WWF – UPGRADING YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF GOD

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My heart has seriously been inditing a good matter. The word relationship with God has been coming to my heart. I saw the story of Enoch again in Genesis, and I remembered how as a teenager I’ve clamored to walk with God like Enoch did. There’s a song in my language that is composed in that line: Let me walk with You (referring to God) as worthy and acceptable… I used to sing this song from a very sincere heart then, though I didn’t understand the Word of God then as I do now.

God’s Spirit has been making me see that many in our generation don’t know so much of having a relationship with God. It’s been religion all the way with them. We yell at God always in prayer. We do unbecoming things with God, ‘cos we don’t understand being in a relationship with God.

Let’s try to understand the concept of relationship on human to human level, then we will enjoy God better. In a true relationship, no one is trying to please another per se, all because we felt pleased with each other that’s why we come together in the said relationship. Amos 3:3 says, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” This means, except they are pleased with each other they will not even think of walking together to begin with. As a guy, a lady is pleasing to me then I approach her to ask her out. If I am also pleasing to her, she accepts my proposal and then the journey of a life of bliss begins, by each just being themselves and absolutely plain. There will be ups and downs for sure, but because of the mutual understanding between us we will surely walk through it together in victory always.

This is exactly the story with us and God. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son; that whosoever believed in Him should not perish, but have eternal life, John 3:16. God fell in love with us. He was pleased with us, even with our dirty living and our sinful nature. He walked up to us to tell us of His love for us. Of how He would like to spend His whole life with us. We were like, “Hmm, how on earth would You consider me with all my messes?” But He did anyways and said “It’s no trouble. I’m okay with you. I’m okay with that”. After so much persuasion from Him, we finally gave in, ‘cos we were pleased with His poetic words, and the firmness and sincerity of the tone of His voice.

Now why are we beginning to think we need to be doing lots of things to get His attention? Wait a minute, who is getting whose attention here? Perhaps, we have lost the sense of our relationship with Him. We yell at Him to get things from Him. We are never simple with Him. We shout and scream in prayer until we lose our voice many a time. Sometimes we talk to Him as if talking to an enemy. Can you imagine a wife screaming at her husband to get His attention at home every time? People around will surely know that something must be wrong with their relationship. Actually, we may need yelling once in a while, because we feel Him far from us, and maybe because we are in a deep trouble but what we do after that counts. Jesus Christ also yelled at Him on the cross, ‘cos He felt like God had rejected Him but He finally said, Into Your hands I commend My Spirit. That’s a word borne out of a sincere and deep sense of relationship. Such words always reflects an absolute trust.

My brethren, if we have sincerely and from our heart accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, then we should know that our Father God is pleased with us. We smell good unto God. 2Cor. 2:16 says, “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ…’ I pray God help us with a kind of relationship with Him according to His heart for us. Amen.

God bless
Adebayo Funmi
08060172855

 

YOU AND I

In structure and mind we differ, you with your toy gun and I with my doll

Both content in our own world opening only to those we trust.

Time passes and we both thrive, I with my flowers and you with your guitar

Trying to find ourselves while making our own mark

We leave the past to run with Christ

Our giant strides taken in wisdom’s path

We both write, I of my feminine mind and you in your masculine might

Both trying to reach out to grasp the essence of our fights

You seek and I find in the motion of time,

A common ground, a joint hope, a renewed heart

In an unexpected tide we mix our lives

Learning vices and sharing minds

I with my determined heart and you with your focused eyes

Together we turn the tides, growing in love, strengthening all ties

You with your unwavering faith and I with my praying knees

Soaring above sin, we would gladly live, in our master’s creed

We would believe till a point we would become holy within him.

Looking out to the unseen things, I boldly decree

To you I would cleave as a virtuous queen and you as my wise king

Both following as God would deem fit

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LOVE

This four letter word has more definitions than the one’s each of us have ever heard or imagined. Its definition varies from person to person, and for that reason I want to be very cautious with my definition.

I do not know how to break it softly to you, but the truth they say is bitter…..so this is it…  from my observation of my immediate environment, this word “LOVE” has done more HARM than good.

