy of God’s Word and the perfect understanding of its application, (rightly dividing the word of truth), our world would have experienced a positive change. Lives would have been transformed and even the body of Christ would have recorded a massive boost.

What a terrible oversight on our part as servants of God! Instead of preaching His word to the lost world; praying the scripture into our lives with the aim of becoming better Christians and creating a friendly environment, we keep threatening and harassing people with His word.

Sometime last year, a mobile phone got lost in a church meeting and when it could not be found after a while, the next thing the servant of God did was to rain curses from the Word of God on the unknown thief. Should this be the next line of action? What a misappropriation of grace!

I think the concern of the man of God should be on how a thief could yet be a member of his Church or he should have asked himself how on earth the thief entered, stole and walked away from the Church he presided over as the Pastor without encountering God.

This indicates that the message of the cross; the old fashion message preached by the old fashion people; the patriarchs of old, which resulted in many coming to accept Jesus, the gift of life is disappearing, if not completely lost in the body of Christ.

Within my little walk with the Lord, I do not think that God has extended His grace or invested His power in anyone to threaten His people with the word. God is yet and can never become a threat to His children. Although He is a consuming fire, yet I know that He has not delegated this portion of Himself to any man. He remains a loving and caring Father. Oh that you may take after Him!

With due respect and without trying to throw stones on any of my Fathers in the faith, I strongly do not think you are anointed to rain curses on God’s children. Can we say those prayer points you led people to pray conformed to the doctrines of the New Testament Church as handed over to us by Christ? The Bible may say that we do not know what to pray for, yet it did not say we cannot ask the Holy Spirit to lead us aright. (Rom. 8:26)

If at all you are seeing them as your enemy, please note that God still has a hope on them. It could be doubtful to say that this same broad-hearted Jesus called and anointed you to destroy His children. Sincerely, I do not think that Jesus, the prince of peace, is behind your actions.

Have you taken time out to consider the one you claim you’re preaching about? Who do you really preach? If He called you into service, there is, therefore, the need to strictly follow His example in ministry. Jesus didn’t bear the anointing that threatens or harasses people; His anointing breaks yokes!

If Jesus was a man, you would have got Him confused with the strange way of using your anointing, but never mind, He has a perfect understanding that you are on your own. He is fully aware that you are not His, although those who do not understand the principle of the New Testament Church in prayer may think you are.

When Jesus met and asked Peter and Andrew to ‘follow’ Him in Mark 1:16-17, they were not expected to act differently from their Master. When you are a follower, you yield yourself to the pattern of your leader in all circumstance. Mark 1:18, from the Amplified Version of the Bible says: “And at once they left their nets and (yielding up all claim to them) followed (with) Him (joining Him as disciples and (siding with His party))-Mark 1:18 (AMP).

Did you get that? As a member of a political party, you are expected to follow the party’s rules and regulations (Constitution). Consequently, when you claim to be a follower of Christ; to the point of serving in His vineyard, you are expected by the Hosts of heaven to follow the rules of the Kingdom.

With the present situation of the Church, it is certain that we are acting contrary to the prophecy of old in Isaiah 2:3 says: “And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.”

Little wonder men are not coming to the mountain as expected by the hosts of heaven. Men who ought to have given their lives to Jesus are constantly slipping through your ministerial hands. You ask how? Mo ro wipe won ni omo ti ekun ba bi, ekun naa ni njo. A o le fi omo ekun we omo olonginni. (The lion’s cub is expected to look like a lion and not like a domestic cat).

Your prayer could have saved their souls if only you knew the principle of Jesus in prayer. Please don’t forget that you will definitely give account of the flock under your supervision. However, you still have enough time to return to the feet of Jesus and learn His principles for a good and perfect ministry.

Jesus said: “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;’-Matt.5:43-44.

The principle of the Kingdom is for us to pray for our enemies and those who persecute us, but the other side of the scripture is what we are practicing in our churches. (Bi ediye ba da mi loogun nu, maa fo leyin). 

When in the name of anointing, you threaten people with death or evil occurrence; you need to ask yourself if you really do have the power over death. Beloved, kindly let us stop this harassment and instead, saddle our donkey to preach the message of the cross to the lost world. Our core responsibility is to seek the lost!

Remember that Jesus’ anointing has nothing to do with threats. His anointing breaks the yoke.

Your brother,

ATM

If He had been a servant of gold.

There are occasions that I read the Bible and sincerely wish I could bring back some of its characters to share their stories with my own world. One of such is this piece found written in the book of Acts 3:1-11. Watch out for the underlying truths.

—————————————————————————————————————————————— I won’t mention my real name, because it would, obviously, not ring a bell. You won’t hear any bell, because I am one of the many people living today, who have been re-named by their life’s negative situations.

My parents gave me a dozen of names on my christening, but when you are born with a deformity as mine, you lose such names, no matter how lovely they are. Whenever you read my story, I remain the one and only “lame man at the beautiful gate of the temple.” You got it right! I was born a lame.

I remember asking my parents why I could not walk as other children my age, but they could not really give a reason. Well, you could go ahead and blame it on everyone and on everything around; blame God or the gods; blame my ancestor or the covenants between my parents and the demons in-charge of the town I was born; you could blame it on the sun, moon and stars, but for me, I quit looking for who or what to blame.

With time, I settled down and started earning some money as a beggar. Being a beggar, I depended on the goodwill of the people and there could not have been a better place for my begging business than the temple gate.

I chose the temple gate, because I realised that people across the globe are very religious. They have this strong belief that prayers, once preceded with alms giving to the poor and the physically challenged, would automatically be answered.

People deliberately choose to ignore their waywardness, because at a point, an ignorant and greedy religious leader had preached that as long as they give alms, offerings and tithes, the mind of God, poor God, gets blown off and as such, He closes His eyes to their iniquities. To them, God needs money so badly that He could be bribed to look the other way.

Why am I even bothered when as a beggar, I feed on the ‘goodwill’ of the good, bad and ugly. As they say, “A beggar has no choice” and of course, I am that beggar. I accept whatever you offer without raising an eyebrow, because I am at the temple gate for a lucrative business and as long as I earn a living thereby, I am okay.

Then one day, it happened! I had an unusual experience that earned me a page in the world’s most read book, the Bible. Wherever my dear Dr. Luke is, I wish to thank him for taking time to painstakingly document the encounter despite his tight medical schedule. God bless all Christian writers!

I woke up that morning not having premonition of something great coming my way. Not long after I resumed at the temple gate called “Beautiful”, two simple looking guys walked up to my direction. They had nothing on them to suggest they were loaded with grace to turn lives around. Nothing can, indeed, be truer than the saying: “An empty barrel makes the loudest noise.”

