Today March 19th ,2015, I was with choristers of Covenant University ,which I proudly belong to. We were praying for our concert which is to take place on the March 22nd ,2015 titled IN HIS PRESENCE. This is a much talked about program that we started preparation for months ago but on this faithful day as the children of God were praying the only thing I heard was that we are COCONUTS. This got me thinking, and I asked myself, why I should be thinking of such but it kept ringing and during a prayer point I understood the meaning…

Now let me explain this to you how I was explained to, I will try and make you understand but you need the understanding of God to make this work. You and I know that there are many sides to a coconut that makes it a COCONUT. Firstly, from the tree it has a green bark, then a brown bark which is rough, has sharp thorns and quite hard. We then have the inner part which is also brown but smooth, the white part which many people love then the water which I don’t still understand how it got in. Now as Christians we are in our green stage when Christ paid a price HE did not owe, by buying us from the devil and freeing us from his(devil) bondage, we enter the next stage with the rough bark of the coconut when we do not get our lives to Christ and we do all sought of things, why? Because we don’t care about God who paid the price and we also don’t know how much he cares but when we get to care and realize how much HE(JESUS) loves us and cares for us we then enter the next stage which is the smooth brown back: Christians who pray, speak in tongues, attend church meetings and programs but still listen to worldly music, still keep malice, still lie, still cheat, still do so much that is not right. now you may be asking me what is right ? I believe what is right is what you do and the Spirit of God in you and the presence of God in you do not frown at it and still will give you a lending hand. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The next not to bore you is the white part ,this is when you have overcame your flesh, when the stirring of waters can happen by you, when men and women will see the fulfillment of prophecies, like when the scriptures said greater works shall ye do. This is a stage that when men and women see you they would call you blessed, because why, you are as the white as a coconut inside and milky as it is when stewed without its back. At this stage you are ready to explode in singing, writing, dancing etc. When this takes place the water in which we do not know how it entered would break lose and people would experience the flow of God in you, the regular question would be how did she/he become this famous, rich, intelligent, anointed .etc. But all this has always been in us because the Bible says HE called us to be the sons of God, so when you are a son of GOD,which means you have the same blood and genotype as GOD and work under the function and auction of that GOD works.

That is where the fulfillment of the scriptures starts to take place and people call you BLESSED.

Why am I like this, constantly repenting from my sins and still finding in me the will to sin? Why like a dog do I constantly return to my vomit? What is wrong with me? Why can’t I keep permanently clean from sins fast grip: the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life? I have confessed these sins severally, yet, I find myself still caught in the web of hatred, bitterness, envy and gossip. Why am I like this? Why like a pig do I keep falling back to the filth? Why can’t I keep clean 24/7? What is wrong with me? I have fasted, kept away from people, done everything within me to escape from sin, yet, I am bound steadfast. How can I be set loose? If this is your testimony, then listen carefully. You are in a trap, like all natural human beings; a trap of Satan and sin. “How?” You may ask. Now listen to this.

First, you need to know that since the fall of Adam, man has inherited a nature that knows no other thing than to sin. Every man is born with it. Could you watch a two year old child pick what is not his own, beat the mother or spit at adults and you will stand convinced that he needs no trainer hence, Romans 3:23 states that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God?  Rom 3:9b &10 reports that all are under sin and there is none righteous – no, not one. It is this sinful nature then that makes you do all that you do. Sometimes the deeds may appear good, yet, the motive and the foundations are wrong. You may confess all the sins, make New Year resolutions, lock yourself up, fast, pray etc. Yet, you find yourself committing sin again. I tell you however, before you are through with confession, your feet have gone back to the mud. The truth, my friend is that you have an inward inclination to sin; there is a power within that draws all “natural” men to sin. Thus, as soon as the power stirs up, you just find out that you must commit sin. Even if you struggle against it, the truth is that something is wrong within so you can’t do otherwise – you have the nature of a sinner. Except you are delivered, your life goes on in a vicious cycle of sinning and being forgiven and then sinning again.

