Tag Archives: christianity

ONLY GOATS CROSS LAWNS

“ONLY GOATS CROSS LAWNS”

These were the words of my secondary school Principal. I don’t remember how many times I heard him say this, but the words stuck. More than 30 years later, I still take the longer route to get where I need to go, instead of taking shortcuts that cross and deface pristine lawns. These words still ring in my head today, and I don’t want to ever see myself as a goat.  SAMBA, as we fondly called him, was a great man who shaped and moulded our young minds with his words, actions, and charisma. Many of such words still guide my thoughts and actions today.

With this on my mind, I can imagine what occupied the thoughts of the Rechabites when they gave Prophet Jeremiah the answer below:

They had the opportunity to compromise and take some wine. After all, their father was not there looking over their shoulders. He was long gone, but his words remained with them. They had built invisible boundaries with the words of their father, and nothing was going to make them break ranks. Not even the fact that the counter instruction was coming from the revered prophet of God.

At 17, Joseph found himself in another man’s land without parental or pastoral oversight. He was presented with an almost irresistible opportunity to compromise. Instead, he stayed within the boundaries of the Word and chose to face the dire consequences. He overcame by living up to the standards of the Word of God that had been sown into his heart while in his homeland.

As we journey through the paths of life, opportunities to make little shifts in our Word-influenced boundaries will come our way. Those compromise-laden opportunities may appear insignificant initially, but they create footholds for the enemy to hit us with bigger opportunities. When we walk on lawns, the grass does not disappear immediately. Instead, it is eroded gradually until the place where beautiful grass blades once stood becomes bare ground. That is the same way little compromises eat away at the fabric of our relationship with God. The fact that everyone is doing it and it is generally accepted as the norm does not make it right. God’s Word does not metamorphose. It is settled in heaven.

The thing about little compromises is that when we break the resistance and do it the first time, it becomes easier subsequently. We gradually become numb to the tugging of the Holy Spirit in that area until the boundary set by the Word of God completely disappears. It should not be so.

Also, …

Nobody may see it; nobody may know about it. However, it never leaves us the same. Just like the Word of God always accomplishes God’s purpose, every little and apparently innocuous act of compromise will also accomplish its purpose of initiating a chasm between our Father and us. We ALWAYS have the grace to say NO.

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MEASURE BY MEASURE

I have been going to the gym regularly for a while now…not that I’m preparing for any contest though 😊. I just want to stay fit and toned. My trainer focuses on different muscles every day, with the objective of hitting every muscle group at least once each week. To achieve the desired result each day, I have to go through a fixed number of repetitions of an assigned activity for multiple sets. If I don’t hit the agreed number of repetitions and sets, the output will be sub-optimal. Also, as I developed a consistent rhythm of gym attendance, the weights that I use for the strength exercises have progressively increased. If I don’t increase the weights, my muscle toning will become stagnant. If I go back to the old weights, it feels as if I am not doing any work, just like drinking water with a teaspoon when you are thirsty. The measure of result that I feel in my body will depend on the measure of effort that I put in at the gym.

Because of this experience, the verse below in the Classic Amplified Version now comes with added significance to me. I can fully relate.

The measure of attention we give to the Word of God that we read or hear will determine the measure of fruit that will show forth in and through our lives. The drill should be to consciously engage and meditate until the “Word becomes flesh” in our hearts. In most cases, it would require devotion of a significant amount of time and bandwidth. We should not just hear the Word and get all excited at the moment and then move on as if nothing happened. No matter how deep the revelation might be, we need to build the personal discipline of going back to chew the cud like ruminants to extract all there is for us in the Word. If not, we will ultimately remain at the same spot.

In the parable of the sower, the seed that fell on good ground brought forth fruit that was thirty, sixty, and a hundred times more than what had been planted. In this case, the seed was the same, the fertile soil was the same, but the yield was not all the same across all the fronts. Some sections yielded a thirty-fold return, while some others returned a hundred-fold. What could be the difference? We could come up with multiple suggestions and reasons, but one thing is sure – the fault was not from the seed. The Word is permanently potent. It must have had to do with the measure of something.

It’s not just enough to hear the Word. It’s not just enough to read the Word. It’s not just enough to memorize the Word. The Word needs to move from our ears, our lips and our eyes into our hearts, where all the issues of life flow from. We need to engage with the Word in our hearts until all the issues of our lives are coloured by the Word. The measure of our engagement will determine the measure of the impact of the Word in and through our lives.

picture credit : Testmark

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SARTORIUS AND RECTUS FEMORIS

I try to play football with my colleagues at least once every week to complete my weekly bodily exercise quota. From the period leading up to the last Christmas holiday season to the early part of January, I did not play football or get involved in any structured form of exercise for four weeks. When I got back from vacation, I decided to get on the green pitch again to get things rolling for the year. Before I got on the pitch that evening, I told myself that I was going to take things easy and play a defensive role to gradually get myself back into the flow having been away for a relatively long time.

