Category: Bible

God WEEDS!

Shocking title, eh? I bet some of you are thinking of a smoke-filled room with a Big Fellow getting High on pot and the like. If that was your line of thought, it goes a long way to tell how much our generation has watered down the meaning of the words in the English Language.

Well, to help you have a better perspective on my ‘shocking’ title, let’s examine the Words of Jesus in Matthew 15 verse 13:

”But He answered and said, ‘Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up’ ”

The mind of an individual is like a farmland. The farmland could either be overgrown with weeds of evil immoral thoughts and negative self-talk. On the other hand, the farmland could have the seeds of God’s Word flourishing and blossoming, producing Fruits in their thirties, sixties and hundreds.

Yes, the devil would come. Wanting to sell to us his wares of tares. Sometimes, we resist him and at other times, we buy his tares of worry, fear, negativity and evil thoughts. We sow them on the farmlands of our minds. And water them, till they grow out of our controls. Then, we see them for what they truly are. Weeds. Horrible, stubborn weeds.

But I have Good News for you. God WEEDS. He knows what the seed of His Words should produce in our minds. And when He sees anything contrary to the Fruits like peace, love, joy, faith and so on, He steps into action. He WEEDS out all that He hasn’t planted in our lives. He uproots them and burns them to ashes. He clears our farmland and then plants into us The Seed of His Words which is able to save our souls. He then waters us with His Spirit till we bear Fruits. He even prunes us and we bear more and more of His delightful fruits!

So, where are you today? Overgrowing with weeds of sin, worry, doubt, evil thoughts and fear? God is still in the business of WEEDING. Why don’t you cry out on to Him and let Him step into your situation right now?

7 Lessons From The Sons of The Prophets.

Elisha carried a double portion of Elijah’s anointing. He seemed to be involved in every miracle mentioned. However, in a rare moment of scintillating brilliance, the much less heralded sons of the prophets took the limelight in the opening verses of II Kings 6. Their actions are practical and applicable to our everyday living. The 7 lessons are:

1. Don’t be comfortable with your shortcomings: The sons of the prophets found themselves in a tight corner. Literally speaking. They were quite happy to be wining and dining at the feet of Elisha. But they didn’t allow that opportunity to blind their minds to the harrowing problem of limited resources of space they were all facing with Elisha.

2. Speak out: The sons of the prophets spoke their minds out. They didn’t cower in the presence of organized and recognized authority. They weren’t murmuring and grumbling in the background. They presented their thoughts in an orderly and respectful manner.

3. Think Big: The sons of the prophets were not scared of an avant-garde thinking. It is never a sin to think big. You see, it’s only when one thinks big that he’d get big things out of life. The sons of prophets were not afraid of embarking on a large-scale project.

4. Do not procrastinate: It’s nice to have good intentions, but it doesn’t stop there. The sons of the prophets desired to move out of the tight corner they found themselves in. They didn’t wait for good weather conditions. Or when the mood was perfect. They acted immediately.

5. Be willing to progress: The sons of the prophets had identified the problem of limited space. They were ready and had the right mindset to ensure the status quo changed.

6. Plan: The sons of the prophets laid up strategies that would help them attain their goals. They had a good idea of the land to build on. They knew how to get the human and material resources for their assignment. They didn’t have a haphazard approact towards their set goal.

7. Don’t forget the God-Factor: The sons of prophets didn’t assume that their plans, strategies and feasibility studies would get the job done for them. They didn’t think they could do it all. They understood the role God plays in our endeavours. They wisely implored Elisha, whose life oozed with God’s presence, to go with them. And they didn’t regret it.

These very practical lessons would spark a sporadic turnaround in your life. Please pass the knowledge on. Cheers!

Walking Dead

‘Everybody wants to go to heaven, but none of them wants to die’.

For some, the macabre topic of death has become one that is discussed only at funeral services. It is talked about very briefly and in hushed tones. Death is one of the facts of life. In fact, living in a denial of death is the riskiest possible way to live.

