We die to live
Story of my life
I surely do get Abraham now
How he so loved Isaac
And how His God wanted His love dead
We die to live
Story of my life
Ambitious as it were
Drives and passions in my veins
God’s gifts to me, He wants from me
An offering of love to Him
The death of me
He would not let me rot in grave
This is the joy of rapture
Resurrection
Morning
He gives me back my life that my joy might be full
We die to live; story of my life
Favour Omeje
© 2020
“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
In this edition of the CAPMonthly E-Magazine we discuss vastly on the topic of love. Our guest, Mr Muyiwa Olarewaju talks on this topic and shares some personal stories and anecdotes that will boost your day.
You can get your free download here and you can also share with your friends. Be sure to share with us your questions, concerns and what you look forward to in the next month’s publication.
God bless.
It is a fact that when you look Up to the sky
You will see a bird or a plane
But what really comes to mind, what would enters the brain
If you think fast like the Flash
Is a God who picked you from the trash; bin,
Loved you with all your Sin
His son took lash that scratched his back like heat rash
Took spears to his side so he could bleed your mind off its ignorance
Made you see his light that you can make a round about of your life
And despite all your hurt that might have cut you deep like a knife
Plus the strife you faced and falter,
He brings you grace and all your failures he can alter
Will Make your body his Altar as your sight is fixed on his Word
You will soar like that bird
Become Batman when everybody around you only see Bruce Wayne
Then you will understand your efforts without him are Vain
And your Success story you can attain
If you just stay on the same lane with him,
He will give you power like you just work out in the gym
Make you a Star in his block buster film
But if you fail,
Well,
Blame your Eyes
Maybe, just maybe it advised your Mind wrong
Sees Failure when all he says is you are a success
Called you cursed when all he says is you are bless
But then, you can address your case like he did on that cross
As he took away your failure so he could add a dress of grace to your suitcase
That your tongue will only talk of his goodness,
For that will be the testimony you will attest to
So the next time you see Temptation or trials
Just Set your Eyes on the Hill
Take in his word like prescription pill
Then Chill,
Because your help is also staring you back in the face
Isoje Victor
© 2019
The one; who sat and watched my infant head?
While I slept in your beautiful cradled arms.
The one who held me dearly, like a craft, never to be broken.
Pain is driven off in her arms, arms of love that never harms.
She cast away my fears and with loving warmth dries away my tears.
Her eyes are like stars to behold, they give me hope beyond despair.
When pain and sickness made me cry,
Touches from you made me smile.
I was nurtured like a plant to flourish,
Was polished carefully till I looked pretty and beautiful.
Guilty she felt when I had not gotten plenty,
Yet with care she made “this little” satisfy my every need.
Who taught my infant lips to pray?
Who trained me in the way of God and His word?
Told me I would have life less without having the Life of Christ.
Her love is incomprehensible, she calls it agape.
She encouraged me to be loving too because love never fails.
Never look back, heaven is before you. That is her greatest story.
When thou art feeble, old and grey,
I will be your strength, your fulfillment and comfort.
Your smile I will make as I feel your heart with joy everyday.
And one day emerge the man you are proud to call son.
I will take you to church even when you rest in peace.
But till then this is my piece for you;
MY MOTHER.
Adethatwrites
© 2019
C.H. Spurgeon, in full, Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born on the 19th of June, 1834 in Kelvedon, Essex, England as the first of seventeen children to John and Eliza Spurgeon.
He was raised a congregationalist and became a baptist in 1850 at the age of sixteen. He preached his first sermon the same year and the way it happened would not be out of place if it was described as “he was tricked”. An older man asked him to go to the little village of Teversham the next evening
“…for a young man was to preach there who was not much used to services and very likely would be glad of company.”
It was only the next day that he realized the young man was himself.
In two years, he became a minister at Water beach, Cambridgeshire. Two years you say? Yes. Two years at age eighteen. The year was 1852.
He had no formal theological training yet was probably the most read preacher in England. He went on preaching up to thirteen times a week and could make himself heard in a crowd of 23,000 (He had an amplifier vocal chord). He had preached over 600 times before he was twenty years old. It was in that same year, 1854, that he became the minister at New Park Street Chapel in Southwark, London.