When the game started and the adrenaline rush kicked in, I forgot my agreement with myself and made a dash forward and ended up scoring the only goal of the game for my team. In that process and without warning, my thigh muscle popped and that was my last kick of the game and further keeping me out of the game for a few weeks.

For fun, I decided to find out the muscles that were impacted by the injury and identified them as my Sartorius and Rectus Femoris. They form part of the four muscles that make up the thigh muscle known as quadriceps.

At that moment when I ran forward, I erroneously assumed that because I had played for a few minutes, I could go ahead and play at top form, without realizing that my thoughts and my muscles were not working at the same frequency. Reminiscing about this incident, I remembered how Samson thought he still had his superpowers after his head had been shaved.

Another similar story is that of Peter denying Jesus shortly after promising to die with him. He must have convinced himself that he was afraid on nothing and no one. He did not realize that his self-confidence was unfounded.

Will power or brute strength cannot help us as we navigate our lives as Christians on this side of eternity. If we try to go it on our own and do things on our own terms, we will fail 100% of the times. When we have been in church for a long time and served in a particular capacity, there will be the temptation to depend on our ‘work experience’ in doing the work of God. We should never fall into this trap.

During the earthly ministry of Jesus, the apostles were with him all the time, they heard, they saw, they observed and touched Jesus. They had first hand experience that we can only imagine. Yet, that did not qualify them to launch their ministry without waiting for the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

…And when they eventually launched out, they depended on Him for continuous guidance and empowerment every time.

What Paul and Silas wanted to do was a good thing, but it was not what God wanted at that time. If they had solely depended on their experience and logical plans, they would have gone to Asia to preach the gospel, but they would have been on their own, doing the work of God without God.

We should never go on our own based on where we have been and what we have done in the past. This will ensure that our story is not like to story of my Sartorius and Rectus Femoris or the clean-shaven version of Samson. We should always defer to the guidance of the Holy Spirit every day, every time and everywhere. Then we will always be victorious and have good success.

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ELEVATOR PITCH

Following a totally unplanned sequence of events, I found myself in one of the tallest hotels in the world, with 82 floors. I was assigned a room closer to the ground floor than the top floor. I could only imagine what the view would be from the top floor. To get to my room, I only had a short ride on the elevator, compared to someone on the 82nd floor. What if I had the liberty to press any button on the elevator and choose any room that I liked on any floor?


Now, let’s assume for a moment that the higher the floor you’re on, the greater the privileges and power that come with the room, and that the hotel manager has the freedom of choosing to be in any room on any floor at no extra cost. However, for some reason, he chooses to remain on the ground floor and never gets to use the elevator in the hotel. He voluntarily forfeits the privileges and power that come with the rooms on the higher floors.  



That’s kind of our story as God’s children. By the position that we have in Jesus, all authority has been given to us according to Ephesians 2:6 (God raised us from death to life with Christ Jesus, and he has given us a place beside Christ in heaven). However, when we get into the elevator, we restrict ourselves to the lower floors and instead choose to watch a few people access the higher floors and operate from those heights on our behalf.


As Christians, we all have the same free access to choose which button to press when we get into the elevator. How high we can access in the building is completely up to us and depends on the price we are willing to pay to understand and appropriate the rights and privileges that come with being on the higher levels. It is related to the level of commitment that we are willing to put in.


We need to take personal responsibility for progressively adding these virtues to our lives and move from milk level to solid food and bones. The output will be evident and undeniable. We will know God and do exploits for and on behalf of the King.

Our Father does not want us to remain on the ground floor and we should not want to remain there either. Let’s arise and press in a little more today and a little more tomorrow. We will gradually get to the place where God has ordained for us to get to – As high as the elevator can go.

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IN BUT OUT

Luke 15:31 NASB2020

And he said to him, ‘Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. 

Imagine for a moment that you’re on a trip far from home. No cash, no cards, no friends that you can call on to help out. Instead, you have a bar of gold in your backpack. Many people around you are willing to part with a fortune for your gold. However, you don’t know that what you have is priceless gold, so you continue to languish and starve needlessly.

This is what happens when we do not know all that we have received as part of our inheritance in Christ. The brother of the young man that we have come to know as the prodigal son easily comes to mind to describe this scenario.

He was in the midst of abundance but didn’t know what he had. That’s why he was complaining when his brother was being celebrated. He could have had this celebration every day if he chose to. Everything that their father had was available to him, but he didn’t know and therefore couldn’t access it. Even though he was older, he was still a child in knowledge of what he had available to him and had to live like every other person.