The Syrians laid a seige against Samaria in 2 Kings 7. The seige induced a famine within the city. So severe that mothers boiled their babies to eat. Now, there were 4 lepers who were outside the city gates but quite far from the enemy’s camp. In those days, lepers were ostracized because they were ceremonially unclean and could contaminate anything they touched. So, these men had nowhere to go. If they returned to the city, they’d be stoned. Even if they were not stoned, they’d still starve to death. And if they had gone into the enemy’s camp, they could be slaughtered. Like chickens.

With time, these men became unsatisfied with the status quo. They were tired with life caught in the middle on no-man’s land. Besides, they were starving. They knew that there was nothing within the city. But what if the solution existed in the enemy’s camp? The way to know for sure was to find out. Even if it meant losing their lives. That was the point they became ‘Walking Dead’ men!

As discovered later, the attitude of the lepers paid off! They were the first to witness the miracle that God had wrought. This miracle consequently abolished famine within the very city they were ostracized from.

It started when the lepers became dead to themselves. They simply couldn’t die anymore, as they were already dead to fear that had initially imprisoned them.

We all should embrace this attitude in unpalatable situations. When we are comfronted with a need to change our circumstances. Note that unless we say like Esther, ‘…if I perish, I perish’ and brace up to face our situations head long, our circumstances would stubbornly not change.

‘Self-help is no help at all, self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self’

I’m Tired Of Being Normal

You’d never find a mad man who would agree with you that he’s mad. Instead, he’d insist that YOU are the mad one! I’m going to say some things that would either make you think I’ve gone gaga. Or make you doubt your sanity. Except you’re in the same frequency with me.

I’m fed up of being normal. I’m sick and tired of flowing with the generally acceptable trend of things. I want to shake things up a bit and start walking in the consciousness of who I am. And if that means that I should become crazy to fulfil that, I really don’t mind. In fact, I want to be crazy! Crazily putting away the tried and tested traditions of the fathers. Crazily embracing the Ultimate One’s Words regarding me.

For starters, I have life. Abundant life at that`. This doesn’t only mean I have a home in heaven when I die. I’m also not meant to manage life on THIS side of eternity. Struggling and merely passing through is disobeying the Words of The Ultimate One.

See, I’ve also been given ALL things that pertain to life“! Not some things. Not most things. But ALL things. Why should I continue cheating myself by living less than what has been appropriated to me? Why should I continue to thrive on what people, circumstances and situations have carved out for me?

Don’t you get it? Let me now blow your mind: The power of the Ultimate One raised up His Son from death. The same power set The Son in heavenly places far above everything that has existed, exists or will exist. The power then put ALL things in The Son’s control. And because I’m a Believer, THAT power is available to me“`!!! There’s no way I’d hear this and still retain my senses.

I wasn’t made to live as a normal person. No sir, I was fashioned to be an anormally supernormal creation! And if the world sees that as craziness, it’s all good with me.

Spend time with the Good Book and The Ultimate One would open the eyes of your heart to know your place in Him.

` John 10:10
“ 2 Peter 1:3
“` Ephesians 1:19

Malo Malo Malo Malo

Insteresting title, isn’t it. Yes, I also know that it looks like some mumbo-jumbo excavated from some extinct barbarian language from a prehistoric era. But while the words are indeed from a quite obsolete language, it’s one of the neatests wordplays recorded in history.

The words are in Latin. A rough interpretation would be as follows:
‘I’d rather be an apple tree than be an evil man in adversity’.

Initially looking at the statement and its interpretation, it was devoid of meaning to me. I even felt it was some form of nmemonics developed by Latin students. However, after taking a closer look, a truth hit me. Many times in the Bible, the righteous are referred to as trees (Psalms 1 & 92 are just a few of the numerous examples). They are firmly rooted in faith in God. They have thick trunks so that they aren’t tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine. They are evergreen and are always flourishing. They are fruitful, yielding fruits such as love, joy, peace, patience, self control and the works. The shade their leaves offer, as well as their fruits, are refreshing to all and sundry.