Within a year, there was need for a new structure due to the population of his congregation and from the opening in 1861 of the new tabernacle which held 6000 until his death, he continued to draw large congregations. However, in 1856, two years after he became the minister of the chapel in Southwark, he founded a ministerial college and a year later, an orphanage.
He founded sixty-five other organisations. When the organisations were listed on his 50th birthday, Lord Shaftesbury who was present said, “This list…were more than enough to occupy the minds and hearts of fifty ordinary men”.
He was married to Susannah Spurgeon and they had twins; Charles and Thomas Spurgeon.
Whilst Charles Spurgeon wasn’t known as a theologian, he was deeply theologian in thinking and his sermons were rich in doctrine. He believed doctrine was what made the Puritan age glorious than the “whipped creams and pastries which are in vogue”. He had a cross-centered and cross-shaped theology and believed that preaching the crucified Christ was the only reason why such crowds were drawn to his church for years.
He was an ardent fundamentalist and distrusted the scientific methods and philological approach of modern biblical criticism. Remember, Puritan? Unadulterated. Because of this, he was involved in many controversial theological discussions especially within the Baptist circle. In fact, the increase in the liberality of the Baptist Union was the reason he left the association in the year, 1887.
C. H. Spurgeon liked to refer to himself as a Calvinist and described the school of thought (Calvinism) as “placing the eternal God at the head of all things”.
He authored many sermons, commentaries, books on prayer, service and soul winning, magazines, poetry, hymns and more. Some of his book titles were Jesus came to save sinners, the golden alphabet, Life in Christ Vol. 1 and 2 and so many others. His sermons which were often laced with humor were widely translated and extremely successful in sales. He was influential across various denominations and if you have a little knowledge about this servant of Christ, you would have expected me to earlier introduce him with a name he was and is famously known as, ‘The Prince of preachers‘.
The source of the truth in all Spurgeon’s preaching was the God-breathed, inerrant Christian scriptures. He once held up the Bible and said,
“These words are God’s… It is pure unalloyed, perfect truth. Why? Because God wrote it”.
He was not just a Bible-based preacher but a Bible-saturated preacher speaking thus, “Oh that you and I might get into the very heart of the word of God and get that word into ourselves! As I have seen the silkworm eat into the leaf and consume it, so ought we to do with the word of the Lord. Not crawl over its surface but eat right into it till we have taken it into our innermost parts…but it is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible, until, at last, you come to talk in scriptural language and your very style is fashioned upon scripture models and what is better still, your spirit is flavored with the word of the Lord.”
He was consumed with God’s glory and the salvation of men, embodying Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12:15, “I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls.” and stood as a witness to what happens when love for God-centered, Christ-exalting, Bible-saturated truth feeds the flame of love for people; An explosion of zeal and energy, all aiming to glorify God and bring sinners into the fullness of joy with Him.
C. H. Spurgeon died at the age of 57 on the 31st of January, 1892 in Menton, France.
– Buzhoo (2019)
I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it but
because by it I see everything else …C.S Lewis
Quick Facts
Full Name: Clive Staples Lewis
Born: November 29, 1898
Died: November 22, 1963 (aged 64)
Work: Writer, Apologist, Poet, Scholar
Most Popular Works: The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters.
Known by friends and family as Jack (a self given name he adopted up after his dog
Jacksie was killed by a car). You could say he was a man born before his time in many
ways or rather still a man who launched the world to new times by his rich imagination
and rigid faith.
Born in Belfast, Ireland (present day Northern Ireland) into the well positioned family of
Albert and Florence Lewis. As a young lad, his imagination ran free with a particular
fascination of anthropomorphic animals, he and his brother Warnie soon created the
world of Boxen, populated and driven by talking animals. His appetite to read was
stirred and well watered by his parents who stocked the house full of books, his dad
being a solicitor and his mom a graduate of the Royal University of Ireland (a fit quite
rare for women in those days). Lewis himself being a bit prodigy himself was reading by
age three and by five had begun writing stories, he fed extensively and voraciously on
those books, he writes in his autobiography, Suprised by Joy “endless books… There
were books in the study, books in the dinning room, books in the cloakroom, books (two
deep) in the great bookcase on the landing, books in a bedroom, books piled as high as
my shoulder in the cistern attic, books of all kinds” and none was off limits to him.