Then, what is the way out? You need forgiveness for what you have done, but far above that, you need deliverance from your lower nature – the natural self that loves sin. In Romans 6:2-4, we are told that the power of sin over our lives gets broken when we become Christians. “How?” This is a likely question. Ultimately, when we come to Christ, we become Christians. We become a part of Jesus Christ and through his death, the power of our sinful nature gets shattered. When he died, our old sin-loving nature also died and gets buried with him. When he resurrected and was brought back to life again, we were given his wonderful new life! Romans 6:6-7, confirms that our old desires were nailed to the cross with him. That part of us that loves to sin was crushed and fatally wounded, so that our sin loving body is no longer under sins control, no, we no longer need to be slaves to sin. We are deadened to sin, hence, we are free from all its allure, and its power over us is dead! It is no wonder then that the Bible says in 2 Corinthian 5:17, “If any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature, old things are pass away, behold all things are new”. The cross of Christ has settled my debt and his blood has cleansed and evacuated the old nature.

What is my own duty then? As a justified person who has been declared not guilty (Rom. 3:24-26), I am expected to walk in the spirit daily so that I do not fulfil the desires of the flesh (Gal.5:16). Moreover, to avoid being condemned, I must remain in Christ and not walk after the flesh, but after the spirit (Rom. 8:1). This is a daily requirement.

The question then is where have you failed and not made progress since you believed? Well, check your life today and rededicate your life to Christ. Remember that he who puts his hands on the plough and looks back is not fit of the kingdom (Luke 9:62). Stop now and make a mend before it is too late.

V. C. Onu

Have you heard of the popular story about the two professional fishermen and the two amateurs?  It was a still night; there was no moonlight to light the sky and shine on the river. These two    fishermen went on fishing. With a great prospect of a good weather, they hoped for a great catch. Unfortunately however, throughout the night, these people could not pick even a dead crab. Early next morning, as they were paddling their canoe back to the base to dry their nets and rest for the next turn, they saw two young boys fishing with hook and line. It was incredibly amazing. In a shallow turbulent water, these young boys were making a great catch. The fishermen could not help but draw close to the boys to understand the secret.

“Hello boys, we’ve fished in this river throughout the night but we could not pick even a dead crab” the two fishermen chorused, “having seen you make a great catch with your hook and line is really a mystery, can you tell us the secret?” The two young amateurs innocently turned and pointed at a rotten wood behind them and said, “There we found some worms that are used for bate”. Upon drawing closer to the rotten log, these fishermen quickly learnt that the worms were really a brood of vipers newly hatched. These fishermen ran back to the boys and asked them to show their hands, and really, these little vipers have given these boys some bites, but since the venom was not yet devastating as that of a big viper, they never understood the damage. Moreover their catch convinced them that there was a success.

The fishermen without any delay explained to these boys the implication of what they have just done and rushed them to the hospital. By the time they got to the hospital, the hands have started swelling up and the doctor further explained that two more of these bites could have equalled the venom of an adult viper. These boys were treated and saved from dying.

Intriguing story! Yes, nevertheless more of an intriguing experience, perhaps your experience. It may not yet have occurred to you that the little manipulations you do to pass your exam is equal to poking your hand in a rotten wood to pick a small viper for a catch. If you don’t realize it now, it is the venom of this sin that will one day kill you and there will be no one to enjoy what you call success (Jn 8:24).

You wonder why some people have passed through the office you are in now without making great riches. You are set out to explore it by all means and display affluence. Have you ever imagined catching a life viper to turn into a bate on your hook? You may eventually make a catch, but think of what will happen to you in the next 24 hours.

My beautiful young lady, your patrons have gingered your swagger and you are feeling on top of the world. You become so sophisticated and you are looking larger than life; more than your lecturers, classmates etc. You are in fact, the bread winner of your family now, so no one can dare correct you. You attend all manner of parties, drink, fornicate and smoke. You go to the church with less reverence to God, and dance your night stress out through the great beatings and melodies of the band. Probably going to church has become one of the social obligations so, right in the church; you still give some holy kisses. If I am to be sincere to you, I would say, “you are a joker.” Begin to think right now of what you are doing to your life. Some of you use holy language to cheat and steal. You wear flagrant dresses to church on Sunday and give testimonies even about things God did not give you. Can you have a rethink with these scriptures 2Timothy 3:1-9?