Peter and John, as I later got to know them, turned to my direction and Peter, the bolder of the two, suddenly asked that I look at them. “Look at us,” Peter bellowed and I immediately obeyed. I had to, because I was expecting something big from the two of them. I told myself: “He must be asking for my attention, because he has something big to offer,” but my life was about to be blessed with something worth more than money. What was it going to be?

I was, however, shocked and disappointed when he said, “Silver and gold I do not have…” Not waiting for him to land, I wanted to speak back immediately, but thank God that I was, somehow, able to restrain myself. I further listened to him.

“…But what I do have I give you;” he continued.

It was amazing the speed at which my mind processed and reacted to what I heard. Within a millisecond, I thought within me: “Just a while ago, you sounded and looked promising, but since you do not have money, what else could you possibly offer that would matter?” I really wanted to let him know that begging was a business to me and the language of business was money.

Excuse me, how could he possibly be going to the place of prayer without taking some money with him for alms and for the already fattened High Priests (Pastors)? Is it no longer an offence (sin) to appear penniless before servants of God?  Hmm!

Still lost in my questions, I thought I heard him saying, “…In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”

If he was trying to make me walk in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, he must be so ignorant. Didn’t he know that the High Priest and many so-called men of God had failed in trying to make me walk? If they failed, who was he to think he could make me walk in the name of one person from a tiny town in Israel? Nazareth? Can any good thing come out of that town?

I hated seeing my time being wasted and wished these two men would be considerate enough to realise that they were blocking some kindhearted people who had silver and gold to offer me. I was about to erupt when Peter suddenly reached out and grabbed my right hand. Oh what strength he had! He practically lifted me off my feet and as he did, I felt a movement within the regions of my ankles and feet; before I knew it, I was on my feet.

Like a child trying to walk for the first time, I staggered and leaped. I, however, gained my balance with the support of Peter and John. As I walked, the first thing that came to mind was to personally appear before God at the temple.

I turned down the idea of running back home to announce my healing and did not believe that I should prove a point to those who mocked me earlier. The only place I longed to be was the temple and that was the exact place I went.

I praised the Lord all through the day as I realised that He could actually do beyond man’s expectation. God dazed me that day and I will never forget that I left my house looking for money, but I came back walking on my two feet. No more would I have to depend on anybody; I could now walk and work to earn as much money as I wanted. The extent of my walk in life was no longer restricted to what some people wanted.

Friends, as you read my story, I want you to know that Jesus is real and that He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is very much capable of doing things beyond your expectation and whatever you do; please avoid looking down on Him. In any case, with Jesus, you can be rest assured that whatever He gives at whatever time, is the best for you.

To servants of God who worship money, I wish to say that money may be important, but it can’t be as important as possessing the authority to use the name of Jesus. Peter was so sure that he had the permission to use the name and he openly declared it. Not for once did he think the name would fail him, because he had a personal relationship with the owner of the name.

“What I do have I give you,” is a bold statement. If you do not have it, you cannot give it. You are certainly not giving anything tangible in His name, because you do not have what to give. The question is, “What has the Lord given me to give my generation? Do I have anything from Him to heal the lame in my generation?”

Beyond the needful silver and gold, please make sure you have His trust, which permits you to use His name. His name is paramount!

End it with this: What if Peter had being a servant of gold and not of God? He would have, no doubt, given me some money, but I would have spent it all and yours truly would have remained a lame man for life.

I appreciate God and some of His ministers to whom He has given the permission and the backing to use His name. Through them, lives shall continually be transformed.

Burning Bush Boy

Time Management (Life Management)

Last week, we saw time as being the same as life. We also saw time as a valuable resource likened to having £24 billion per day. I hope you have been spending your cool dough (£24 billion/24Hrs) wisely, because time is as important and significant as your life.

To know the importance of time, you can ask Yohan Blake, the Olympic Medalist of London 2012. He ran the 3^rd lap for Jamaica in the men’s 4x100m relay race, assisting his team to break the world record of 37.04 seconds with a new 36.84 seconds, thus winning the gold medal.

Winning the race by setting a new record surely engraved an unforgettable memory in the hearts of the medalists. This shows the importance of time, as even a second is enough to make or mar a life. A millisecond, if well managed, is more than enough to transform a life.

What would you do if you knew you had only 48 hours to live? You will, probably, correct your wrongs, try to impact on lives and fulfill God’s purpose. Doubtless, 48 hours cannot be good enough a time to achieve these great, but last minute tasks. In fact, why should anybody wait for his life to become unproductive before deciding to serve God? Why continue to waste precious time and opportunities in ignorance?

Steven Aderongbe had the opportunity to travel to Chicago on a business trip for the first time in his life. He had the options of flying and sailing, but although flying was faster, he decided to sail to save cost. He boarded the ship sailing to Chicago and a receipt stating all his entitlements on the ship was handed over to him. With the little money he had, Steven bought himself some provisions that could last him some days.

On his first evening on board, his partner in the same cabin asked him (Steven) to accompany him to the cafeteria for dinner, but he refused. His partner requested for same on the second and third day, but Mr. Steven Aderongbe refused still.

His Ghanaian friend, Kofi Aregan, explained: “Mr. Steven, there are several delicacies in the cafeteria that you can eat – African dishes, Chinese food and other intercontinental dishes. Just follow me and make your choice.” Steven yelled back, “Leave me alone. I am comfortable here and besides, I still have some stuff to keep me going.”

On the fifth day, Steven’s provisions were all exhausted, leaving him to battle with hunger for the 25 days he had left on the ship. Yet he refused to go to the cafeteria until he was forced a day to the end of his trip to Chicago.

“Look at your emaciated and malnourished frame,” Kofi lamented in a low voice, more or less like a whisper. Steven, however, replied that it was because he had no money to buy food at the cafeteria. Kofi wondered and told him that he (Steven) had actually paid for all the provisions he needed, including food and shelter. “You have access to eat whatsoever delicacy available. You have already paid for all,” Kofi reassured him.

With this knowledge, Steven ran to the cafeteria and discovered the different intercontinental delicacies. Realizing that he had only one day to go, he ate every food his hands could touch: Chicken, Hamburgers, Salad, Amala, Dodo (fried plantain), etc.

He ate all until, eventually, Mr. Steven Aderongbe fell down and died. He died, not because the food was bad, but because of his ignorance. Although he later ate sumptuously, a day was not enough to correct the errors of many days.

As students, why will you wait till the day your examination starts before you begin to read? You will fail, not because you are dull, but because you have failed to prepare well ahead of time.

Time must be explicitly managed, just like money. Remember that time is money (Ben Franklin, 1748).

Why is Time Management important?

·         It prevents Time Famine: This is a period when one has several things to do, but without enough time for them. Many opportunities have been lost to time famine.

