February 19, 2017 · 10:19 pm

IT’S IN THE SMALL STEPS

Joseph had his great dreams, which got him into some trouble with his brothers. He also had his integrity and the fear of the Lord while in Potiphar’s house and he got into even bigger trouble because of that. At the eventful end of all the trouble, I am sure Joseph would have sat back and appreciated God for all he had gone through on the road to occupying a greatly esteemed office.

When Joseph started dreaming, he did not fully understand what the fulfilment of his dreams would be. He did not know that he was going to become next to Pharaoh in authority someday. He did not know there would be a great famine and that he would be the one to save Israel. He did not know that his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh would be the only second generation people to receive allotments like the other sons of Jacob in the Promised Land. One thing he knew for sure was that he feared the Lord and he was not going to do anything to jeopardize that relationship.

In spite of the big dreams, he followed God one step at a time or indeed one phase at a time – from Pit to Potiphar’s house, to Prison and eventually to Pharaoh’s Palace. He was faithful at each stop over on the journey. When the purpose of each phase had been accomplished, he was moved on to the next phase by God.

Abraham’s life followed a similar plot. God told him to leave his father’s house and hit the road. He didn’t ask for the final destination. He allowed God to lead him one step at a time. He just had unshakable faith that God could not lead him astray. He stayed connected to God and we know the rest of the story.

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We have infallible promises in the Bible that tell us that God is committed to answering our prayers from the following verses among so many other verses:

Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Matt 7: 7 – 8 (NLT)

You can pray for anything, and if you have faith, you will receive it. Matt 21:22(NLT)

At that time you won’t need to ask me for anything. I tell you the truth, you will ask the Father directly, and he will grant your request because you use my name.  You haven’t done this before. Ask, using my name, and you will receive, and you will have abundant joy. John 16: 23 – 24 (NLT)

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 1John 5:14 (NIV)

God’s word is true and He has promised to bring us to that expected end. However, whatever happens between our current position and our expected end is part of the whole package. The key to getting to that expected end is staying connected to the source, like Joseph and Abraham did. For some people, it may be a very smooth journey. For others, the package may come with different kinds of pain. If you have a clear picture of your destination and the path to that destination, Congratulations! However, if you don’t understand all the things you experience on your way, just follow the Lord one step at a time… you will eventually get there. God is too faithful to fail and in the words of Nathaniel Bassey; “This God is too good o!”

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August 28, 2016 · 5:30 pm

THROUGH WHO’S EYES?

I remember attending a party quite a while ago, when break dancing was the hit. As a four year old boy with very little self-consciousness and without any understanding of the concept of shame, I thought I was a really great dancer. You can’t blame me too much; after all I was seeing the world through my little eyes. My opinion must have been the right one as far as I was concerned.

As I took centre stage, people were clapping and laughing hysterically. I thought they loved my deft moves. However, like the little boy in “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, someone had the courage to bring me down from my high horse. My dancing was in fact nothing short of disastrous and I had no fleeting idea. This is much like what happens as we tread along life’s well-worn paths, we form opinions, our thought patterns are shaped and we develop customized perspectives towards almost everything. We almost always see ourselves as right, because we judge ourselves through the ‘self filter’.

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Looking at life generally and zooming in on our service in the Kingdom, we may actually have an incorrect view of what God demands from us, if we judge only through our own eyes. I guess the people that Jesus will address as He did in Matthew 7:21-23 will realize this too late:

‘Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7:21-23)

I can imagine how shocking and devastating it will be to hear that at the end of the road; after we must have thought to ourselves that we fought the good fight and finished the race well. We may even have had people cheering us on and singing our praises. But these opinions do not really matter in the end. Only one thing indeed matters – the view through God’s eyes.

When Jesus called His disciples, He had the priority clearly defined – Stay with me first before you go on to any form of service.

He appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. Mark 3:14-15

In staying with Him, we know Him more, we become more and more like Him until our will is lost in His will and our selfish motives and intentions for serving in the Kingdom become non-existent. Whatever service we are using to occupy till He comes should flow from that personal relationship and an outpouring of love for God – this is the will of God. He wants us more than whatever we can indeed offer.