You may choose to merry yourself to the fullest, as you may call it, but remember Solomon’s conclusion about life (Eccl 11:8-10).They may have promised you prosperity, popularity and protection. Good! All these are mild ways of using vipers for bate but the truth still remains that if you don’t realize it now, your tomorrow will be in a messy state. What will you gain by exchanging your life with these things (Matt 16:26).

In the case of these young boys, they were fortunate to be discovered by people who understood well the implications of their folly. Moreover, the boys were ready to cooperate: they sincerely revealed their secret and accepted to be taken to the physician.

How I wish you won’t turn down the offer of help now that you have understood a little of what you are doing to yourself. Or would you still be obstinate and behave like a man who exchanged his legs for the most costly pair of shoes and never again had the legs to wear shoes? The choice is yours now. Jesus said in Rev 3:20. “Here I am! I stand on the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

Will you now forsake your ways and accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Saviour? Right!

Confess your sin to God in heaven and pray this prayer: Lord Jesus! I’m a sinner, but I have come to you today. I forsake my old ways and accept you as my only Lord and Saviour. Accept me in your father’s kingdom. Please remove my name from the book of death and put it in the book of life. Wash me in your blood and I will be clean. Lord God, thank you for hearing my prayers, in Jesus name.

Amen.

V. C. Onu

Have you ever had faith for something and it did not work? Have you ever sincerely asked God for something and it just did not happen? Have you set your heart on a promise you held on to for a long time and used up your faith bank but in the end it seems as if God has failed you? In fact looking at your heart from here I can tell that the only reason why you have not resolved to say that God is unfaithful is because of your fear in His ability to strike you.
Well that is exactly what this teaching is for; let us take a short prayer; Father we ask that at the end of this teaching, we will know exactly why our faiths have failed us at some point, help us in Jesus name, Amen.

Let me start like this; people had often said that they had faith and it did not work but I want to say that faith always works. The bible said ‘let God be true and let every man be a liar’ so forgive me if I have chosen to believe the words from God instead of yours. Plus I know that when He said we could move mountains with a mustard seed faith, He totally meant it.

So before we continue our journey to knowing why our assumed faith did not work, let us pause a little to check what faith is, because most people who have claimed to have had a failed experience with faith simply have never had faith in the first place.

Haven said that, here is the definition; now FAITH is the SUBSTANCE of things HOPED for, the EVIDENCE of things NOT SEEN.
If we can spend some time to re-read that definition, you will realize just how weird it truly is.

Let me leave the EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN for now, because our human knowledge has always taught us that all substantial EVIDENCE has to be tangible, well you can’t touch it if you can’t SEE it, but faith actually says otherwise. Let us go on.

One reason faith does not work is because we have not HOPED, and then some of us will just stop at hoping. That is it, you cannot get it to happen if you do not hope and patiently wait for it. Remember Abraham? Who had hope against hope, I mean hope literally stopped hoping but Abraham hoped on, He believed that He who has promised was also able to fulfill it. Now some of us will just hope or believe for something, but just believing will not get it done it is just a first step. See BELIEVING IS IN THE FUTURE, it is anticipation, FAITH IS IN THE PRESENT. It is like believing I will give you some money, it can come or not but you do not have the money when you believed, you have it when I pay up but faith is God saying He will give you some money, now you have it and then He will surely deliver. ‘ONE REASON WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE FAITH IN MAN’.

Another reason why that faith did not work is because you are not asking right, which means you are not exactly having faith. The bible says that ‘faith comes by hearing, and HEARING the word of God. You cannot be faith-full if you lack knowledge on what you are having faith on. For example, you need to have an unwavering knowledge that Christ died for your sicknesses before you can ask sickness out of your system. The sickness will not respond to the thing you heard in church, in fact; if what the pastor said is all you know about sickness then you will doubt yourself along the line, unless you have allowed the word to sink and you have opened the bible to confirm it beyond doubts in your heart. Let me put it like this, if faith was a machine, the word of God is the grease that keeps it running, so you see? You cannot just stop reading the word or make it seasonal because we do have situations calling us to have faith daily.