·         Bad time management leads to stress and breakdown. The funny story of Mr. Steven is an example. We all have equal time that must be well managed to prevent stress and breakdown.

Signs of Time Wasting:

·         Messy desk and cluttered (or no) files.

·         Unable to find things easily.

·         Missing appointments; needing to reschedule them; being late and/or unprepared for meetings.

·         Volunteering to do things other people should do.

·         Tiredness or inability to concentrate.

It should be noted that being successful doesn’t make you necessarily a good time manager, but managing one’s time well, will surely make you successful. To managing your time, there is the need to set goals, priorities and plan. These questions will help you to set your goals and priorities:

·         Why am I doing this?

·         What is the goal?

·         Why will I succeed?

·         What happens if I chose not to do it?

In answering the above questions, you need to be inspired. There should be an unseen internal force driving you towards achieving your goals. Walt Disney once said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.”

Planning: This is the foundation of time management. Failing to plan is planning to fail. One should plan each day, each week, and each semester. You can always change your plan, but only once you have one! Make a TO DO list to help you break things down into smaller steps and like a child cleaning his/her room, do the ugliest thing first.

You can make use of the four-quadrant TO DO list to plan your activities.

       Due Soon             Not Due Soon

1	2
3	4

Important

 Not Important

The first quadrant should contain important tasks that are due for submission or evaluation within a short time. For example, assignments that will be submitted in less than 24 hours, business proposal, writing of lesson notes for the next class, setting question for exams, etc.

The second quadrant should consist of important tasks that are not due soon. Tasks that are important, but are not ready for submission soon should be included herein. Examples include: a two-month business proposal plan, planning for contract that will be due in next three months, preparation for examination that will be due in three or four months time.

The third and fourth quadrants should contain tasks that are not important. Not important in the sense that we can do without doing them now or preferably, do them at our convenience. Examples of such activities include; going for a swim, football games, recreation, shopping, etc.

Managing your Time on Reading Pile

·         Only read something if you’ll be fired for not reading it. Don’t waste your time on the irrelevant.

Scheduling Yourself: You don’t find time for important things, you make time for them. Everything you do is an opportunity cost. Learn to say “NO”. Find your creative/thinking time and defend it jealously; spend it alone, maybe at home.

Before I conclude, I can’t, but talk about the number one enemy of Time management – PROCRASTINATION. “Procrastination is the thief of time.” (Edward Young, Night Thoughts, 1742).

Avoiding Procrastination:

·         Doing things at the last minute is much more expensive and stressful than just before the last minute.

·         Deadlines are really important: establish them yourself!

·         Be prepared to always leave your comfort zones.

·         Identify why you aren’t enthusiastic towards a work to be done.

·         Remove every fear of embarrassment or failure for we have not been given the spirit of fear.

·         Get a spine!

·         Quit making excuses

·         Make a delegation. No one is an island; you can accomplish a lot more with help.

Above all, create time to eat, sleep and exercise once in a while. It will help your body and mind.

As we manage our time and life wisely, I will also like to inform you that God is also interested in the way we manage our time. The story of the servants with different amounts of talents told by Jesus, shows that there is a day of reckoning when all that we have been endued with shall be evaluated. Will you also ignorantly refer to your Master as one who reaps where he has not sown? Surely, not after you have read this article. By now, the number of ignorant persons should have reduced. You should no longer belong to this group.

In conclusion, your time management plan is not complete if you have not invited the Master Planner (Jesus Christ) into your life. He designed your life and through Him, you can positively manage your life, because He is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End.

May you find fulfillment in Him as you invite Jesus Christ, the master planner into your life.

Your brother,

SAP

Have you eaten?

I woke up one blessed morning seriously browsing through my mind for what to write in order to meet up with the deadline set for the submission of articles for the New Wick bulletin.

Time, in its usual character, was running out. I could not pause it or make it reason with me on why it has to wait for me. As the ticking of time continued, I knew I must quickly rise and put some words down on my computer; words I hope would bless the readers. However, with my frozen mind, I could not get my hands to type anything worthwhile.

I watched the time dashing off to end the day and then suddenly, the idea to pray came up. I attempted some words in prayer and thank God that I did. As I tried to ask from God why my head could not move my hands to put something down, it did not take much time before I got a strange answer from the LORD.

The answer I got came in form of a question and as I answered the Lord’s question, a light came to lead me out of the dark tunnel. Have you eaten? Did you get that? The question from the LORD that morning was, “Have you eaten?”

I knew immediately that the Lord was not talking about my breakfast; not about tea and bread or any cereal for that matter. He was not talking about my physical meal, but He wanted to know if I had taken any spiritual meal that morning that would put me in a position of feeding others. He was trying to make me see that I must first take my meal before attending to others. I got it!

With the light that morning, I knew that I could not get to feed others when I had not eaten. I realised that if a man continues to go hungry by giving his food to others, because he claims to love and want them fed, this kindhearted man will drop dead soon.

He will die, not because he is unloving, but because of his foolish act. If he continues to bother about feeding others and remains unmindful of creating time to feed himself, he will gradually become emaciated and very soon, he will become too weak to feed the very people he loves to feed.

If I truly love the people and believe that they should be fed, then the best way of achieving this would be to first feed myself. I must be the first to feed and please note, this is not an act of selfishness at all. It is wisdom.

Look at it this way. If, because you love to give, you continually dip your hands recklessly into your business and thus, running down your capital, very soon, there would be no more business to support the giving ministry you love so well. If you stop attending to some personal, but critical concerns, all because you have to help others, you will soon have nothing to assist those you truly love to help.

Therefore, if you really love and must help others, the best thing to do is to take time to first help yourself. Take time to manage your life/business/gift, because if it succeeds, your vision of helping others will also succeed. If it fails, you would be left with nothing to take care of those you love.

If this should happen, God forbid, it becomes more traumatic for you. It would be sorrowful to see those you love in need, yet having nothing to help them go by. Watching them in need can be painful, but it becomes more painful knowing that you ignorantly dried yourself up trying to meet their never-ending needs.

If you are not mindful of your own state of spiritual health, you will soon become a deadly epidemic to those you intended helping. The very moment the signs of dryness begin to show from your life, those you emptied yourself to serve will move on; they will find another source of help, while you rot away.

I wish I could make myself clearer that it is not selfishness when you think of feeding yourself spiritually, before embarking on a feeding spree. I am not saying you should not think of and assist others and I am not saying you should not love and sacrifice for others.

If you must, however, love them, you must learn to love yourself first. If you will truly be of any worth to them, you should know that you can’t travel much on an empty tank. If you will truly be of real assistance to them, you must first assist yourself. If you don’t, you will end up creating more problems.

God’s advice to me that morning was that I should rise up and get myself a nourishing meal before I start to think of serving others. He made it clear to me that I found it hard to get what to write about, because I had not been eating well lately.

