Tag: Bible

RACIAL RECONCILIATION: OUSTING RACISM WITH LOVE

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” God created the human race, humans created racism.” -Jane Elliot

Racism. We all are somewhat scared of and responsible for this word. An upsurge in protests snowballing across many countries in the wake of George Floyd’s murder is shaming racism and racists. Topics that were once sacrosanct are now public discussions. The world is waking up to the damaging effects of institutionalized and systemic racism that has plagued “minority races” for decades. In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic, activists and protesters are stamping their feet down, pumping their fists in the air demanding equality for all races. These measures are certainly drawing attention to the issue but unless conscious steps are taken by every individual, it “may” be a waste of time. We may not be responsible for racism but we sure do have our work cut out in achieving its deconstruction.

Living in imperfect societies as Christians compels us to do the one thing we’ve been called to do – Love. The famous one-liner, “if you can’t beat them, join them” isn’t a Christian mantra, but rather debunking it is what we are called to do. We can’t stand up to racism by inciting hatred or shrinking into our holes but by loving people of all ethnicity and language like Christ did, unconditionally. Mike Todd in his sermon on racial reconciliation expatiates on a commandment God gave us; “love your neighbour – not your black neighbour, or white neighbour, or affluent neighbour”. The knowledge that in Christ, there are no divisions based on race or ethnicity would be more effective if it were truly practiced rather than stated.

Prejudice, discrimination, structural and institutionalized injustice can be demolished with racial reconciliation which upholds love, tolerance, inclusion and respect as its tenets. Recognizing the problem and actually believing it is a problem is a good place to starting the journey of racial reconciliation. We ought to have a level of self awareness rather than feign ignorance on the issue, only then will we see it as a social problem that needs to be tackled.

Racial reconciliation is not just the sermons but the conscious and consistent love for people, not because of the colour of their skin but because they are human. Love encompasses everything we need to fight racism. There is beauty in diversity, I mean the world will be so bland if everything existed in one shade. Accepting and embracing this draws us closer to the fulfilment of the revelation John had when he saw people of all race, language, nation and tribe worshipping God in harmony.

Reconciling races is possible when we’ve been reconciled to ourselves. No race is inferior to the other, therefore you are not inferior, the spirit in you is not the spirit of fear but of love and that eliminates all fear. We are all worthy of respect and equality and because this decades-long monster has eaten deep into our societies and institutions does not imply we have to settle for and expect less. We are to celebrate our ethnic identity and uniqueness, whether we be African, European, Asian, American, Australian, Biracial, Multiracial, we are God’s ingenious handiwork. We love God and by transforming into His image, we become love and in turn, we love others.

Self-examination reveals who we inherently are. There are social, religious and institutionalized constructs and biases inculcated in us from our childhood which may be discriminatory, this can unconsciously lead us to perpetrate the myths and stereotypes we grew up feeling were normal. Racial reconciliation means evaluating our beliefs and theories about people different from us and ultimately deconstructing the prejudiced, bigoted ones.

The one way racism can be ousted is through love, the God kind – agape. Sure activism raises awareness but treating everyone equally starts from an individual making the choice to love. And how best can we love except we have love in us? There is one who loved us all so much He gave His life for us and if we let Him in, then we too can love effortlessly, regardless of who it is, White, black, brown, red.

In a world where hatred and strife is growing, may we choose to be symbols of love.

IfiokAbasi Okop and Steven Kator Iorfa. ©2020

2 Corinthians 12:9

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And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

The power of Grace was more evident to me when God came through that year in that simultaneous dramatic events of life.

Being one of the best students in my faculty, many would not believe I could be struggling to understand Statistics and Research Methodology because I had a previous brilliant performance in a related course; but the truth was their “efiko” was having a tough time understanding the course. Their “efiko” was empty in statistics.

Not only that, their “SU” brother (Scripture Union brother) was seriously romancing with lust and about to lay with her, but being a leader in the fellowship, time was preventing the showdown. You can imagine the congregation model about becoming the specimen in the devil’s laboratory.

All of that was happening two weeks to the examination. So on this fateful day, I can’t remember what made me to pray. I had never seen myself so broken before. I prayed that God would grant me access to understand the most difficult course in my life and help me to lose appetite for immorality. I prayed until I fell into the hands of sleep.

It was incredible that, I was among the best students for the course when the result was released; and unbelievable how the passion for lust was lost in me. Indeed, I was helped by God’s grace for it saved me from failure and the sweet poisoned hands of lust.

The beautiful thing about God is the unending love to save us from the messy lifestyle. He is always ready to deliver us from danger zones if we will cry out for help.