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April 25, 2016 · 9:11 pm

IN RETROSPECT

A while ago, I was going down memory lane with a few friends that I have come a long way with. Having known each other for almost 20 years, we reminisced about the days when we had little or nothing to call our own. We collectively shared the little that anyone had and no one complained about the proportion of individual contributions. The common denominator was that we were all students and we were all Christians. We talked about the years immediately after graduation, remembering how we walked long distances not because we wanted to exercise, but because we could not afford the transport fare. We also survived on meager rations and lived in shared accommodation, all in our bid to become independent men. Looking back at those years together, we all came to one conclusion: God has been good.

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With those memories safely in the recesses of our hearts, we can always look back at how we overcame with God’s help and develop an unshakeable resolve that the same God who has not changed will always come through in whatever present challenge we may have. Little wonder the Israelites were always commanded to tell their Children of their past victories:

Then your children will ask, ‘What does this ceremony mean?’  And you will reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, for he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. And though he struck the Egyptians, he spared our families.’” When Moses had finished speaking, all the people bowed down to the ground and worshiped.                     Exodus 12: 26 – 27 (NLT)

In the future your children will ask you, ‘What is the meaning of these laws, decrees, and regulations that the Lord our God has commanded us to obey?’ “Then you must tell them, ‘We were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand. The Lord did miraculous signs and wonders before our eyes, dealing terrifying blows against Egypt and Pharaoh and all his people.  He brought us out of Egypt so he could give us this land he had sworn to give our ancestors.                               Deuteronomy 6: 20 – 23 (NLT)

We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.”                                            Joshua 4 : 6 – 7 (NLT)

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Challenges will always come our way; however meditating on the problems will only magnify the problems at the expense of our faith. When next the feeling of being overwhelmed by the challenges of life comes, just take a thought down the memory lane and like the ageless song goes, it will surprise you what the Lord has done. Strive to keep the memories of those past victories ever fresh on your mind and

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February 23, 2016 · 11:18 am

FAITH IS NOW

I got the picture below from one of Strive Masiyiwa’s recent posts on Facebook (By the way, I strongly recommend that you follow Strive if you are not already doing so). If you don’t know the story behind the picture, it will pass for just any other nice picture. The photographer’s goal was to get a shot of the eaglet and he had to wait 8 hours to get that shot. 8 hours! It took that long because the mother eagle had the eaglet under wraps for the entire period. His lucky break only came when the father eagle came around and the eaglet popped up to say hello to dad for a few seconds.

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I can only imagine what that wait would have been like. The photographer could not afford to be distracted because the eaglet’s appearance was only going to last a few seconds. It was not just a casual and relaxing wait. He had to maintain absolute focus for the entire period. I’m sure that would have required a lot of patience to pull off. This is similar to the kind of patience that Joseph had to learn while spending time as Potiphar’s chief servant as well as a prisoner, after having those dreams that caused his troubles. David also displayed this scale of patience when running from King Saul, despite the fact that he had been anointed as King of Israel by Prophet Samuel. Abraham received the promise that he would have a son when he was 75 and he had to wait with faith and patience for the promise to be fulfilled 25 years down the line.

Today, how do we begin to speak about this kind of patience when we have been taught that “Faith is NOW…” This is a popular adaptation of Hebrews 11:1, which has been sold to many of us and we have gladly bought into it. We pray now and place God under obligation to answer us immediately or He would no longer be God. The answer must come NOW!

If Abraham lived in our days, he would have ‘travailed’ and demanded that God gave him Isaac at 76 years and David would have had to pray King Saul out of the palace immediately after being anointed by Samuel. The truth is that God still answers prayers like He always did, but on His terms as the sovereign God. My thought is that there is a place for patience when we pray in faith. When the answer does not come as fast as we expect, He is still God. When it appears as if our prayers will not get the expected response, He is still God. When the answer comes faster than we expect, of course He is still God.

