F.F.F (Friends For Food)

If you went to a board school, this term would need no explanation because you would at least know one person with this character (if not you were the class FFF). For the rest who are not familiar with this term, this is a person who is only your friend for the good times, when you have money to spend, the minute the money(or food) is finished they disappear like mist, faster than you can say Ngozi! Are you getting the picture now,am sure a name has popped into your head.

We all know how it feels to be used by someone, it is not a good feeling, but have we ever considered how God feels when we are F.F.F with God? For many of us, blessing is the basis of our relationship with God. When things are going well we are super active in church, in fact we will be in church before the pastor on Sunday. But the minute any trial or hardship comes, we start loosing interest in anything that has to do with God, we start running from one place to the order for deliverance as if God has suddenly fallen asleep and let the devil destroy you and it is your job to wake him up. Some people even contemplate suicide or run to the nearest witch doctor for a quick fix. Let me borrow the words of the faithful man Job " shall we receive good from the lord and not  evil?"

I believe the main problem stems from how most Christians have been trained, they believe that God is there just to grant all their fleshly desires, meanwhile God wants to mature us even through hardships and trials because it is only then that we can learn how to trust him as our deliver, only then can we know if we are truly his possession if our faith does not fail.  The only way to purify gold is to put it through intense heat and when it comes out it is more beautiful and pure than before.

So let us not be afraid of being tested because it shows that God is still interested in you and wants to draw you closer to him, and show you many more things about himself.

God bless and happy new year

Worrying about nothing

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each has enough trouble of its own. Matt 6:34

This straight forward reminder from christ should be pasted everywhere in ours home cos worry is slowly becoming part of our generation.this is no surprise as we are constantly bombarded with  information 24/7. Just sign into your facebook account or switch on the TV and you will know what i am talking about. "So and so just got married(ladies you know what an talking about) or just got into university or just got a new job (and you havent) or the economy is in recession, there is a new viral disease, or fuel scarcity, it goes on and on. A Constant inflow of bad news, its no wonder that many people are depressed. But our saviour is telling us to act differently, how? DONT WORRY! Its that simple. 

What astonds me most about this verse is that the God of the universe knows that we have alot of issues to face on a daily basis, he knows that we are busy bees always on the move. I have two phones that I sometimes use at the same time, it does not makes sense to me either but here I am, guilty as charged.
Basically God is saying relax, you cant solve any of your problems by worrying, you are already overwhelmed by today's issues, why not trust an all-powerful and all-knowing God for tomorow? 
I believe its our pride that holds us back from trusting God for the future cos we want to fix everything by our selves. 
I have decided to save myself all the headache and heartache let him handle my tomorrow, i will take it oneday at a time. And when the temptation comes to worry(cos it will) i pray that this verse will bring me

back to this spot of total surrender. Amen


N/B
If you have not read my previous blog calles the love dare, please do and join us in making this christmas one the we will not forget.

hhhhmmmm can someone say VVIP

guys wats up with this? please someone explain this to me... for those of you who are not nigerians,  this is chris okotie, a pastor in nigeria.

THE LOVE DARE

But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. Matt 5:44.

 luke a few steps further...

bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic[b] either. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. Luke 6:28-30.

Many of us read through this passage of scripture very quickly and try not to think about it, while others just completely avoid that area. We categorize it as one of Jesus' "hard sayings". Being as vengeful and resentful as the next person, I always try not to give it too much thought as I refuse to believe that God would want us to go that far!  I usually just read it and say "oh what a nice saying, i will try my best to live it out" with no intention whatsoever to try...
But it is time for change, its a new day for new beginnings. what better time to work this out than Christmas? right? This is the season we celebrate the act of a perfectly holy God who gave his very best for humans who hated him, were ungrateful and unworthy. He humbled himself to be born into poverty and to walk this world as a nobody and be murdered by those he came to save, all the while loving them and praying for them.
if we are to walk in his footsteps, we must include loving the people in our lives tat hate us and treat us badly.

Therefore, I have decided to take a love dare, and I would love to invite anyone to take this dare with me. so what is the dare? very simple. do something nice for someone who hates you or has treated you or your loved one badly.

So as you leave for the village, look out for that old lady who everyone hold responsible for "witching" your family, or that family member who is trying to steal your family land, and do something nice for them.
even as i write this God has already brought one person to mind and i am struggling to bring myself to summit to it.
TIP: Do not expect the person to return the favour or appreciate it. Do it cos God said so.

I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME. PHIL 4:13

Even this one.