There is assurance that He has sufficient grace to help us in times of need if only we will approach His throne of grace for inexpressible mercy and grace in times of need as rightly put in Hebrews 4:16. God needs our boldness and openness in running and speaking to Him when things are not going as they are supposed to.

The problem however is that many times we want to prove superheroes and pretend to people around us that things are fine whereas we’re on fire. However, it is only when we have the understanding that God only strengthens us when we expose our weaknesses to Him, until then, we will continue to struggle with our infirmities.

God is beckoning on you to see that the activation of His strength for you is in presenting your weakness to Him. God’s strength cannot be released nor His power be on you if you are still running in your strength.

Beloved, I beseech you to pause, present your area of struggling and infirmities to Him. For it was written in Isaiah 40:29 that, He gives power to the weak, And to those who have no might He increases strength; and in verse 31, the clause with assurance states, But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint. Won’t you pray for strength for your accepted weakness?

© Josh’ Oloyede Oluwafemi.

“Stay hydrated”

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“Drink water and mind your business”
The beautiful river of my motherland
Now seems like a wasteland of hopelessness
My business, now more popular than bitcoin

I’m sorry if these waters taste like disappointment
But I won’t apologise for wanting more
I’ve been called worse than Oliver Twist
I’ve had five men in my bed, yes
I own my past, so stop slut shaming

I’ve had five men in my bed,
They all left with a piece of me
Now I live with Shame, our relationship is complicated
At least he’s better than Lust with his flowery words
Who took my innocence and a piece of my heart

Lust was better than Anger,
He sent my family packing
Anger was better than Desperation,
He stripped me of my sanity
Desperation sent me into the arms of Worthlessness

But we just didn’t last
I’d rather not talk about Self Deprecation
As pretentious as anyone with two first names
So I’m sorry the rivers of my motherland
Do not seem to be enough

I was content in my discontentment
Till I met him
As comely as the dew of the morning
His face bright as the sun
And his eyes stripped me of all my layers

When he spoke to me, I felt beautiful
He gave me water from the wells of His being
Then He asked me to bring Shame
And everyone else who’d made my business theirs
So I ran into town screaming

“Drink! Drink!! For out of my belly now flows, rivers of living water!!!”

Miracle Ifechukwu
(c) 2020

The World’s Most Beautiful Bible

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Magnificent bible that can be passed from generation to generation

If you ever had just one book… what book would it be? For most christians the answer is simple: it’s The Holy Bible. But what if the most important book of all this time could also be the most beautiful, sturdiest and important your family’s heirloom Bible? The one, which is passed from generation to generation: from you to your children and grandchildren.

Probably the most magnificent Bibles is Cassell’s Illustrated Family Bible, dated from 1840s-1860s, which is considered to be one of the world’s most beautiful King James Version Bibles ever published. With 1600 pages and more than 900 iconic illustrations and detailed maps, it had almost an encyclopedic value.

Paulius Virbickas, entrepreneur and publisher who has published over 1000 books found this Bible sitting on a shelf, covered in dust, in an old antique bookstore. It seemed like it was just waiting for him patiently. As he slowly opened its cover and started carefully browsing through old pages, he immediately understood – this is it.

Together with his team Paulius devoted almost a year to painstakingly restore the magnificent graphic illustrations and decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign for The World’s Most Beautiful Bible. Just recently their Kickstarter has surpassed 100% funding and there are still some time left for those who want to get this magnificent bible.

This is a majestic Bible that contains extensive commentaries in parallel columns, as well as a complete Concordance and a comprehensive Bible Dictionary:

• The extraordinary Holy Bible is over 1600 pages long and dramatically oversized (9’’x11,88’’)

• Original King James Version (KJV) – a translation that is so important, that it is considered to be a driving force in the shaping of the English-speaking world.

• Embossed cover with gold finishing & gilded book edge.

• Handmade solid wood box

• All pages are printed on acid-neutral non-fading archival quality paper, sewn into binding to last long usage and could be open flat

• 3 satin ribbons in black, red and gold to mark your favorite passages

• Personalized cover with your family’s name

• Printed and bound in Europe.

Creators of this project promosed produce 5 versions of The World’s Most Beautiful Bible + 1 “stretch goal” version after they’ll reach $12 000 funding.

Here are these 5 versions of The World’s Most Beautiful Bible:

  1. Personalized Limited Edition

2.  Personalized CHRISTMAS SUPERSAVER Edition – The World’s Most Beautiful Illustrated Family Bible in a solid wood box

  1. Deluxe AMBER Edition in Handmade Wooden Box From Reclaimed Oak + hand bind premium black Italian leather covers & genuine Baltic amber cross

  1. Deluxe SILVER Edition in Handmade Wooden Box From Reclaimed Oak + hand bind premium Italian royal blue leather covers & silver cross

5.  Deluxe GOLD Edition in Handmade Wooden Box From Reclaimed Oak + hand bind premium Italian burgundy leather covers & gold cross

You can support this project and order one of the bibles, listed above here.

