Tag Archives: Christian life

April 8, 2023 · 12:36 pm

SENT AS I WAS SENT

Jesus told them again, “Peace be with you. Just as the Father has sent me, SO I AM SENDING YOU.” John 20:21

Many of us must have heard different versions of the story where a father told his kid to tell his friend that was visiting that he was not at home, just because he did not want to see the friend at that time. Kids will be kids and the young one did what kids will do by saying exactly what the father told him to say, while emphasizing that the message was from the father. Well…we could berate the kid for betraying the father, but this was a display of complete obedience :).

In a way, this is similar to how Jesus walked the earth in His days. He always alluded to the fact that He was fully in contact with the Father and transmitting the messages He got from the Father to those that came to listen to Him. He also let them know that whatever He did was because He was in consonance with God.

I have not spoken on my own. Instead, the Father who sent me told me what I should say and how I should say it. John 12:49[GW]

So Jesus explained himself at length. “I’m telling you this straight. The Son can’t independently do a thing, only what he sees the Father doing. What the Father does, the Son does. John 5:19[MSG]

And on one of those days, when Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, this was Jesus’s answer to him in the presence if the other disciples:

Jesus replied, “I have been with all of you for a long time. Don’t you know me yet, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? John 14:9[GW]

So essentially, Jesus was sent to deliver the word of God to everyone and also to live in such a way that everyone that saw Him should be left with no doubt as to who the Father was and what the Father’s character was.

Therefore, if Jesus sent us the same way He was sent by the Father, it means that the totality of our lives should reflect Jesus. When people hear us, they should understand what Jesus sounded like and the messages that He brought with Him from the Father. When they interact with us, they should imagine exactly what Jesus would have been like if they were born in His days. We should be the image of Jesus that people see in our generation.

If we spend some time in introspection, what would we see in comparison to the expectation of Jesus in sending us out? We should be bold enough to say like Paul: Follow my example, just like I follow Christ’s. 1 Corinthians 11:1 [CEB]

I will end with the words of this hymn by Albert W. T. Orsborn

Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,

All his wonderful passion and purity,

O thou Spirit divine, all my nature refine,

Till the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

Picture credit: https://fpcparagould.org/

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July 4, 2020 · 11:16 am

THE DEATH OF KING UZZIAH

Growing up, I recall many people in the generation of my grandparents telling stories and using the year of the influenza epidemic as a reference point to indicate the period of certain events. Many of them were not literate enough at that time to keep dates, the best way they could give an indication of when certain events occurred was to use the year of the influenza epidemic as a benchmark. So, it was usual to hear: “2 years before the influenza…” or “4 years after the influenza…”. In more recent history in Nigeria, we still have some people from the older generations who built another benchmark around the Nigerian Civil War.

As a matter of fact, in different cultures, many of such benchmarks exist. Most of the common benchmarks found in the Bible are built around different kings of Israel and Judah. Many stories in the Bible, especially in the books of 1&2 Kings and 1&2 Chronicles start with such benchmarks to help Bible historians set dates of different events. One of such key benchmarks was captured in Isaiah 6:1

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple (NIV)

In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. (NASB)

It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. (NLT)

With this benchmark, it was possible for historians to trace the year of this event to 740 B.C.

This verse has often been misinterpreted to imply that King Uzziah had to die for Isaiah to see the Lord and by extension, it means that some people have to die for us to experience the level of blessing that God intends for us. If they don’t die, we remain limited and in bondage. Since we cannot attack these evil people and kill them by ourselves, we resort to praying and asking God to kill everyone that is acting as a ‘King Uzziah’ in our lives.

Uzziah

If indeed anybody has the powers to frustrate and manipulate the life of a Christian against the will and purpose of the ALMIGHTY God, then something is wrong somewhere. Jesus died, rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, gave us the power to become children of God – the same ALMIGHTY God that created the world and everything in it. It is this same ALMIGHTY God that parted the Red Sea for the Israelites to pass on dry ground and gave them awesome victories along the way to the Promised Land. There is no power that is big enough to derail the purpose of this ALMIGHTY God. It is not just possible, it cannot happen.