Paul captured this aptly in his letter to the Galatians:

This is not just about chronological age; it’s about knowledge and capacity. In most cases, a young child is not capable of grasping the importance and extent of their inheritance until they become older and more mature. So, until they attain the required level of knowledge, they have to make do with whatever they are given.

Having the requisite knowledge at the appropriate level is what guarantees a victorious Christian life. A life enjoyed to the full extent that our Father has paid for. This knowledge of our place and position in Christ also increases our awareness of our power to live above sin and different variants of temptation.

This is so important that it features in most of Paul’s prayers for the people that he had preached to:

Jesus also taught this to those who were listening to Him while He walked among us. John 8:32 NLT And you will KNOW the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Our permanent freedom from all kinds of oppression lies in the truth that is revealed to us. It is only the truth that we KNOW that will profit us. It’s of no use to us if we don’t KNOW it. 

This depth of revelational KNOWLEDGE will not be thrust into our laps. It’s not a free gift like salvation. We need to make every effort to add it ourselves. 

If it was meant to be a free gift, Peter would not ask us to add it by ourselves. It is through diligent seeking that we would enter into the depths of KNOWLEDGE that God has prepared for us. We have been given all it takes; it is ours to search out by the help of the Holy Spirit

picture credit: Eternal Life Embassy

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OBJECTIONABLE (UNACCEPTABLE) SACRIFICE

I grew up with a dog that had the special privilege of being fed local Nigerian food. As far as we were concerned, there was nothing like dog food in those days. The dog just had to eat whatever the rest of us had to eat. The special delicacies included Eba and Soup Of The Day. The eba was usually moulded into small balls, immersed in soup and presented to the dog on a platter. For some reason, the dog accepted this piece of culinary excellence on some occasions and rejected it on other occasions. On rare occasions, there was partial acceptance as the dog would eat all the food and then transport itself to a discreet corner and ‘eject’ everything. I never really got to understand the rationale behind its choices. 

This however is not the case with God. There is no lack of clarity as to what makes a sacrifice acceptable or otherwise. God does not accept every sacrifice as is clearly stated in Malachi 4:8, but in each case, the people offering the sacrifice are not oblivious of the acceptance criteria

Even Cain knew what he should have done to make his sacrifice acceptable.

And now to us; Paul admonished the Romans to present their bodies to God as a sacrifice. This instruction is also applicable to us today. We are not just to present our bodies as any type of sacrifice, but an acceptable sacrifice that remains alive at the altar. Being a living sacrifice implies that we will always have a choice to get up and walk away from the alter but we choose to stay there as part of what we must do to remain acceptable. However, the fact that we stay there does not confer automatic acceptability upon us. We still need to meet the acceptance criteria.

The body in this passage refers to our physical bodies and not any other spiritual form of body. This body is made up of different components, which could sometimes develop their own minds and want to go out of line.

This reminds me of when Job said “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman.” Job 31:1 [NLT] and Jesus also said “So if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose a part of your body than to have all of it thrown into hell.” Matthew 5:29 [GWT]. David on his own part prayed “May the words from my mouth and the thoughts from my heart be acceptable to you, O LORD, my rock and my defender.” Psalm 19:14 [GWT].

These are just a few of the components of our bodies. For our bodies to be acceptable sacrifices unto God, the individual components must be in line and acceptable to God. Taking stock and seeing how we are doing with this will be a good idea. The ageless hymn ” Take My Life, and Let It Be” by Frances Ridley Havergal captures this aspiration to be an acceptable sacrifice perfectly.

https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/445

If I want to indeed offer my body as an acceptable sacrifice to God, then I need to think in these terms – My eyes and what they behold have to be acceptable to God, the thoughts that I allow to rest on my mind have to be in line with God’s word, anything that flows out from my mouth must not be at variance with things that please God. This is the same with all parts that make up my body, including the parts that are normally shielded with beautiful clothes.


Thank God for the grace of God that has been made available for us to live above sin in our bodies and live as acceptable sacrifices unto God.

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THE SERPENT AND THE STORM

The visual coverage of a horse is approximately 340o. There is only a small section behind its head where it cannot see. In literal terms, a horse facing forward can see almost everything happening behind it. That is why racehorses must wear blinkers or blinders. Without these accessories, they will be distracted by so many things in their line of sight and easily go in a different direction. They are not capable of focusing on the racetrack without these blinkers. The brain of the horse is wired so that whatever it does not see does not exist and whatever it does not hear cannot constitute a distraction. If a horse is restricted to seeing only what is ahead, it is constrained to running only in that direction by what it sees. Apart from helping them to stay focused, the blinkers also help to protect them from being spooked by anything that suddenly comes into their visual range.