Whatever I offer to the people to eat must be out of the abundance of what I have eaten. I will cover more distance if I began the journey being fed. I will have more strength for the work, if I do not neglect to take care of my spiritual health. I will make more impact, if I understand that a frail spiritual mind cannot kindle the minutest of fire in the heart of another.

Are you, therefore, a preacher or a teacher of the word of God? If you are, then please don’t fall into this trap. We go all out to feed the people, yet we miss our own meals. We become frail in the spirit and yet we fail to stop and reconsider our position. Something tells us that we must keep feeding the people. Out of love, (Is this love?), we keep attending to them at the expense of our own spiritual needs and at the end, we collapse.

My take on this matter is that I will eat first in order to feed God’s people better. I will love both my physical and spiritual entities, because I love the people and I have a duty to perform. For their sake, I will not neglect to take care of my spiritual health and because I sincerely love God, I will ensure that I wait for Him to feed me, before stepping out to feed His children. I don’t want to carelessly end up complicating the matter on ground.

This can also be applied to the physical. Are you so attached to helping others? Are you so much into your work in the office that you forget you have to take care of yourself? Fine, but you must realise that you cannot meet all the needs of the people. Just before you came on board, people have been having needs and if you carelessly and over zealously terminate your life, people will still continue to have needs.

Please go ahead and assist others, but do not ever forget to take care of yourself as well. I say it again, if you truly love them, you will keep yourself alive for them. Once you end up killing yourself, you have killed your purpose for the people.

So as the Lord asked me, I am also asking you: Have you eaten? If not, please stand up right now and go and get yourself a nourishing meal before you collapse right in the front of your loved ones.

Burning Bush Boy

Time: The most abundant, but wasted resource.

Have you ever thought of having a job worth £24billion per day? I can perceive that you are already thinking if there is any company really capable of paying that huge amount of money. Where will such a company get its funds from?

Your conclusion might be that such cannot be in Nigeria and not even in the United States of America (USA); for such a company will go bankrupt paying such a fortune. You are right, but let this be known that the value of time is as earning £24billion per day.

WHAT IS TIME?

Time is life and life is time. Time is the most abundant and lucrative resource on earth, but sadly, it remains the most abused, wasted and non-recoverable of resources.

Wealth and riches may not be equal among the people of the universe. Everybody may not have the opportunity of going to school to learn, but both the rich and the poor, the learned and unlearned have equal hours of the day.

Time has equated everybody on earth. Available to every man in a day is the same number of seconds, minutes and hours. It has also equated several events in the lifetime of a person, two of which are the days of birth and death.

The third chapter of the book of Ecclesiastics is dedicated to time and it made it clear that there is a time to be born and a time of expiration (death) for every life and creature. These two great events are common to every life on earth. The rich or poor, learned or unlearned, the royals or slaves all have their days of birth and death. The richest, (the Bill Gates of this world), will likewise die as any peasant in town. The wisest, King Solomon died the same way the most foolish person in his kingdom died.

At this point, if I should ask you the same question I once asked my students, will you be sincere with your answer? “If you are given £24billion to spend in a day, how will you spend it? What are the things you will buy?”

Hmmm! I can imagine your brain ticking already. Of course, this question requires a deep thought, but while you are ruminating on it, let me share some of the responses of my students.

Josephine:          If I have £24 billion to spend in a day; hmm! (She takes a deep breath) I will first go to Aleshinloye market (a big assorted cloth market in Ibadan) and get myself a good Ankara cloth before proceeding to a fast food restaurant for a good delicacy.

Akin:                     What is the percentage of the cost of cloth and food compared with the £24 billion with you? What will you do with the rest of the money?

Josephine:          I will buy all the best of cars in the world and expensive mansions. I will feed all the poor people in my neighborhood and in the country. I will also build many Churches, Schools, Hospitals and many more.

Akin:                     All in one day?

Josephine:          Yes of course!

Akin:                     Opeyemi, it is up to you. What will you do with the money?

Opeyemi:            Wow! If I have £24 billion at my fingertips now, I will first break down in tears.

Akin:                     Weep? Why would you do that?

Opeyemi:            Yes! I will shed tears of joy, because of my changing fortune, especially after suffering for a long time. I will later get myself a battalion of bodyguards to watch over me, before buying the most expensive car and house. I will buy and fly on the most expensive jet. In fact, my legs will no longer touch the ground.

Akin:                     What is the need for the battalion of bodyguards? Are you saying that God cannot watch over you again?

Opeyemi:            No sir, but as the Yoruba proverb puts it: “Oju ni alakan fi so ori”. (The crab keeps watch over its head). Before now, some people may not bother you, but immediately the money begins to sing, they will become jealous and may even plan to harm you.

Akin:                     So what will you do with the rest of the money after you have hired your bodyguards, flown in jets and your legs no longer touch the ground?

Opeyemi:            (He smiles and clears his throat). At the end of the day, I will buy the whole of Nigeria and the people therein.

Akin:                     Including me your teacher? You will buy us over so that every one of us will be at your mercy for food, water and life? You want to end up being God over us?

Opeyemi:            (He covers his mouth in shame). Uncle, I did not mean it that way o!

Akin:                     So, how did you mean it? Yemi, what will you do if you have to spend this amount in a day?

Yemi:                    With that amount to be spent in a day, I will make all the hungry souls in the world happy by feeding them for that day. I will do this because I have also felt the pangs of hunger. I will send poor children to school and bring justice to the oppressed. I will also invest the money in real estates. I will pay Nigeria’s debt and make life better for everyone.

Akin:                     That’s great! You might as well help the Federal Government of Nigeria to settle ASUU so that students of higher institutions can go back to school?

Yemi:                    (Smiles). I will do that too. I will give them double the amount of money they are demanding from the government.

Although my question was simple and straight forward, yet it was deliberate. It brought light to the darkness and rottenness in the hearts of these young chaps. The question revealed the quiet, but dangerous seeds of selfishness and greed lurking within their hearts; waiting only for a favourable season to germinate.

I was afraid and felt sorry for the upcoming generation when Opeyemi said that he was going to buy Nigeria and her entire people. He meant to say that he would become a god that must be worshiped.

These quiet seeds of selfishness and self-centeredness could only have been sown by our corrupt leaders at the different levels of governance. They have become gods that we now worship and look up to before we can live a better life, have good education and enjoy other basic amenities of life. May God arise and deliver us.

Without me digressing from our main focus, which is time and how you will spend £24 billion in a day, you should by now be through with your thoughts. What will you do with the money? Be honest!

I can hear the whispers of your heart. ”I will buy the best of cars and mansions; invest the money, make life better for people and probably avenge all the bad things my enemies have done to me in the past by making life miserable for them. They must know that I have arrived!”