Life took a not so pleasant turn when his brother Warnie was sent off to boarding
school in England, leaving the young Lewis alone, he became somewhat reclusive,
spending more and more time in books and his imaginary world of dressed animal and
knights in armor. Things went even more sour when he turned 10 and his mother died
of Cancer, he became even more driven into himself and his books, his father never
really fully recovered and this led both boys to feel even more estranged from their
dad. His mom’s death planted a seed of doubt in God, he reasoned that God, if not
cruel, was at least a vague abstraction. About five years down that line around 1912 (in
the tender teen age of 15) and with the additional influence of his boarding school
(where his father had now enrolled him) and, Lewis abandoned the Christian faith and
became an avowed atheist, he later described his young self as being paradoxically
“angry with God for not existing”.
By September of 1914 Lewis was sent to Great Bookham, Surrey, to be privately tutored
by W.T. Kirkpatrick, this man had a tremendous effect upon the young Lewis, he
introduced him to classics in Greek, Latin and Italian literature. Being a tutor that must
see result he helped Lewis learn how to criticize and analyze, taught him how to think,
speak and write logically. After nearly three years with Kirkpatrick Lewis had grown in
bounds and leaps in his literary academic prowess, this showed in his success in the
scholarship examinations at Oxford and later in his outstanding performance at
University College, grabbing highest honours in honour moderations, greats and
English. His hardpressing mentor also helped him reinforce his atheistic beliefs, but his
admission to Oxford and the associates he would soon make would cause the budding
Lewis to rethink his God-void universe.
He entered the world of Oxford in 1917 and in a sense he never left, despite the call to
fight in World war 1 and his professorship later in life at Cambridge, he always
maintained his home and friends in Oxford. During World war 1 he and his college
roommate Paddy Moore, made promises to each other, that if either of them should
die in the war, the other would take care of the deceased’s family. Paddy Moore died,
Lewis kept his word and took care of Paddy’s mother, after completing his first degree
in 1920, Lewis decided to share the same lodging with Paddy Moore’s family so that he
could more carefully look out for their needs, this kind gesture got Lewis outside of
himself and taught him patience. Soon the books The everlasting man by G.K.
Chesterton and Phantastes by George MacDonald began to dig through his stony
atheistic heart, he would later write of the book Phantastes “what it actually did to me
was to convert, even baptize…my imagination”
The years went on but distress in the stony heart of Lewis only kept increasing, friends
from his student and post student life like Owen Barfield and Nevill Coghill often
pounced on the logic of Lewis’ atheism. He would later meet two more Christians with
whom he became close friends; J.R.R Tokien (author, Lord of the Rings) and Hugo
Dyson. Eventually the two paths converged in Lewis’ mind: one was reason and the
other intuition, he vigorously resisted conversion, noting that he was brought back into
Christianity like a prodigal, “kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every
direction for a chance to escape”. He painted his final struggle to come to God in his
book Suprised by Joy, “You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen[College,
Oxford], night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my
work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.
That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity term of 1929 I gave
in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the
most dejected and reluctant convert in all England”
After his conversion to Theism in 1929, Lewis converted to Christianity in 1931, after a
lengthy talk and late night walk with his close friends Tokien and Hugo Dyson. He
became a firm member of the Church of England -somewhat to the disappointment of
Tolkien, who had hoped he would join the Catholic church.
The second world war, proved to be a set time for C.S. Lewis, he spoken on radio from
1941 to 1943 by the BBC while the city was under periodic air raids, these broadcasts
were widely received and ministered greatly to the people, also increasing the
popularity of Lewis. After the war in 1951 he declined a honour by George VI as
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in order to avoid association with
political issues.
It is interesting to note that with the increase of Lewis fame came other pressures,
numerous invitations to entertain guests, grant interviews, give lectures and preach
sermons. And even though he felt called by God to write, he likewise felt it was
required of him to counsel all those who came all the way to his home. As his books
became popular he was flooded by letters, and because he believed that it was Gods
will for him to answer most of this mail himself stating that there were “no ordinary
people” he took his time to write with care to each correspondent regardless of age,
education, or place in society, needless to say this consumed many hours each week.