Indeed, living like this is a million times much better than the adversity an evil man brings upon himself by wicked living.

‘Malo malo malo malo’

The Narrow Way

When I was much younger, I used to have a uniquely funny imagination of heaven. I had just read the words, ‘Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’. I was scared! At that point, I made up my mind that when I died (at the ripe old age of 120), I would ensure that my soul remained stable on the ‘straight’ road to heaven, so I won’t slip off and fall into the eternal flames of hell. I also told myself that I would try as much as possible to squeeze myself through the narrow singular gate to heaven, peradventure, with patience, I would find a way through. And you thought I was smart!

As I grew more matured with age, I discovered some basic truths about this whole Heaven and Hell business:

1. God did not make Hell for human inhabitation. It was meant as a centre of punishment for the devil and his cohorts. However, God loved, and still loves man so much that He gave man the freedom of choice. Thus, where man would spend eternity is a by-product of his choices while he was alive on earth. And by that, a man can partake of the punishment meant for the devil and his demons.

2. If you have time to read through the Book of Revelations in the Bible, you’d discover that Heaven is soooooo big. So big that if every individual from the time when man was created till the end of time itself were to have a mightily large mansion each, there would still be ample space left. Why then would God make Heaven this big, if He only planned to allow a few people to trickle in? Arbitrariness and disorganization are not part of God’s characteristics. Reading carefully through the book of Revelations, we find that at the end of time, the population of Heaven would be so much more than that of Hell. People from all tongues, tribes, nations and colour are going to be in Heaven. Hell is a crammed up place. It is a place of population explosion, so to speak, because the ‘resources’ of Hell were only meant to ‘cater’ for satan and his demons, not man!

3. Also, from the book of Revelations, you’d discover that Heaven has 12 extremely large gates that are ALWAYS open. What’s more, it’s God’s earnest desire for all to make Heaven. His Spirit continually cries out to us, non-stop, ‘Come, come, come’.

Phew! Now that is settled, why did Jesus say, ‘Strait is the gate and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it’???

The world is under a great bondage that majority are unaware of. The Bondage is UNGUIDED FREEDOM. A guy and a girl that like each other start living together as husband and wife without bothering to get married. When the going gets rough, they simply walk out of each other’s lives and move on. Nowadays, the rate of divorces are so much such that a marriage now seems to be the prerequisite for a divorce. In the name of freedom, an individual that finds himself in an exalted position decides that the next item on his agenda is to siphon his organization’s funds to some personal foreign back account. People now indulge their apetites and massage their egos at the expense of their souls.

What Jesus had in mind by the ‘straight’ gate and ‘narrow’ way can be summarized into one word: DISCIPLINE. In order to get the very best out of life, we have to subject our natural instictive desires and apetites to that which is right. When one’s highly disciplined, he is bordered all around by the right principles and guidelines. In that way, he’s prevented from staggering through life without a due sense of responsibility. The narrow way is not the popular way (Check my write up on ‘The Novel Way’ www.promisetewogbola.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/63/) and this is why Jesus said only a few find it. Only a few are willing to subject themselves to a disciplined lifestyle.

The narrow way is tough. People would snicker at you. They would taunt you and scoff at you. But at the end there’s an abundance of life in its superfluity. Choose the Narrow Way. It’s worth it.

Word Salad

Fresh, raw and undiluted,
each bite tastier than the one before.
He custom-made it to fit, like a hand in a glove,
into all situations and circumstances I find myself.

With each mouthful, it penetrates my heart;
enjoyable, fearsome and fierce,
it always strikes a chord or two within my essence-
the treasured gold hidden in the earthen vessel.

I’m left uncomfortable with the status quo,
so there’s a yearning, and a rattling too,
a rumbling that exudes with zeal never before found.