IDOLS

what is an idol?
according to an online dictionary it is defined as
A. an image used as a form of worship B. A false god C. one that is adored, often blindly or excessively. D. something visible but without substance.

hold on, am going somewhere with this.

one of my favourite christian songs describes an idol as
1. anything we put before God
2. anything we want with all our heart
3. anything we cant stop thing about
4. anything we give all our love.

sounds pretty extreme right? it would until you see luke 10:27

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself"

Why all these emphasis on how you should love God? because man is a worshiping being, we must worship something. If we dont worship God we must worship something else.The most interesting part is that it differs from one person to another and can sometimes get very bizarre.
What bothers me the is how churches of today have been erected for the worship of other gods with the aim of using the true God (Yahweh) as a means to reach those gods. Quick example, the god of money. if you enter most christian bookshops today, what you see filling up all the shelves is disgusting, yes, i used the word disgusting. People are so obsessed with their bank accounts that they go to church to find out how to make it grow, they want to know what tricks they can play with God to make him give them what they ultimately desire, more MONEY. NOT GOD but money. They run to crusades, pay people to pray for them, sleep with prophets, in fact anything to obtain that final end and it is downright demonic that some "churches" have been erected to meet the rise in demand. you see churches with themes like: economic empowerment (i actually attended this church when i was not saved), financial breakthrough, living in abundance and people flock in there to pay for lies, because they are unable to open their bible and read what Jesus really said.

another terrible one is the motivational speakers... this one really irritates me. they have made their church members into gods, and convinced them that God exists to meet their every need. Like God is the boy-boy and they the masters to send him on various errands. The perversion is sicking to think about. there is a church whose slogan is "we celebrate you" and as you enter the church the beautiful, model-like ushers in aso-ebi, welcome you and tell you "we celebrate you". when did church start being about celebrating people. I use to think it was about celebrating God. Please correct me if i am wrong.
we have to choose, its either God or our idol, you cant have the two. And God is a jealous God, he wont dwell where there is another god, ask the isrealites, they have years of experience
. 
( where is God in all these? he is nowhere, its all about you, you you)

guys, every idol will fail you, no matter what it is, money, spouse, yourself, your pastor, your football club, your beauty, you name it, it will pass away. hold on to what is true and will last forever, give him you heart, your strength, your mind, and all your soul.

the loving father

Today was one of those days where I could clearly hear God speak to me through his word about an issue I am going through at the moment. I am currently studying the gospel of luke as part of my morning devotion and strangely enough I landed on luke 11:11-13 and it struck home.

'"what father among you, if his son asks for a fish will instead give him a serpent; of if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? if you then, who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly father give the holy spirit to those who ask him!" luke 11:11-13.

 Have you been in a situation where you find a small child playing with a dangerous object and you take it from them? they would scream from the top of their lungs like you have taken away their only source of joy, but you ignore them and put it faraway from them. why? its because you love them and you want to protect them, knowing fully well that they are ignorant and cant protect them selves.

Is this not the picture of God's love in our lives? Many times God takes away things from us and we weep and ask why he would take away something so precious and dear to us, but we forget that God is a loving God who always wants our good even when we rather hold on to something that will harm us. If we, who are evil know how to protect our children from harmful things, how much more a loving and perfectly good God?

my prayer everyday is that we remember that God is sovereign and is working and organizing every pain, joy, success and hardship for our ultimate good.

CRAZY FRIDAY

To celebrate every Friday, i have declared a crazy church poster Friday.
this is where we will share weird, bizarre,and funny church posters from all over Nigeria. and if you bother to look at the posters scattered over every street, wall, and bridge in Nigeria you will know that we wont run out of funny posters anytime soon.

to kick it off we will start with two awesome ones.

I

I think i see the words suitors there, my questions is "are they sharing suitors at the event?" if yes, i know some people who will like to know when the next one will hold. hehehe

those of you that are already licking their lips, no be that kin point and kill o, except say you wan chop witch peppersoup or pussy cat pepper soup. there should be a disclaimer on this poster saying " attend at your own risk" just in case them catapult your eye comot.


please leave your comments below on your take on the matter.

disclaimer: I do not know any of this churches personally, but if you belong to any of them, NO VEX, just know that UNA NO DEY TRY.

WHAT IS TRUTH?

this is the big question of the day

IS TRUTH OBJECTIVE OR SUBJECTIVE?

what does this mean? well, is it up to us to decide what the truth is?

for example, is it up to us to decide if heaven is real or not. Is heaven real because that is the truth or because we feel it is.
I believe that how we answer this question as an individual shows how we view the bible and our salvation. It makes the difference between a christian, a moralist or an atheist. I just had a conversation with someone who believed that there is no heaven or hell, and all religious beliefs are man-made, therefore we just have to do the best we can on this earth and that's all God needs us to do and he believes this is true because that is how he views life. so therefore, Is God bound to judge us according to the laws that we have created for ourselves or according to his law?

This goes deeper than just a moralist view, some people in Christendom practice some things that are not backed by the bible but they believe it is the truth because they feel it is, so God must be ok with it.

so what is truth?

this is my big question
please leave your comments below, thanks

fish out of water

What is reformed theology? I have no doubt in my mind that question would be popular in the mind of many Nigerian christians. 4  years ago I would have had no idea what that meant either, I guess its part of our culture to know all little as possible about your faith and just leave the rest for the pastor to figure out and let us know by sunday.

Well for those of you wondering what it means there is an extensive explanation here in this site which is quite good

http://www.theopedia.com/Reformed_theology

Its not a church or sect... its just a code of belief/theology that I hold to. There are many denominations that hold to reformed theology, sometimes they dont even know it.

So what will this blog be about? I will be talking about my experiences as someone who holds to these high standards and the issues facing the nigerian church.

So like a fish out of water, so am I in the nigerian christian culture.