Friends, whatsoever your thoughts are, I want you to pause and analyse you priorities. Are you not selfish, self-centered, oppressive and such that could make life miserable for others? I also want to believe that your scope of how to spend the money or invest it is not myopic that is, narrow-minded.

It is possible that this simple, but serious question may have driven your imaginations wide and wild. You must have made certain things, which hitherto had been impossible, possible by your thoughts. Little wonder the Bible says that “Money answers all things.”

I am, however, happy that at least none of the people who responded said he or she would set the money ablaze or drop it off in the ocean. Oh! Did I hear you whisper; “When I am not insane”? You are right, for only an insane person would do that.

The £24 billion, as you must have rightly figured out, is the 24 hours available to everyone on a daily basis. We all have this £24 billion available for us daily, but while majority of us set this rich resource ablaze; others throw theirs into the ocean.

If everyone will see time in the perspective of this huge amount of money, I am certain that none of us will waste this precious resource. You must, therefore, begin to see your time as a valuable resource that cannot be regained when lost. Time and life are inseparable.

Time is like an entity made of piled-up fragments. Little fragments of seconds (60secs.) give rise to a minute; minutes (60mins) to 1 hour and hours (24hrs) to a day; days (7 days) to a week, weeks (4weeks) to a month and months (12 months) to a year and so on.

This will interest you. I once asked a young girl what her age was and she replied that she was 12 years old. I told her frankly, “You are not twelve years.” She argued with me and told me the year, month and day of her birth.

I still insisted that she was wrong and then now puzzled, she kept quiet. “Age is not constant my dear,” I told her. “You grow older every second.” I eventually analyzed her age. “You are 12 years, one month, three days, eight hours, 45 minutes, 24 seconds, 25, 26, 27…seconds.” She laughed and was amazed by my illustration.

Assuming you spend two hours on activities like gossiping, watching football, political arguments, telling fruitless stories and another six hours watching home videos, Premiership and UEFA Champions League matches and the likes; the total number of hours you would have ‘wasted’ per day is eight hours. This represents one third of the whole day. If this continued for 60 years, you would have wasted 20 years on futilities.

I take my rest at this point; hoping to raise issues of time management in the next edition.

SAP

Youths, Leaders & Tomorrow

The saying that “Youths are the leaders of tomorrow,” is true, but from a practical point of view, most youths are working hard to prove this wrong.  I doff my hat for such hardworking youths, but I wonder if they are fully aware of the implications of what they had set their lives to achieve.

The saying has 3 keywords, which are (i) Youth (ii) Leader and (iii) Tomorrow. However, while two (Youth and Tomorrow) of the three keywords are constant in every situation, the third (Leader) is variable. How do I mean?

No matter the situation and no matter the time in history, you will constantly have tomorrow and youths in their numbers. Although we usually say that “Tomorrow never comes,” what we are saying is that tomorrow is actually always around. Every present day must expire to give room for tomorrow; thus making tomorrow a constant re-occurrence.

I am sorry to say that while you will always have youths and tomorrow in every situation, leaders are not that easy to come by. Leaders are rare people, because they do not just turn up as tomorrow and youths do. You can’t always have leaders in all situations.

It is good to say (or wish) that youths are the leaders of tomorrow, but if you will please permit my line of thought; I really do not think that all youths will end up becoming tomorrow’s leaders. I wish the youths well and I hope they all become leaders, but going by the diehard attitude of majority of them, it is obvious that they have chosen to end up becoming someone else apart from tomorrow’s leaders.

Everyone will eventually become one kind of a person tomorrow and with what you are growing up to become, you should stop fooling yourself that being a youth will automatically make you a leader tomorrow. Stop assuming that tomorrow will have no choice than to wait and reveal you as a leader. If anything at all, the issue of you becoming a leader in the future is doubtful.

Is it really true that you will end up becoming a leader tomorrow? Is it not true that instead of becoming a leader, you are working so hard to become a servant? Do you actually know who a leader is? Are you aware of how a leader emerges? Can you differentiate between being a leader and a leadership position? There are probably many things you have taken for granted, because you really do not understand them.

When we talk about you being a leader tomorrow, we are not talking about you sitting on the leadership stool in your father’s company. It is a great error to consider everyone in leadership positions as true leaders. That a man is holding a position of leadership does not make him a leader. He may be the Managing Director, hence we call him the leader of that organisation, but sincerely, if certain qualities are called to bear, we would all have a re-think about him being a leader.

Not all leaders are in established leadership positions, because being a leader does not necessarily have to be that. We have many of such negative examples in government and organisations today. Although they occupy leadership positions, you would hardly call them leaders. They are examples of youths who worked so hard in their youthful days to become cheats in their tomorrow.

I will not be tempted to write about our failed elders.

True leaders are rare and do not just emerge from a magician wand. They are built over time and are found to be truthful in different situations. Future leaders are known to avoid compromising friends, events and situations. They do this and more, because they are not merely living; they are living with a rare purpose.

The kind of leaders tomorrow is expecting is today being formed. They have a focus and they are not living as drifters. They are not ‘anything goes’ person. They are watchful of their behaviours, studies and everything that has to do with maintaining a good testimonial. Leaders are not careless persons and when they talk, people listen. Instead of demanding for respect as most people do, they command it.

Dear youth, indeed you have a future, but who you turn out to be in that future is a function of how you manage your today.

My heart aches for youths who have succumbed to the pressure to sell their glorious future for today’s momentary pleasures. If anything at all, they have agreed with the prevailing situation never to become leaders whenever their tomorrow eventually arrives.

The world has written a script and the role given to you to play is that of a foolish young person who must misbehave, waste his precious time and at the end, live to serve his colleagues. I weep, because I see you playing this negative role with all that is within you.

Must you act to script? I wonder how much the enemy of your soul is paying you in exchange of your future and life. How will you ever become a leader tomorrow, when you are obviously doing nothing to be one today?

Nobody becomes a leader tomorrow when he or she is not adequately prepared for it today. Without a sense of purpose, servants and not leaders are produced. It would be wrong to, therefore, think that you will suddenly become tomorrow’s leader tomorrow. No! You start becoming tomorrow’s leader today. Leaders are not loose persons and they do not spend their time on frivolities. They have a personal drive to be positively different and to change their environment.

Take a good look at yourself and tell us if you have any personal conviction driving you towards becoming a leader tomorrow. If you don’t, then no matter the amount of privileges you get exposed to in the future, you will surely squander them all. Should you be given the best of positions in the future, I can assure you that you will mess it all up. What good can you possibly offer in any position of leadership when you have refused to grow up with the mind of becoming a leader?

Leaders are men of quick and sharp thinking. While you watch things happen, leaders make things happen. Invariably, you only live to watch them do their things. Leaders have leant to grow up nurturing distinctive seeds from their youthful days.