The weak are strengthened, and
the runners motivated to race committedly.
On the long run, Desire pants
but the coolness of the taste revives again.

Ever complete, ever nutritous,
Ever powerful, ever beneficial,
the inner one which was once merely existing,
now lives.

Peter’s Net

Have you ever been in this situation before: You wanted something so badly. Then you got it. After that, you are almost shocked to death that you got it?!! It has happened to me so many times and I’m going to share the most recent with you. By the way, if you looked at the title of this post and you are expecting a story about Peter Pan, you are in for a very big surprise.

I started blogging late May this year. After the initial excitement of maintaining a blog had died down (Check ‘Number Of The Day: 11’), I decided to surf around the blogosphere to interact with other bloggers. That was when I saw it. Bloggers who had spent the same time period (or even less) that I had spent had almost ten thousand times more clicks and follows than I had. I was a bit downcast and discouraged because I had tried all that I knew to just make sure I had more traffic to my site. I told my friends about my blog, I shared links to my blog on twitter and groups on facebook. But I just couldn’t raise the amount of traffic that was getting to my blog. Then it happened. One of the bloggers I follow dedicated a particular post to his readers. You could ask anything and write anything. It looked like fun and it was fun. I read the previous comments on that post and I saw other bloggers writing links back to their own blogs in the comment section. So I said to myself, ‘Why not give it a try?’. Before that day ran out, I had the highest number of views that I had ever seen on my blog. It was scary. Suddenly, I found myself running out of breath to keep up with the comments that I was receiving. It took me the presence of mind not to start wishing for those ‘dry’ days all over again!!!

Funny enough, I saw a similar story to mine in the Bible. It happened between Peter and Jesus in Luke 5. And no, they were not blogging! Jesus was preaching at the bank of a particular lake. However, He was having a little of a crowd situation since the people were pushing on to Him to hear Him better. Who could blame them? Anyways, Jesus beckoned to Fisherman Peter who appeared to be through for the day since he was already washing his nets. Jesus asked to make use of Peter’s boat as a floating altar in the lake since that was the only way He could avoid being crushed by the crowd. It was an ingenious plan that probably prevented Jesus’ earthly ministry from ending prematurely. As soon as the highly interesting teaching session was over, Jesus discerned that Peter had a bad day. Apparently, Peter had washed his nets, but there were no fish. Now, pay attention. If you read the King James Version of Luke 5 vs 4, Jesus said, ‘Launch out into the deep and let down your NETS for a draught’. But in vs 5, Peter’s response was, ‘Master, we have toiled all night and have taken nothing: nevertheless at your word, I will let down the NET’. ‘Nets’ and ‘Net’ are NOT the same thing. In case you didn’t know, ‘NETS’ is the plural tense of ‘NET’. Peter was a fisherman and he might have had dreams of the day he would catch so many fishes. However, the Day came and he decided to play it safe. Maybe the guy just didn’t want to embarass anybody, in case the whole exercise flopped. At least, the fact that Peter even ventured to drop a single net showed that he believed Jesus’ words. Peter expected the miracle but his preparation for the miracle was poor. How many times do we ask for rain to fall, yet we don’t carry umbrellas? How many times do we ask for babies, yet we don’t buy baby cribs, clothes and the works. Luke 5 vs 6 tells us what eventually happens to Peter’s net. It broke. The miraculous supply of fish tore Peter’s Net. Infact, One ship and other nets later, the weight of the catch still threatened to sink the ships.

The next time you are earnestly seeking a miracle in your life, I think it would be better to start making adequate preparations, especially in your mind, to receive the miracle. After all, it’s better to die in misery than to die of the shock that a stupendous miracle would bring!!!

SOS, Songs of Solomon in the Bible?!!