Like the horses, we need to choose the object of our focus carefully to enjoy our relationship with God and get the best of His promises for us. We need to deliberately choose what to keep looking at amid the chaos. Life is configured to throw different shades of distractions at us. How we react to those distractions will determine how and where we end up. Our reaction depends largely on what we are looking at and the filter through which we judge the circumstances. Most times, those distractions come to test our resolve to hold on to the word of God concerning different things in our lives. The suffering and difficult situations we experience may be great, but God sees us and is constant through it all. The circumstances do not diminish His power and ability.

If we can keep our eyes on the Word in the face of all distractions, there is no limit to what we can accomplish through Christ. When God sent fiery serpents among the Israelites as a punishment for their sins, they cried to God in repentance, and He directed Moses to make a bronze serpent and hang it on a pole for them. If anyone was bitten by a serpent and the person fixed their gaze on the serpent, they would live. The fact that Moses hung that serpent up did not mean that the snakes were no longer there. Instead, the people were meant to take their eyes off the snakes that were attacking them and keep looking at the bronze serpent that was in front of them. If they could keep their focus on the bronze serpent, the presence of the snakes around them had nothing on them. It was all about the object of their focus.

On another occasion, Peter and the disciples were in the boat, being buffeted by the wind and the waves. Jesus showed up walking on water and Peter had enough faith to join him.

When Peter left the boat and went on a gravity-defying trip by walking on the water, the storm was still the same. When he started sinking in obedience to gravity, the storm was still the same. What changed? His focus. He moved his focus from Jesus and His promise to the storm and then rational thinking took over. The object of the focus changed.

The word of God and the promises contained therein do not change based on our circumstances. The ability of God to be a provider does not depend on economic indices. The power of God to save, heal, deliver, and bless does not vary with what is happening around us. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The only thing that could change is the object of our focus. If we are able to keep our eyes off the serpents and the multifaceted storms coming at us from different angles and keep our eyes on the faithful God, we will see the salvation of our God.

Regularly praying for ourselves like Paul prayed for the Ephesians will help us trust God more and enable us to keep our eyes on Him through the wind, waves, and storms.

The object of our focus should always be God and His Word. He will guide and direct us on what to do to come out of the situation as more than conquerors. He is always faithful.

Image credit: breederscup.com

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MODIFIED COMPASS

Imagine that you are travelling between two locations by air. Obviously, there is a qualified pilot in control of the aircraft. If not, you will probably not be sitting there. There are mandatory requirements that the pilot must meet to receive the authorization to take off from the Air Traffic Control. One of such requirements is submitting a flight plan, which includes the Route to be followed; Cruising speed; Cruising level; Weather forecast; Fuel requirements and Alternative airports in case of an emergency.

In order to follow the route defined in the flight plan, the pilot has to depend on a compass in addition to other instruments. Imagine again that midway into the flight, the pilot decides that the shadow cast by the sun in the cockpit is a better guide than the compass and then goes ahead to disregard the compass and follow the shadow and his feelings. The aircraft will almost certainly end at the wrong location.

Another relatable experience would be to set a destination on your GPS equipment or Google Maps for a road trip. Somewhere down the line, you decide to trust your hunch instead of following the GPS directions. Where do you think you will end up?

In our journey as Christians, we start off with a personal relationship with our Lord and Saviour – Jesus Christ. We then continue with the Bible as our compass. God inspired people to put down those words of the holy scriptures. By His divine power, the words have been preserved across generations, despite multiple attempts to obliterate them. Now, the Bible abounds in multiple versions, that are available to us in both hard and soft copies. The Holy Spirit opens the eyes of our understanding to see light in the word of God as we read.

As we study the Bible, we learn to obey the instructions and take the lessons contained therein. We are not at liberty to choose what part to obey and what part not to obey. The instruction to completely obey the Word of God does not depend on our feelings. Technological and socio-cultural developments that have happened across different generations have not changed or modified the meaning of the word. The meaning of the scriptures in the B.C years is in perfect alignment with the meaning in the A.D years and the meaning will not change for Gen-X, Gen-Y, Gen-Z or Gen-ꝏ

The fact that society now considers some behaviour as acceptable does not mean that the instructions of the scriptures related to those things have changed to align with current views. We are not at liberty to modify this compass as we fly unless we want to head away from God’s Kingdom.

God knows the end from the beginning. So when the Bible was written, He already knew how different the world would be in our generation, compared to what it was like back then and He got it covered. There are no surprises with God. According to Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow – so is His WORD. His Word is Changeless. No modifications are allowed.

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