Which brings me to the person of Jesus, HE is the word and if that belief is outside of Him, be sure it is not faith.

I will also like to add something here, keeping to the words we say to others will increase your ability to trust in others. If you do not always take your words serious, you will always find it hard to take someone by their words, even God.

The next reason why faith seemed not to work is that faith goes with prayer. I will be very brief here, some people will have so much faith in God, believe with their whole heart, even fast and never come to make a request in the name of Jesus and then I am left to wonder.

Now the last but certainly not least, in fact I will consider it the most important is that you do not love.

Yes I said it, LOVE.

Not the love your friends and kill your enemies love, but the love your enemies kind of love. If we can truly have this God kind of love, most of the things we want to have faith for will just fall in place. Some people seek healing and get prayed for, hands have been laid, they have spent sleepless nights in the word, but their eyes have been closed to just forgiving that fellow who has deeply hurt them.
Read Galatians 5:6 and in 1John 3:14, the word said that Love is an assurance that we have crossed from death to life. Not tongues, not working of miracles, not great faith, but the simple act of true love. I read through Corinthians one time, and I had to stop and wonder when I was told that there is FAITH, HOPE and LOVE but then the greatest is LOVE. You see? Great faith will not only come by great prayer, or greater believing it will work through the golden rule of LOVE.

The only clause that Christ put in the Lord’s prayer was ‘forgive us, as we forgive others’, I am sure someone’s mind is already racing, please do forgive that person if you want to have faith.

So if we can pray, read the word and live in Love, we will have all the right compassion to ask on behalf of others and also build a capacity to exercise for ourselves and then we will see all we want done in Christ come to pass. I wondered why Christ always seemed to have everything going for Him and then the sweet Holy Spirit said to me, well He did love the world before He even came to earth.

I hope I was helpful, this message is not for us to give up or feel condemned, let me mention here that I have actually been disappointed in faith, but now I know better and I have seen that the reason those prayers were not answered was never God’s fault. So be encouraged, and let your testimonies come in,
God bless you

ucTRUTH.

Morning all, this write-up is one that is dear to me and yes, it was inspired by the movie: “FACING THE GIANTS “.

” FACING THE GIANTS ” I must admit is one of my favourite movies till date. And before you guys eat me up I must let you all know that I’m not here to talk about the movie. Nah! I definitely won’t be doing that rather it’s the message that the movie passed across to me.

For those that have watched the movie, it has two major characters; “Coach Grant and David” these were two individuals who were facing different challenges and were backing out or should I say were on the verge of quitting but after a divine intervention things turned around for them and their school football team.

Well the message isn’t actually that things turned around for them but the reason why things turned around for them, the major reason is the “G” factor, that is the “God factor “. When it seemed as though the entire world was going to crash on their head they handed it all over to God and HE showed them why He is God.

There is a song by Deitrick Haddon that says “stand still and know that HE is God, there’s no need to fight, for the battle is not yours, the battle is the Lord’s “. They handed it over to God and that’s the reason but mind you, they didn’t hand only their challenges but also themselves to God for God to have worked.

I don’t know how many of you are faced with such a situation or facing your own challenge(s), there is a way out and that’s the way the “coach and his team (David inclusive) ” took. HE’s always there for you. All you’ve got to do is just hand yourself and problem over to HIM. HE’s always ever-ready to help you.

A friend of mine will always tell me that God will only help when you’ve lost all hope and also that the worst comes just before the best. So for those of you already giving up, HE’s there for you, just give it all to HIM, your challenge(s) and life, but most importantly “your life “.

And if you’ve not seen the movie, I advice that you go see it now, it will definitely bless you. And for those of you that have seen it before, please make out time to see it again, just did some days ago and you can’t imagine how much it blessed me.

GRACE!