We have several reassuring verses in the Bible that allude to this:

The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe – Proverbs 18:10 (NIV)

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High, Will remain secure and rest in the shadow of the Almighty [whose power no enemy can withstand]. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust [with great confidence, and on whom I rely]!” Psalms 91: 1-2 (AMP)

“People will make weapons to fight against you, but their weapons will not defeat you. Some people will say things against you, but anyone who speaks against you will be proved wrong.” The Lord says, “That is what my servants get! They get the good things that come from me, their Lord – Isaiah 54:17 (ERV)

Let us be bold, then, and say, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can anyone do to me?” – Hebrews 13:6 (GNB)

The servant of the man of God got up early and went out, and behold, there was an army with horses and chariots encircling the city. Elisha’s servant said to him, “Oh no, my master! What are we to do?”  Elisha answered, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”  Then Elisha prayed and said, “Lord, please, open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire surrounding Elisha – 2 Kings 6: 15-17(AMP)

The word of God is ever true, forever constant and it doesn’t change with circumstances. It is not selective and it is not bound by geography. God does not need permission from anyone to do what He wants to do in our lives and no one is big enough to derail His purpose. He will keep preparing tables before us in spite of the people that may not like us. The only thing we have to do is to make sure we do not break the hedge and find ourselves outside the ‘Shadow of the Almighty’. Armed with this knowledge, you can lie down and sleep, and none will make you afraid. Stay connected to the vine.

I wrote a piece a while ago about the source of our unwavering boldness and confidence as Christians… INFORM YOUR FEARS

 

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January 18, 2020 · 4:45 pm

NOT JUST FOR PRUNING SAKE

I have always wondered why some babies make their first appearance on earth with strange haircuts. Some sections are fully cultivated and resplendent, while others are completely bare or designed with sparse vegetation. In most cases, there is usually no clear pattern to the hairstyle. However, after a few years, you’ll struggle to recognize what was once an unattractive ‘real estate’. The transformation starts immediately after the first haircut and continues to be perfected with more haircuts. I can only imagine what those heads would look like if they were allowed to just develop like that.

My childhood days were before the days of electric clippers, when all sorts of contraptions ranging from scissors, manual clippers and blade-and-comb were used to plough the hair. If you didn’t experience these things, you don’t know what you missed.

              blade1

These haircuts can be likened to the pruning of trees to make them more fruitful and desirable. The hair strands that are removed from the heads by haircuts are not exactly useless or dead strands, but their removal is essential for the required transformation. That’s the same thing with pruning. When you prune, you are not necessarily removing dead branches, but living branches that need to make way for the perfection of the tree. If these trees are not pruned, they will never reach their full potential. If the trees had sensory nervous systems, I guess pruning would be like surgery without anaesthesia…not a very pleasant experience.

There is more to Christianity than going to church and being very active in the church. There is definitely more to our relationship with God than just being good people and living chaste lives. And there is more to our walk with God than being consistent with our daily Bible study and prayers. Whatever level we get to, however deep our relationship with our Heavenly Father gets, there will always be more. We are called to live supernatural lives, doing the very same things that Jesus did while He was on the earth as summarized in Acts 10:38:

And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.    Acts 10:38 (NLT)

That ‘more’ does not come with business as usual. It comes with continuous pruning. That’s why Jesus said:

“I am the true Vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that continues to bear fruit, He [repeatedly] prunes, so that it will bear more fruit [even richer and finer fruit].”  John 15:1-2 (AMP)

The branches that need to be pruned are not necessarily bad or offensive things, they include nice things that just need to be dropped if we have to get to the level that God wants us to get to at every point in time. They are mostly things that compete with the sacrifices of time and other resources that should be devoted to God or other forms of personal and spiritual development. If we do not drop these things, we will always be at the milk level and not able to graduate to solid spiritual food and bones, like Paul said to the Corinthians:

“I had to feed you with milk, not with solid food because you weren’t ready for anything stronger. And you still aren’t ready…” 1Corinthians 3:2 (NLT)

The things to be pruned are different for everyone so; there’s no one size that fits all. Part of the work we need to do is to be on that continuous journey of self-examination to know what we need to drop at every point in time. When we discover these things, we then need to take the responsibility for pruning them off and by the way, this pruning is not for pastors or church workers only, it is for every Christian, because…

These signs will accompany those who have BELIEVED: in My name, they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues;  they will pick up serpents, and if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will get well.” Mark 16: 17 – 18 (AMP)

If we are believers then we really do not have any excuse but to keep pruning and flourishing. That’s what we have been called to and it is a lifelong call. We must never become satisfied and complacent. We must keep pushing till the very end

12 I admit that I haven’t yet acquired the absolute fullness that I’m pursuing, but I run with passion into His abundance so that I may reach the purpose that Jesus Christ has called me to fulfill and wants me to discover. 13 I don’t depend on my own strength to accomplish this; however I do have one compelling focus: I forget all of the past as I fasten my heart to the future instead. 14 I run straight for the divine invitation of reaching the heavenly goal and gaining the victory-prize through the anointing of Jesus. 15 So let all who are fully mature have this same passion, and if anyone is not yet gripped by these desires, God will reveal it to them. Philippians 3:12 – 15 (TPT)

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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’.

eyes

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.

histroy

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)

                                                       mirror

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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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).

power

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!

things

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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