“HARM?!!!” Yes harm, it may sound surprising but that is the bitter and unfortunate truth. This is so because most of us (youths) and adults likewise have mistaken, misplaced and replaced the true meaning of this word LOVE.

1 Cor. 13:4-7 lists or enumerates the qualities of love. From this passage we are made to understand that LOVE is; PATIENT, KIND, JUST, TRUTHFUL, FAITHFUL, HOPEFUL, ENDURES, FORGIVES and permit me to add that LOVE TRUSTS.

Now we have all seen the qualities of love and are beginning to get a picture of the meaning of this word. But I must say that the qualities of this word cannot and will never be truly defined without GOD. For the Bible states it clearly that “God is love” [1 Jhn 4 :16], hence without God there is no love. John 3:16-17 tells us all that we need to know about LOVE.

What is more than that? OR do I say “What sacrifice is greater than that?” My answer, which I believe should be same with some, if not all of us, is NONE, Jhn 15:13 says it all “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”  [NLT].

All the qualities of love from 1 Cor. 13:4-7 are encompassed in the story of the Son of God “JESUS” He himself is LOVE personified……want to learn how to love?, study JESUS….learn from the master, learn from LOVE.

On a final note, I will like to chip in a friend’s definition of love; he said “love is the surrendering of our priviledge and preferences”.

ARE YOU WILLING TO SURRENDER?

a light in dark times

LOVE L.E.D

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It’s a lonely empty world out there!

Sure it makes no sense to your ears

‘cos statistics hold sufficient claim to a certain 7 billion souls walking the globe

Yet like my creator all I see is a big void

An empty nothingness, wish I could call forth the brightness like He did but I’m no Edison

No! I simply do not have that capacity, I am an inductor

You see the very same curse that robs this world of its fullness

is what right now invades my consciousness

I am living proof to the thick darkness that lurks in obvious sight

permit me to call this day-night. Continue reading

SEVEN BILLION BUBBLES

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So we’re all caught up in our individual spaces, in our personal places, thoughts, dreams, aims, strategies, and views of life. Personal opinions about how to be, to do, and to live, what it means to strive, to overcome, and indeed, our individual answers to what the ‘good life’ means. And if we’re inspired enough, we go for it. For most of us humans, this defines the essence of the cycle of our existence. Otherwise, we’re all simply about living to ‘try to live’, that is, just keeping alive for the sake of it. This alternative is absurd, and downright depressing if we look at things this way.

You, my friend, are also in your own little space, your little BUBBLE. A world, maybe real, maybe make-believe, in which you live…as the center of your own existence. Your perception is the prevailing view, and you see the whole world through your own eyes. Normal, isn’t it?

And yes, its the most convenient way to live as a human being on planet earth.

Lets say something or someone comes in to burst your BUBBLE. Your little hallowed chamber, your way of looking at things, at people, at life. You are no longer the one who draws the lines, dictates the pace, defines objects, understands phenomena, evaluates people, or worst of all lives life as a whole. Everything you see and say and do is ordered and supervised by some external agent. Surely, you won’t take it! You would fight to maintain your space, your world, your BUBBLE. Its your life! No one has the right to tell you how to live it, what the bubble should look like, or whether it should even exist.

Even if its a bubble of fantasies, of fakes and self-gratifying but silly and even dangerously toxic matter.

Even if your bubble is a mass of mess, of hidden struggles and pain and despair. Even if the ‘intrusion’ is a loving surgeon’s incision, a friend’s concerned inquiry, or a glass of liquor spilling and splashing on your floor or God stretching out His merciful hands to help you, to heal your wounds. Even if.

If your bubble stifles and suffocates you, strangulates and snuffs the life out of your lungs and sags your spirit, maybe its time to let it be burst. And no one does the job better than the boss with the divine pin. You may loose all that ‘privacy’ but you’ll gain something priceless. You’ll gain an endless life, joyful and unfettered.

Think about all the bubbles in the world, and how easier things could be if we all were huddled and safely bouncing about in one massive bubble. God’s bubble. Which isn’t really a bubble anyway. Its boundless…love.