So much to see

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I’m so excited, it’s finally summer,
It’s finally time we would travel in the family hummer,
It’s finally time we would fly to a different happening corner,
My joy is so tensed, I actually feel like a Bahamas runner,
Am so happy, we are finally on the Bahamas journey.

My family is happy and free,
We are actually a family of three,
My father a father, my mother his helper, and I am actually three.
My daddy says, son there is so much to see,
The people, the children, the dolphins and also the sea.

So now we are taking our flight over the sea,
I looked through the window, there is very little I can actually see,
Everything down there is just as tiny as me,
I wonder really, Why are those large ships just as little as me.

Now, I have finished my first class tea,
My comfortable couch allows me to be very very free,
I sit back, relax and fill my mind with thoughts of how everything would turn out to be,
I am so excited, but eventually I fall asleep.

I am violently jerked out of my sleep,
Mommy and daddy are seriously praying beside me,
Mommy quickly notices the confusion written all over me,
Sweedy everything is going to be OK, just pray with your daddy and me,
The pilot says, there is a problem we cannot see,
He said the plane is not functioning as it was programmed to be,
He is obviously struggling to land the plane expertly with the help of his team,
Mummy says, “sweedy, the true pilot is not him,”
Let’s together pray to the king of kings.
I cover my face with my hands and say ” God, mommy said you are the pilot of this trip, you know I am so excited about the many things I would soon see, you remember I just dreamed about the Bahamas and it’s sea, so God grant safety to mommy, daddy and me.”

After my prayer, I think I fell asleep, the next I woke up, mommy was smiling at me,
The pilot announced, ” the runway is finally free”
In a moment the plane is finally still,
I look up and catch daddy smiling at me,
He says “hurry son, there is so much to see”

Now daddy is driving us to where we would live,
The sky is filled with tall beautiful trees,
We have finally gotten to where we would be,
Everybody is unpacking and settling in,
While I just enjoy the scene playing before me.

After some time, we all went on our knees,
But before we prayed, I say, ” daddy I think God answered me”.
Then daddy said “what did you ask him”
I said, I ask God for safety for him, mommy and me.
What he replied further inspired me,
I didn’t know God died because he was in love with me,
Please remember I am just only three.

Finally it’s time to see the sea,
Daddy said “son the beach is not far away from here”
Am excited, finally daddy and mommy will play the sand with me.
We finally here,
And Even though our resort is very visible from here,
It felt like coming to the beach made forever near.

I am a child, so I am running everywhere ,
Careful sweedy, careful, mommy shouts from sitting within a chair,
All I say is, mommy come let’s play,
Mommy hurry, Let’s build our castle here,
She smiles and says “son I think the sand is wetter over there”

The evening is finally winning,
The stupid time is constantly spinning,
My Nigerian castle needs it’s final trimming,
But the sea waves think my castle is very appealing,
In a moment am crying, screaming and also wailing.

My daddy hurries over to me and helps me scream at the oceans doing.
Then he tells me, that’s how many Christians are living,
Their lives, God is constructing and building,
Then just before trimming, sin seems very appealing,
And then, He has to start from the very beginning.

What he says, has little meaning,
I stop crying and start rebuilding.
After some time, daddy says;
” son it is evening,
I feel we should all soon be leaving,
Do not ever forget that everything has its own timing,
So today you cannot get to finish this building. “

I stand up and go after the sea that is running,
I hit it with both hands and feet,
” why didn’t you let me finish what I was building”

So that’s why Jesus also came in,
He had to set us free from constantly sinning,
Remember that God is totally emotional about finishing his building,
Because you are his building.

So be like my child, kick against sinning,
Accept Jesus, his mission is redeeming.
But I have to leave,
It’s finally evening.
I have to pick up my son before the sea would overwhelm him,
Don’t let sin overwhelm you.

Look daddy, daddy look,
I think I can see the end of the sky and the sea,
I shake my head, his knowledge is just as little as he,
If only he could actually see,
If only he could actually be like me.

So dear Christian, be like me,
I hope your knowledge is not as little as he,
I hope you can actually see like me,
Because the sky and sea is much bigger than what we can actually see.
Don’t forget to note that the sky is the blessings from Him,
I hope you know there is so much to Him,
His love, kindness, mercy, and grace are all also so free,
So my dear,
Read you Bible and pray to Him,
There is so much to see.

NationalPoet
© 2018