Leaders are always miles ahead of others and they take life-changing decisions. They lead men without having to coerce them. Surely, tomorrow’s leaders avoid wasting time on things that do not add value to them. They are not stagnant; unable to climb the levels of knowledge and development. They are always on the move; always ahead of their contemporaries.

I recall my father telling me that “The heights great men reached were not attained by sudden flights, but while others were sleeping, they were busy climbing.” While you sleep away your time, your life slips away too.

When you suddenly see your friend at the mountain top, just remember that he did not attain it by a sudden flight. While you chose to engage your time in inconsequential things, he was busy climbing. I don’t know when you intend to start your own climbing, but I know that the only way of becoming a leader tomorrow is to start your climbing today.

Many of tomorrow’s leaders have surrounded themselves with sincere elders to help them against peer pressure. If you will ever be the kind of leader tomorrow is expecting, then you should know that many of your colleagues have made up their minds to become tomorrow’s servants. You must, therefore, learn to carefully select your friends.

As a youth, the choice of determining your future is yours, yet you could still be assisted by godly elders. Although some of the elders are negative influences trying to make your future like their own failed dream, yet if you pray, the Lord will expose you to some that are seriously working to paint a wonderful future for you. Instead of flowing with the tide and end up being dumped into the deep sea of life to drown, a godly elder by your side can actually make you stay alive flowing against the tide.

Tomorrow has many things to offer you, but you must begin to work towards what you really want from its list. It doesn’t reward every youth that steps into it with the crown of honour. While it adorns some with royalties, it also has the crown of shame and reproach for those working so hard to be servants.

On a final note, tomorrow’s leaders will also do well to hand over their lives to the one who created tomorrow. Jesus Christ is more than willing to take such youths on a glorious journey. He loves you, because He created you. You need Him as the Light of your life and to ensure that you walk the rough terrain of life without fear. He needs you, because within you is the strength needed to propagate His kingdom on earth. He wants you, because through you, His glory and power must be revealed.

The youths are indeed tomorrow’s leaders, but not all youths will become leaders tomorrow. Have you made your choice?

Burning Bush Boy

Humble Yourself and Ask

I noticed and learnt from Prophet Zechariah that although he was a prophet of God, he did not understand all the visions God showed to him and he didn’t have to pretend he had an idea. What a sincere man!

Whenever he came across a vision appearing as a puzzle, he would ask, “My Lord, what are these?” (Zech. 1:9,19,20)

He asked with a mind endowed with humility and submission to God. He never interpreted the visions based on his own understanding. Instead of him assuming interpretations, he asked without shame. He was always quick and ready to ask and of course, every time he asked, he got an answer.

Interestingly, there was always an angel waiting behind him to offer interpretations to all the visions. He eventually worked with understanding and walked in the light because he never saw himself too big or too spiritual to ask questions.

Asking questions do not make you look foolish, if there is anything it does, it makes you wiser. Unfortunately, because most times we want to appear bright and spiritual before God and man, we avoid asking for clarity and eventually, we end up acting stupidly and becoming out-rightly foolish. We end up ridiculing ourselves, because of our choice to act as Mr. Know-it-all.

Have I not merely asked questions only when I have exhausted my own interpretations to the things He has shown me? It is not surprising that I do not get any clear or meaningful interpretation. I have always been known to try and figure things out first on my own understanding.

If only I will humble myself and declare my ignorance by asking Him questions; I know I will turn out to be a man of wisdom. Lord, I pray that any time I ask you for the meaning of your visions and revelations, let the answers come so clearly to guide and lead me on in life.

Let me always have it in mind that whenever you give a revelation, you want it understood and that I cannot understand any of your visions from my own point of view. I must learn to ask God questions.

Burning Bush Boy

TERMS AND CONDITIONS APPLY – Ope Sanyaolu

Have you ever heard or read adverts on the electronic/print media, especially about promos and Bonanzas? One thing that is common with these adverts is the statement – “Terms and Conditions Apply”.

Our God is a God of principle and order. From what He said to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 30: 1-9, we can deduce that the same thing is applicable to us in our time. He said that a lot li in store for us if we… (1)…act according to divine instructions, (2)... obey all His commands with all our hearts and souls, (3)…keep the decrees of the Bible and obey His voice and (4)…turn to the Lord genuinely.

All these terms and conditions apply to the promos God has in stock for us. He is ready to bless us beyond our thoughts, but we must be ready and willing to abide with His terms and conditions. Once we do, He is bound to deliver.

The best part of God’s promo is that He didn’t say that the offer would be valid only while stock lasts or that the promo will run within a limited time frame; say from October 12 to October 30, 2014. His mercy endures forever; therefore, all we need to participate in the promo is to simply follow the terms and conditions that apply therein. Fulfill the conditions attached to His blessings and watch your life being transformed. Do you wish to go over the terms and conditions in the above-mentioned scripture again?

Take a look at the prizes offered that warranted such terms and conditions:

• Restoration of fortune, mercy, return from exile, possession of ancestral land and the infliction of curses on our persecutors. Others include all-round fruitfulness, prosperity and increase, all-round success and the delight of the Lord.

Do you desire any of these prizes, yet contemplating on how to comply with the terms and conditions? Well, God will not leave you all to yourself. He will not leave you to do it alone. All He requires from you is your willingness and from there on, He knows what to do. He knows how to change your heart once you submit to Him in obedience.

With a changed heart, everything else becomes accomplishable. Take a look again at all these prizes being brandished before us. Are they not the same things we request for in our vigils and sometimes add fasting in order to speed up the process of manifestation? But God says all the prizes can be ours ONLY if we follow His terms and conditions.

According to John 3:16; 10:10, the biggest offer is for us to believe in Jesus so that eternal and abundant life will be ours. Which path will you take? Will you choose to continually struggle or simply trust and obey Him? You can now approach the Lord to tune your heart towards the grace that helps a man live to fulfill His terms and conditions.

Do it! Do it now! Do it all! – Burning Bush Boy

Whatever your hand finds to do, DO IT with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going – Eccl. 9:10.

The hand is meant to do something. It was created to work and if it, therefore, finds one thing to do out of the many things available, let it go all out to work. Whatever good thing your hand has found to do; whatever thing a man knows how to do, let him do it. Do it, because it is in your hand to do and not to talk about it. The Bible says, do it and not declare it. It is in your hand for it to be done.

How do I do it?

You have to do it with all your might and not shabbily or lazily. You are made up of might and you must have to do it with all and not some of the might within you. The might here means everything you have within you. Apply all the energy or force within you. Are you endowed with the knowledge, understanding and wisdom of what must be done? If so, do it applying these wonderful qualities. Your might is made up of these qualities in you. Go ahead and apply the divine might in you to fan your flames into an enormous fire; make it visible for all to see.