Please think on the verses below:

Hebrews 6:12 – 15 (NLT):  13 For example, there was God’s promise to Abraham. Since there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name, saying:14 “I will certainly bless you, and I will multiply your descendants beyond number.” 15 Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received what God had promised.

Hebrews 10: 36 (NLT):  Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God’s will. Then you will receive all that he has promised.

James 1: 3 – 4 (KJV): 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

2 Peter 1 : 5 – 7 (KJV): 5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity.

Patience is still a priceless virtue.

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January 14, 2016 · 5:04 pm

TWO PHEASANTS AND AN EGG

Over the last holiday season, my kids and I got engaged in paying daily visits to 2 birds -a local breed of pheasants- that decided to breed at our backyard. There were two pheasants and an egg, so we christened one of the birds as Mama Pheasant and the other as Papa Pheasant. Each time we approached the new parents, they would make some noise that sounded like a tiny growl to ensure that we did not cross our limits and get too close. This was their way of ensuring that Baby Pheasant remained unharmed till the day of hatching and “manifestation”. Of course we never crossed our limits, not knowing what surprises the pheasants would spring at us if we dared.

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On one of the days, a thought crossed my mind as we were in the middle of our daily visit: the Baby Pheasant inside the egg had no idea of what was going on outside its shell and had no way of influencing the behaviour of Mama and Papa Pheasant. It had no way of begging its parents for protection; it did not have to do anything to earn the right to be protected. Yet it did not have any reason to fear. The parents were under obligation to offer the protection, even if it meant putting themselves in harm’s way – and they never failed. Day and night, they stood at their duty post, unwavering, unflinching and untiring.
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This is similar to the kind of covenant relationship that believers have with God. What an awesome privilege! Our covenant confers a plethora of promises on us. If we can take out time to understand the terms of this covenant in the Bible, we will live our lives in unimaginable peace. Just living, walking and working in the glory of the covenant. We will no longer give prominent place to enemies and fill our prayers with concerns about them. A highly superior version of the kind of protection that the pheasant in the egg got is just one of the benefits that we enjoy as believers.

If we are seated together with Christ in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6); if we are dead and our lives are hid with Christ (Colossians 3:3); if He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4); if the name of the Lord is a strong tower that the righteous run into and are safe (Proverbs 18:10); If the Lord is around us as the mountains that surround Jerusalem (Psalms 125:2), If the Lord will not allow the rod of the wicked to rest upon the lot of the righteous (Psalms 125:3) why should we be afraid of enemies. We should rather devote time to mediate on these promises day and night until they are ingrained on the tablets of our hearts. This way, we will be steadfast and unmoveable, working in the sound mind that God has given us instead of walking in fear.

The Bible verses referenced above are just a few of the reasons why we should be bold as the lion, living above fear of enemies. We will discover many more if we will be willing to search the scriptures diligently. We would then be able to treat them the way Jesus recommended in Matthew 5:43 – 48

43 “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy’. 44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike. 46 If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. 47 If you are kind only to your friends] how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. 48 But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

 One thing we can be sure of is this: No enemy in the form of man or devil can harm us if we remain under the shadow of the Almighty. It is our covenant privilege.

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September 19, 2015 · 4:26 pm

TONGUES AND POWER

But you will receive power and ability when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be My witnesses [to tell people about Me] both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 (AMP)

And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability. Acts 2:4 (NLT)

Just before the ascension of Jesus Christ, He promised to fill the disciples (and all Christians by extension) with the Holy Spirit to enable them fulfil the work of the ministry that was handed over to them. Shortly afterwards, this promise was fulfilled and this team went on to become the greatest band of world changers that the world has ever known. They went on to preach the gospel, speak with new tongues, heal the sick, deliver the oppressed and in summary live out Mark 16: 17 – 18

These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.” Mark 16: 17 – 18 (NLT)

The encounter with the Holy Spirit changed everything about them. Peter that denied Jesus in difficult times became a great preacher; recording about 5000 converts after his first major outreach. People brought their sick relatives to the streets so that his shadow would fall on them and heal them. All these happened because the Holy Spirit gave them the ability. The other disciples have similar stories of awesome exploits surrounding them. By the help of the Holy Spirit, even Stephen that was ordained to serve tables and share food also performed amazing miracles (Acts 6:8).