WHY CAN’T TRUTH SET OUR HEARTS ON FIRE?

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WHAT’S THE POINT OF BEING A CHRISTIAN, IF IT LEAVES US NO BETTER THAN ANY OTHER PERSON ON THIS PLANET OF OURS?

I think that this is the big question that must bug us, if we’re really serious about our lives, and the whole point of being ‘saved by God’ and ‘transformed by him’. If we are unable to look ourselves in the mirror and tell ourselves the truth about ourselves, it may just be the case that we’re just playing with our lives and our lives matter too much for us to simply spend it on a merry-go-round circus, deceiving ourselves till we’ve kicked the bucket.

The essence of this piece is to shout out the words of truth as loud as I can, because truth is all that our life is worth. I really mean this. Continue reading

SUBTLE

She began speeding down the road
A million miles per hour
Blindfolded
A smile pasted on her face
Oblivious she was headed in the wrong direction.

Just imagine her short-lived disdain when the obstacle suddenly cut short her fairy tale ride and the last sound she ever heard was her cry…

She had her hands on the controls
Everything seemed right
So she figured,
She could afford to shut her eyes and enjoy the ride.
A ride, everyone had stamped as alright
Besides everybody was doing it now
…so why contrive?
What worked for them should definitely work in my different way for me
So freeway or highway she was definitely bound to end up this way anyway.

You can imagine the way that smile immediately turned upside down

No! literally it turned upside down
Because her head on collision with deception and betrayal
Hurt and disappointment
Crashed into the ill placed curb of destruction
Carefully camouflaged by a black and white track called lust
Which was so strong that she tumbled over and over again
Until she hit the ground hard enough to shake of thoughts of survival
Simply because she refused to read the red tall sign that cautioned quietly; STOP

So there she lay, on a bloodied road named Guilt
Dying a death another already did
Trying to pay for a life already paid for
She was what you may call Lost…

If she however would only open her eyes
Unlike Judas she may not fail so woefully at the sight of a possibility: A NEW LIFE
How she doesn’t have to hang from a rope
Because He already hung from a tree…
Endured a Calvary of sorrows
In exchange for her joy
You see, she will no longer be Lost
…or even worse condemned.
 
Because…
Where the sting of death ended was far from where the mark of Christ started
In fact it was non negotiable!
When Him who is Life held the keys to her eternal hell
He chose to set her free.

She must realize…
That like a corpse laid dead for four days
A word spoken from the very lips of creation was able to re-jerk a pulse so cold and far spent
Regenerate a heart so used and wasted
Turn a pot of clay into a vessel of Gold…        
She must choose to realize
That she has only arrived at the CROSSroads
…where Grace and mercy meet.

But first she must open her eyes…

MY JESUS


Jesus

Art by Akiane Kramarik

Trying to describe my Jesus is like an attempt to go bonkers
Cos no bunker could ever hope to contain Him
His glory is ever lasting, totally outstanding
You can’t wish to keep Him in a box
He’s a beast
I mean a Lion
I mean a Lamb
The Lion and the Lamb
A description so contradictory and yet so
accurate
For in Him is Love and Mercy
Where I live, move and have my being
Full of a fiery passion as He chased out the
merchants from me
With immense confidence as He commanded the
storm to cease.

My Jesus is big! Even I can’t quantify Him
Is it His goodness or protection? No one can
defy Him
Just make an attempt and try Him
Don’t put Him to test though, the devil couldn’t
fail Him
Let me tell you something about my Jesus then
The Lion
The Lamb
The Lion and the Lamb
The lover and the fighter
The beast and the tamer
The Judge and the advocate
My very own big brother
Not just watching through lenses
He sees my heart and can finish all my
sentences

He is Jesus
The Lion and the Lamb
The mighty man in battle, His alias
same as prince of peace, Son of God, the
Messiah
The word spoken in days of old
The material form of the spoken word
The justification of all of mankinds existence
My Lord and Saviour
He personally died for me
And of course you too can make this claim
You just gotta believe
I mean really believe
Put your heart, mind body and soul into it
Accept Him so that finally,
Your Spirit will live

Onubogu Somtochukwu