“Meditate on these things; GIVE YOURSELF ENTIRELY TO THEM that your progress may be evident to all” – 1 Timothy 4:15.

“Therefore, I remind you to STIR UP the gift of God WHICH IS IN YOU through the laying on of my hands” – 2 Timothy 1:6.

You must have to meditate on what your hand has found to do. With the assistance of the Holy Spirit within you, you can grow it. You must give yourself entirely to it – not reserving the energy within you. Do not reserve your time on it either. You will have to go this extra mile because your progress must be evident to all. Although you are not trying to show off, yet your growth and development is a way of showing that God is increasing in you.

Don’t waste time on what is yet to get into your hand so much that what lies in your hand dies. If you neglect what your hand has found to do and devote time and energy to what is not and may not get to be in your hand, you will eventually lose what you have. You will eventually have nothing within your grip. If you focus well on what is in your hand, you can be sure that it will connect you to what should be in your hand. It is only a matter of time. It is what you have at hand that will give you other things that should be in your hand.

“What is that in your hand?” God asked Moses this question in Exodus 4:2 and Moses replied, “A rod…And the Lord said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward, but lift up your rod and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it…Ex. 4:15-16.

Do you also have a rod in your hand? Has your hand probably found a rod that will eventually pave the way for you through the Red Sea? Do you have a rod at hand that will move men in your generation ahead to their land of promise? I am sure that your hand is not empty. Look very well and you will see that He has placed a rod in your hand. Lay this rod down at His feet and as you pick it up again, ways shall open up for you.

Do you think you are trapped at the Red Sea ahead of you and yet all you have is an insignificant rod? Well, you should realise that God led you through the way of the Red Sea knowing you only have a ‘mere rod’ in your hand, but He has done this to show forth His might in taking you across this intimidating challenge. If I were you, I will stretch forth that rod in my hand over the Red Sea, for I may not have many other things for now, but at least, my hand is not anyway empty. I have found one thing to do and I will do it with all my might.

Solomon concluded: “…in the grave where YOU ARE GOING.” Eccl. 9:10.

The conclusion of this matter is not what you may like to read about, but it is the bitter truth. Do all within your reach and might for you are already approaching your grave where there is no work or device; no knowledge or wisdom.

Not too many people, even Christians, love to hear that they are approaching their graves, but the truth is the truth. Every new day we see takes us closer to our graves. We may reject death in Jesus’ name, but it is an abiding truth that you are closer to death than yesterday. Every man gets closer to his grave by the second of time.

If you won’t believe Solomon, you should believe Jesus for He said the same truth in another way. Jesus said, “I must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; THE NIGHT IS COMING when no one can work.” John 9:4.

For Jesus, His hand found something worthwhile to do and without despising it, He went through the pains and joy of it to get the work done. He knew, just as I must also know that whatever must be done must be done with might and in a good time. While Solomon said you are approaching the grave, Jesus said your night is coming. They are both saying the same thing. If you don’t believe you are going towards your grave by the day, you should believe that your night is coming.

For me, I can’t afford to deceive myself. I will, therefore, ask for strength, knowledge, understanding and wisdom to do all that He has put in my hands. I want to do the works of Him who sent me while it is day, because I am sure that I will one day wake up and walk into my grave or if said differently, my night will catch up with me one day. You call this a chilling fright or truth?

Finally, let me urge you just as I am urging myself that now is the time to get to work. Our hands are not empty, but the problem is that we so much long for what we do not have at the expense or detriment of what we have. Let us stop looking down on what our hands have found, instead, let us arise and do what we must do while we still have the time and energy. God is with us and by His strength, we shall prevail. We shall overcome the different forms of hindrance on our pathway if we only look unto Jesus. “Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.” Heb. 12:12-13.

 

 

 

Would it be wrong to ask to be like Goliath? – Burning Bush Boy

The kingdom of Satan has only one drive and it is to fight the Kingdom of God. Satan made his unfriendly intentions known from the very moment God created and handed over the newly created world to Adam and Eve. Immediately he knew about the plan of God to hand over the reins of the world to His own, he moved against them. He didn’t have to do much than to introduce disobedience into the lives of those whom God depended on.

Reading the first verse of 1 Sam. 17, the devil, through the Philistines, once again attacked God’s children (Israel), but this time around, the Philistines took the battle to Sochoh, the land of the Israelites. Taking the battle to your enemy’s camp is a daring step and a sign that the enemy has no respect, whatsoever, for you or your God. (Jonathan and his armour bearer did the same in 1 Sam.14:6)

Looking at the contemporary Church, the enemy is no longer fighting ‘God’ and His children from outside, but right within. He has taken over even the altar of God and he has his agents as ministers in every department of the Church. He is doing whatever comes to his mind against us and unfortunately, we are putting up no resistance. (Mat. 13: 24-25).

As the two nations pitched their tents for war, the Philistines looked more serious and prepared for the battle as they stood out to present Goliath, their own war champion – v4. Meanwhile, Israel fidgeted at the presence and words of Goliath. To worsen their situation, they could not produce a warrior to represent them. Although Israel had a king, he was not bold enough to stand as a champion to defend his people.

The qualities of Goliath: We may not like this, but the truth is that we can learn a lot from Goliath. He possessed some rare qualities that we should not overlook.

He was bold to be different: v3-8: Apart from his height, he was bold enough to step out and gave a voice to his intentions. While some of us are too quiet, shy and unsure of ourselves to talk about what and who we stand for, Goliath refused to be dumb. He was bold enough to address not an individual, but an entire army of Israel. Am I bold enough to cry out against iniquity and speak against an entire army of the enemy?

We may argue that we have a strong faith inwardly, but out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. (Mat. 12:34) We have no bold declarations because our hearts are not filled with enough pressure. When the heart is empty, the lips are sealed. Lord, let there be an abundance of goodness and righteousness for the kingdom within me. Daniel did not only purpose in his heart to stay pure, he opened up his mouth to make a request. (Dan. 1:8) Speak out and let us know your convictions!

Behold a Philistine citizen indeed: v8: Here you meet a proud Philistine who has no reason to deny his citizenship. “Am I not a Philistine…” he asked. He declared openly his nationality and this makes me to ask, when was the last time I declared my heavenly citizenship with all intent and purpose? (Eph. 2:19/Phil. 3:20). Are you really proud of being a Christian and a citizen of heaven? Do you not see it as an unfortunate situation that you are born again and a citizen of God’s kingdom that will allow you to come in the way you are, but that will not tolerate you to remain the way you came in?