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Fast-forward to our generation. We have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit! Really, it’s the same Holy Spirit that worked in Peter, Paul, Stephen, Phillip. We speak in tongues and most times, that is the only evidence of this baptism. I really don’t think that was the whole plan from the beginning. We didn’t get the Holy Spirit just for speaking in tongues.

My thought is that when we receive the power of the Holy Spirit, we should live supernatural lives every moment of every day. It should make our church services unpredictable. It will make praise and worship more than just singing and dancing. It should make us pray for the sick as a first response to sickness. The power should enable us to turn people to disciples of the Lord and not just increase our church attendance. It should make us speak the Word of God with great power and not just eloquent speech. If we have that power, we will not allow ourselves to be manipulated by men to part our resources; instead, we will give bountifully and cheerfully. Moreover, the power imparts the excellent spirit in us, so that we stand out for the right reasons at the work place. We ought to be changed by the power and ability for the purpose of changing our world.

Where did we miss it? We need to get back to the culture of personal fellowship with God. The power to fulfil God’s purpose comes from waiting in His presence. The early church pioneers had to wait in the upper room until they were endued with power and ability. I believe that if we can wait, the same power and ability can be ours and we can fulfil God’s mandate effectively.

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June 30, 2015 · 11:49 am

WORKING FOR GOD

Somehow, we have always had it ingrained in the recesses of our minds that we had to do things for God and get really involved in church activities in order to get God to like us and do things for us. This meant that the answers to our prayers had a direct relationship with how much we had ‘invested’ in actually pleasing God. When praising God, we had to dance really hard like David danced for God to notice us and our shout of “Amen” had to be the loudest. And then to cap it up, we had to be actively involved in one or more church service units and be in church every other day. These are things and reading the verse below convinced me the more that serving God is not really about things:

 “Listen to my Message, you Sodom-schooled leaders. Receive God’s revelation, you Gomorrah-schooled people.  “Why this frenzy of sacrifices?”  God’s asking. “Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of burnt sacrifices, rams and plump grain-fed calves? Don’t you think I’ve had my fill of blood from bulls, lambs, and goats? When you come before me, whoever gave you the idea of acting like this, Running here and there, doing this and that— all this sheer commotion in the place provided for worship? “Quit your worship charades. I can’t stand your trivial religious games: Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbaths, special meetings—   meetings, meetings, meetings—I can’t stand one more! Meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them! You’ve worn me out! I’m sick of your religion, religion, religion, while you go right on sinning”. Isaiah 1: 10 -11(MSG)

When we become children of God, serving God in any area that we have grace to serve should be as natural as breathing is to any living thing. We don’t serve or do things because we need things, rather it is because He is our father and we are His children and the Kingdom is our Father’s Kingdom.  Most times, we clearly miss the point that what God really wants is just for us to love Him. Every other sacrifice or service should just flow out of our lives as a result of our love for our Father and the relationship we have with Him.  If God was interested in things, Uzzah would not have died when he tried to stop the ark from falling (2Samuel 6:7), after all he was doing a good thing.

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Every segment of our lives as God’s children should form part of our worship to God and there should be no compartmentalization into spiritual life and secular lives. God created us that we might be worshippers, but we have become everything else but worshippers. We have put working for God ahead of worshipping God.

I will end with this quote from a previous blog post.

“God created us for His pleasure. Our Christian service is also a part of us that should give Him pleasure. If I experience God’s blessings or not in the course of the service, I will still serve Him. God’s blessings are completely free and there is no way I can pay for all that He has done and all that He will do for me. Relating this to the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, the Pharisee came on the platform of all that he had done for God, while the Publican came ‘Just as I am without one plea’. We know the rest of the story. In Matthew 7: 7 – 8, God did not say you should go and ‘labour in the vineyard’ before coming to Ask, Seek and Knock. If I need anything, I can simply go to God as my Father and just Ask”

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April 20, 2015 · 12:17 pm

GOD OF THINGS

I was with a friend recently and he said that the first time he went to the UK from Nigeria, he could not pray because there was nothing to pray for, apparently because everything was working. He did not have to pray for power supply, there were little or no uncertainties to form prayer points. He could actually plan the day and watch things work exactly as planned because there were no slow moving traffic jams to pray against and no unnecessary bureaucratic bottlenecks to squeeze through.  In other words, all that he needed God for back at home  had been taken care of by the government. So no need to pray!