Joy entered his life in 1956, literally. Joy Davidman, an American writer also a convert
from Atheism to Christianity became Mrs Lewis. She and her two teenaged kids
changed C.S. Lewis’ life for the better. His happiness can be seen in a note he wrote to a
friend soon after they got married “it’s funny having at 59 the sort of happiness most
men have in their twenties… ‘Thou hast kept the good wine till now’.” She brought him
love, companionship and tow stepson with all its accompanying drama, she also
encouraged him to renew his writing of apologetics. Unfortunately his Joy was short
lived as she died of Cancer 4 years into their most blissful marriage. Lewis was quite
devastated by this loss and describes his experience of bereavement in his book A Grief
Observed, he expressed his feelings in such a raw and personal manner that he
originally released it under the pseudonym N. W Clerk to keep readers from associating
the book with him. Funny enough, many friends recommended the book to Lewis as a
method of dealing with his own grief.
C.S. Lewis was a reputed Scholar, prolific writer and noted Novelist who infused Biblical
themes in his story lines, his novel, The Pilgrim’s Regress following John Bunyan’s style
in The Pilgrims Progress was the first of Christian publications he would make and more
were sure to follow. The Chronicles of Narnia in particular, which has been adopted
both into feature films and programs carries the biblical theme of Christ (Aslan in this
case) who basically gives his life for the salvation of those He loves and comes back to
life again. His book, Mere Christianity was voted best book of the twentieth century by
Christianity Today in 2000, he has been called “The Apostle to the Skeptics” due to his
approach to faith, presenting a reasonable case for Christianity, other books in this class
include, The Problem of Pain and Miracles. In 2008 he was ranked by The Times as the
eleventh on their list of “the 50 greatest British writers since 1945”
Lewis died at the Kilns on November 22, 1963, buried beside his brother who passed on
10 years later, he authored more than 70 titles, including works of science fiction,
fantasy, poetry, letters, autobiography and Christian apologetics, Lewis’ book sales are
reported to be more than 2 million annually.
References
http://www.britannica.com/biography/c-s-lewis
http://www.biography.com/.amp/people/cs-lewis-9380969
http://www.explorefaith.org/lewis/bio.html
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/c._s._lewis
http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues//issue-7/cs-lewis-profile-of-hislife.
html#storystream
http://www.cslewis.org/resource/chronocsl/
“Eche! True! (Places finger on tongue and points to heavens) I didn’t intend posting it but because you already said I would, I said ‘what’s there? Just post it after all there is an insight'” THIS IS ME SPEAKING
See what happened.. Me, Dare, Tochuku, Uzor, Eche and two other classmates were waiting in front of the library to write the ‘famous’ CEDR cbt exam in the library.
(CEDR- centre for development and research- exam has always been famous before it became multiple choiced cbt-computer based test- coz of the amount of F’s they gave but now it is famous coz on this day of our exam, first batch out of five which were scheduled for 2pm started by 4pm and so by the time it got to 2nd and 3rd batches, people were fainting. )
Okay.. so we were waiting oo..then I heard one department called up..it was sooo weird.. very different from mine..i was just wondering how two people will be in same school but have drastically different experiences and knowledge. I said it and Eche naaa said… lemme not say what he said.. ehee but you see..it’s crazy how we can’t have same experiences. How neither me nor you can be born into Pete Edochie’s home and be born into Will Smith’s home and still be born into our home.
It’s crazy that we can’t attend King’s college and FGC okposi and urban girls’ sec sch and still attend the secondary school we attended. We can’t school at UNN, and University of Texas and Ida polytechnic, Kogi and still school in the higher institution we were or are or will be schooling at.
We cannot study architecture and engineering and theatre arts and still study the course we are studying. We cannot be born in May and be born in January and still be born in our own month.
We each have individual lives, individual experiences, and in summary individual stories. Lol. This causes all the difference in the world so we want to know what it feels like to be this or that and live here or there and become this or that and have this or that. But I don’t think it will make any sense if it were that way.. I mean all these differences make life spiced up and not boring. It makes us able to have lots of stories to hear and be able to tell our own.. and one thing is constant, in each person’s story, there are tragic and there are comic moments.
The best we can do is to live our one lives well.. make the best of our own stories and see them to their end.. I know and not just think this time around that we can actually better our stories by featuring in other people’s, we feature atimes without consciously knowing but we can also feature consciously, show up sometimes in the middle of a scene and change the course, of course into a better outcome.
This is our multi storied world.. we should each live the one life we have.
#grins
Christ a poet 