My loss is loss to my kingdom & vice-versa – v8-9: Goliath was raised up to see and believe that whatever happened to him will have a direct reflection on his kingdom. He was taught to see himself as one with his kingdom. For him, his personal loss was his nation’s loss and his gain, his nation’s gain. He could not be separated from the kingdom that brought him up. Goliath was not a different person from his kingdom.

He knew and exploited the weak point of Israel: v8: He knew Israel could not produce a Champion to defend their land and he tormented them for it. He knew the youths of the land are handicapped and so he proudly dared Israel: “Choose a man for yourselves and let him come down to me,” he said. He went as far as defying the army of God (v10) and I can say that the Church is still very much being defied and defiled by her inability to produce a man to counter giants against our kingdom.

He was such a reliable man – v9-10: Is it true that Israel didn’t have men? They had, but the problem was that none was man enough to stand for his God and nation. They were men the nation could not rely upon; unreliable men. Unlike them, Goliath was so sure of himself that he put the entire Philistines at a risk of becoming slaves if he lost to the Israelites, but interestingly, none of his people accused him of this risky proposal. They were so sure of their candidate and relied fully on him. They trusted him to win the battle and saw no reason to doubt or caution him.

Brethren, who among us can the church or heaven depend upon? Can we relax knowing that you have gone to that Institution for us? (Isa. 6:8). God relaxed knowing that Daniel and his three friends went to Babylon on His behalf and that of Israel. Their failure and compromise would have brought shame to God and to Israel, but these men stood and excelled. They knew their God and did exploit. (Dan. 11:32) What are we to say of Joseph in Egypt and Esther in the Persian land?

As Goliath flexed his muscles, those whom Israel depended upon all became dismayed and afraid. (v11) Israel looked up to her King, Saul, but he could not come down and represent them. He did not have the life to stand in the gap for his nation and as they say, “Like leaders like followers,” none of his soldiers could take up the challenge.

The upbringing of Goliath: The Philistines, like men of other religions in our days are very deep in making plans for the future. They may not have much, but the Philistines succeeded in their project of bringing up a war champion from his youth. I can imagine his parents receiving a message from their gods (as did Samson’s parents in Judges 13:3-5) that Goliath was going to be a special child; a precious gift to the land.

They probably saw this uniqueness in his size as he grew and immediately, they directed it towards a worthy course. With his size and strength, Goliath could have used this advantage to terrorize his own people as an armed robber. He could have chosen to be a bodyguard to a music or film idol for the sake of money and fame. With his size, he could have organised and led a mafia or a rebel group against the government of his land, but through the hands of his elders, his unique abilities were guided towards the advantage of their land. Instead of living for himself, he sacrificed his life and became a soldier to defend the pride of his nation and he was gloriously celebrated for it as a champion.

Interestingly, as a youth who must have had his self-will, Goliath cooperated with those who brought him up. He probably wanted to grow up like every other youths around him, but there was something about him, his size, which made him special. To be a war champion from youth, he must have denied himself of so many things his mates enjoyed. When others were playing around with strong drinks, sex, pornography, watching movies and other life-wasting things and events, Goliath was undergoing a serious drilling. I imagine him in a camp, exercising his muscles and learning how to use his weapons. He couldn’t eat what he liked. He couldn’t wear those revealing dresses. Many restrictions came his pathway because he was being groomed for a national/kingdom assignment.

Moses also went through this training. (Heb.11:23) Youths that must fulfill God’s great plan must be willing to submit and cooperate with their parents/elders. They must be willing to be hidden for them not to lose and make common what has made them special. Goliath allowed himself to be made and he died for what he was raised to become. Boko Haram people are making their own disciples and they are dying on a daily basis for the purpose of their making.

Do we have young men and ladies willing to turn their back to things of this world and stay within the camp of God to be made as kingdom warriors? Are we willing to allow the elders, through discipleship, guide our special abilities towards the benefit of God’s kingdom? Don’t we have gifted children of God using their beauty, musical and other gifts against the kingdom? We have youths that have grown up, yet unable to take their stand in the purpose of God. He who created them for a purpose can no longer use them, because they left home and are no longer available. They deserted the camp before they were fully made. Today, they are serving another kingdom and surely, they are examples of a failed heavenly investment.

Goliath was a proud Philistine. He was bold and daring. He was raised up to be a warlord and he died being one without deviating from the pathway. He held on to his faith. What a life! What a consistency! If the devil could produce a champion, why is God finding it difficult to make you and me His end time war victors? What could be wrong with our lives?  

Goliath ruled until the appearance of David:

The situation remained the same for 40 days until David suddenly appeared on the scene and restored Israel’s lost hope. At last, Israel found a voice and a champion in David, thus ending the days of terror against God’s kingdom. I don’t know the number of years the modern day Goliath has been harassing the church and I don’t know how much longer he will continue with this, but we can pray that your appearance on the scene will bring about an end to this reproach. Lord, may the body of Christ find her lost hope through us.

Saul’s discouragement was a revelation to David: “And Saul said to David, “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are a youth and he a man of war from his youth.” v33

Saul saw an incapable young man in David and true to what he saw, David was a youth. However, he was wrong about David being incapable. It would be wrong to assume that every youth around is incapable of standing tall. Many may have missed it, but God still has His own well-kept from the modern day corruption.

Generally, people assume that youths are up to no good – people who cannot do but compromise their stand and faith, but David proved Saul wrong. (1 Tim. 412/1 John 2:14) We must not allow worldliness to rubbish our lives. Forces from the kingdom of hell will try to despise/look down on us, but we must not allow it. We may be young, but we are strong enough to overcome iniquities in our days. With the word of God in us, we are more than able to conquer the giants challenging our lives, homes and the body of Christ. (Psa. 119:9)

Saul also assumed that with the issue of fighting Goliath, young David had no idea. He believed that David could do other things successfully, but fighting giants was not anything he could do. Will you also allow the devil and the situation to classify your strength? Is it true that there are certain things you are capable of doing and other things you are incapable of? Is it true that among the things you are incapable of doing is being able to stand differently for the sake of heaven and the body of Christ in your generation? Well, the devil has just said it clearly and loudly that you are handicapped in fighting spiritual battles! Is this true?

Saul reckoned that Goliath was an experienced man of war and he was right. The challenge at hand did not just start; it had been in existence before we were born. Goliath had been fighting and winning battles since he was a youth. He started fighting as a youth; he grew up fighting and he was in this business until the day he died in the hands of David. Goliath lived a consistent life.

The big iniquity we see fighting our kingdom started small and slowly, it grew so big and it is now almost looking unchallengeable. It grew because it did not meet with a formidable challenge from so-called Christians. If Goliath had conquered David, he would have continued to grow proud. If our generation is defeated, this challenge will have the opportunity to continue to grow until it becomes too big for the coming generation to handle. Lord, let this monster and giant tormenting the body of Christ meet its waterloo as it encounters us. Amen.