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Little by little and almost without noticing the change, we have turned our Father of mercy and love; the Creator of heaven and earth; the Sovereign God, the Consuming Fire and the Indescribable God into a God of things! In the same way, our prayers have metamorphosed into a time of reading our wish list out to God. Sometimes we add colour to it by telling Him our true life stories. At other times, we sow some ‘mighty’ seeds and tie the answers to the seeds.

Quite often, when we praise God in our meetings, it’s usually because we’ve been taught that if we praise God for what He has done, we are in line for the answers to the next prayer request. We’ve learnt that praise puts a seal on the answers to our prayers and our miracles. And if we don’t praise Him, the blessings will gradually ebb away. In fact, the louder the shout of praise or the clapping of our hands, the bigger the magnitude of the answer to our prayers.

Matthew 6: 31 – 32 says:

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs”

And Matthew 7: 7 – 8 says:

“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

In the light of the scriptures above, what then are we supposed to ask, seek and knock for? The good news is that as Christians, we have Jesus Christ as our perfect examples. We are also immensely blessed with a great cloud of witnesses who have gone before us. Their accounts are clearly written in the Bible. We can study their lives by the help of the Holy Spirit; we’ll see what they prayed for and how they prayed. In this way, we’ll never pray amiss again. Start the journey, God’s grace is sufficient.

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March 5, 2015 · 11:56 am

THE INTELLIGENT CARPENTER

I was reading the book:  “Going Public With Your Faith” by William Caar Peel and Walt Larimore and I came across the quote below:

“The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly–but what use is all that if in the very centre of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? “ ….Dorothy Sayers

We can relate the quote above to the following verses of Colossians 3:

“And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father” Col 3:17 (NLT)

“Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.”  Col 3:23 (NLT)

The key word for me is WHATEVER. The summary of the quotes is that as a Banker, an Engineer, Teacher, Soldier or a Stay-at-Home Parent, and indeed whatever we find ourselves doing, we should see every aspect of our lives as part of our worship to God, because we indeed spend a major part of our lives outside the church and worship ought not to be confined to the church building.

The average Christian sees a clear difference between the secular life and the sacred life, whereas there is no difference in the eyes of our Father. With this mindset, we make distinctions between our work as Christians at the workplace and the work of the Pastors in the churches. We easily forget that the death and resurrection of Jesus has made all of us a generation of priests. The pastor oversees a local assembly while colleagues make up the congregation for the Christians at the workplace.

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We are required to fly the banner of Christ at work, while living above reproach and exceeding work targets and the expectations of our bosses. Our lives at work must never give people any reason to speak against our Faith and our Father. Instead, we should shine the light so brightly, lifting up the name of our Lord and thereby attracting more and more people to the Kingdom of our God. Our excellence and general conduct outside the walls of the church and especially at work should drive people to seek to know the God we worship.

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The Bible and even history books are filled with examples of men who saw their work as worship and thereby became world changers. These are men that we look up to today as heroes of our faith:

Nehemiah was a government official, serving under the kings of Persia. Joseph metamorphosed from slave to servant to prisoner and eventually a top government official in Egypt. Abraham was more like an entrepreneur specialised in livestock farming. Daniel was an adviser to several kings in Babylon. William Wilberforce was a distinguished Member of Parliament in England. One thing that is common to these great men is that each one was outstanding at work, displaying extraordinary excellence. Nothing stops you from forming part of this list. The grace of God is sufficient for you.

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January 7, 2015 · 12:01 pm

MY FATHER’S GOD

MY FATHER’S GOD.

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