Let’s picture this scenario in our minds’ eye: You pick up your Bible, flip through the pages and then your eyes happen to fall on the this short book of the Old testament. You start reading the 1st Chapter and before you finish the second verse, you see it. You shout ‘Yikes!’ in your mind and you might start wondering out aloud what a book like this is doing in the Word of God. You decide to give yourself a benefit of a doubt and continue the Bible passage. At the end of the entire book, you are awestruck, dumbfounded and spellbound…. And you ask yourself: ‘WHAT IS SONGS OF SOLOMON DOING IN THE BIBLE?’

I’m not a pastor, neither am I so much of a Bible scholar, but I have come across articles that have tried to explain why Songs of Solomon is found in the Bible. Of all the reasons I saw, the ones I felt were most plausible were:
1. God is interested in all facets of our human existence, even up to the love lives of married Christian couples.
2. It is a shadow of the type of love that Christ has for His Church.

However, in my relatively short Christian life, I’ve come to understand that when one’s dealing with God, or His Word (the Bible), one must avoid stereotypes. When dealing with God, or His Word, you have to be ready to drop any religious prejudices, sentiments and personal beliefs and just depend on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Now, the vivid picture I painted in the 1st paragraph was quite similar to my exact feelings when I first came across Songs of Solomon (funny, eh?). I was amused, bemused, ‘ceemused and demused’. But when I dropped my own human thoughts and decided to depend on the Holy Spirit for interpretation, I found ‘platinum’ NUGGETS that were even totally unrelated to love or something of such. The interpretation was so applicable to present day situation. Now, that’s sublime! What’s more, I’m going to share what I saw with you. Huzzah, right?

Well, if you were patient enough the first time you read Songs of Solomon, and you were able to get to the 4th Chapter and the 12th, 15th and 16th verses, you’d come across something poetic as follows:
‘A garden is inclosed in my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed…..
A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.
Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out…..’

The 1st portion of the passage above shows a case of untapped potentials, a case of what COULD have been but is NOT, a case of unseen glory in an individual. Notice the phrases, ‘a garden inclosed’, ‘a spring shut up’, ‘a fountain sealed’. Can’t you see the sadness and pity oozing out of those words? ‘A garden inclosed’ could imply that the potential available in an individual that the individual has failed to tap into as a result of ignorance. Every person has a hidden treasure embedded within him or her. It would be the highest form of selfishness to deprive humanity of that treasure in you, just because of ignorance! Well, as the Greeks would say, ‘Gnosthiseauthon!’ which means, ‘Search yourself!’. The other phrases in the first portion of the passage, ‘a spring shut up’ and ‘a fountain sealed’ typifies the case of individuals who were initially on the road to maximizing potential but as a result of one mistake or the other (usually sin or delving out of one’s purpose) they become stagnated and are unable to maximize their full potential. All isn’t lost, however.

Now take a look at the life and excitement found in these phrases fron the 2nd portion of the passage: ‘a fountain of gardens’, ‘a well of living waters’, ‘streams from Lebanon’. See the joy and almost touchable happiness that is leaping from each word of these phrases. This is a vivid picture of fulfiled purpose and maximized potential. Also note the God’s ultimate plan for you: OVERFLOW TO IMPART OTHERS. Would a fountain of gardens be meant for just one person to eat all on his own? Or would a well of living waters be used by just one person? No! No!! No!!! Your maximization of potential is meant to lead to an overflow in your life that would impart sporadic impacts in the lives of all you come in contact with. This is the joy of it all- Nurturing others to tread the paths you tread to attain potential.

Finally, in the last portion of the passage, there’s a kind of climax to all the build up of the previous portions of the passage. ‘Awake O North wind……blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out’. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes, just knowing what to do isn’t enough. Knowing that you have to give yourself to others without having any fears of losing in the ‘competition’ can only come via the extra nudge from the Holy Spirit. Once that extra force is there, there is the facilitation of events that would leave one with no choice but to joyfully impart lives.

So, do you still have any reservations about Songs of Solomon (SOS)? I didn’t think so too…..