THE GREATEST LOVE (GIFT) OF ALL

“Behold, what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called the sons of God” - I John 3:1

John was so fascinated by this story of love that somewhere in the middle of his letter He made the statement above. I did catch a glimpse of what John felt this morning as I wrote this after reading the first book written by Paul to the Ephesians and meditating on the words.

Paul spoke about Predestination, the inheritance prepared for us, the redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sin, the riches (richness) of God's grace. When we tie all of this together what we have is the greatest love of all and the greatest love story ever told.

As we exchange gifts this season with family, friends, strangers and work colleagues, my prayer is for you to experience this unparalleled love, the most precious gift of all.

Transcending Time: The Genesis of Love

Imagine God, before time began, seeing all of His creation, seeing the end from the beginning, seeing all that will happen, the suffering, the chaos, the many battles and wars, the different eras but still choosing to go ahead with creating time and creation because He made up His mind that will not prevent Him from sharing with us all the gift of love.

That is the love that we have and that is who God is. God is Love.

He refused to allow nothing prevent Him from showing His love to us all.

Envision the vast expanse before time itself was born, where God, in His omnipresence, gazes upon the tapestry of creation – a canvas yet to be painted. He perceives every moment, from the nascent stirrings of the universe to the myriad epochs that will unfold. Amidst this prescient vision, He sees the tumults of human history: the anguish, the disorder, the relentless conflicts, and the unfolding of countless ages.

Yet, within this foresight, lies a steadfast resolve. Despite foreseeing the trials and tribulations, God chooses to breathe life into time and existence. It's a decision fuelled not by naivety but by an unfathomable love, a love willing to embrace creation in its entirety, with all its inherent imperfections and beauty.

This love, boundless and eternal, forms the very essence of God’s being. It is not deterred by the shadows of suffering or the Specters of chaos. Instead, it emerges as a beacon, a guiding light offering redemption and hope amidst the vicissitudes of life. God, in His infinite love, chooses not to be a distant observer but an active participant in the narrative of creation.

In this act of divine inception, love becomes more than a mere sentiment; it transforms into the foundational principle of existence. A love that refuses to yield to the barriers of time, to the ravages of history, or to the uncertainties of the future. It is a love that transcends, enduring and ever-present, inviting us to partake in its boundless grace.

An Active Kind of Love

So He set His plan in motion, created man, gave Him freewill, knowing the downside but set up a plan to redeem us as He spoke words to the first man, that the seed of the woman will bruise the heel of the serpent. From, there the plan was set in motion, through several generations till Jesus was born.

He chased after us with a love that is reckless. We will not be denied the love that comes with being sons of God even though the devil wanted otherwise; From Adam to Abraham to Judah to Jesus to this moment, He continues to chase after everyone who would become part of THE BELOVED.

All packaged in Jesus.

And He has prepared for you and me, an inheritance that the world cannot match, understand or comprehend. An inheritance not made with hands.

Love at Gethsemane: A Reflection of Sacrifice

At Gethsemane, we are told that as he pondered what kind of death He will die, He was sweating, so much so that it was like blood, He ploughed through that agony to still say, I will lay down my life for them. It does make me wonder, what kind of love will make a man do that. I don't think I have scratched the depth of that love.

In the shadowed groves of Gethsemane, a profound moment unfolds. Here, amidst the whispering olive trees, Jesus contemplates the weight of His impending sacrifice. As He grapples with the foreknowledge of His crucifixion, His anxiety manifests so intensely that His sweat falls like drops of blood upon the hallowed ground. This image, striking in its intensity, encapsulates the essence of divine love—a love so deep, it embraces even the most excruciating of sacrifices.

"I will lay down my life for them," He declares, His voice resonating with unwavering resolve. This statement, simple yet profound, echoes through time, challenging us to comprehend the magnitude of such selfless devotion. As I reflect on this scene, I find myself humbled and awestruck. What brand of love could drive a man to embrace such fate willingly? The depth of this love, so boundless and unfathomable, escapes my full understanding, yet it beckons me to delve deeper, to explore the mysteries it holds.

Through this sacred act at Gethsemane, we witness love in its most active form—not just an emotion, but a force compelling one to the ultimate act of self-giving. As I ponder this, I realize that my journey to grasp the full meaning of this love is far from over. It is a journey of discovery, reflection, and, ultimately, transformation.

A Love that waits

God waits patiently for you and me, waiting for us to turn to Him, waiting for us to make the choice to accept His love. His love does not force its way with us, we all have the freedom to choose it or not engage it. However, there are many downsides to not accepting that love, some eternal and some in this life. I will not get into the details.

But the summary of it is that we are not just capable as humans to live outside of that love without causing the suffering others.

There is love for you in God. You are His creation and there are riches of His grace that He looks to give to you.

A Love with Breadth, Length Depth and Height

Paul when writing to the Ephesian Christians, reminds them of this mystery and prays that God will grant them the riches of His glory and that they will be strengthened on the inside by this, He goes further to pray that Christ will dwell in their hearts and they will be grounded in love and understand (Comprehend) its length, breadth, depth and height, the love of Christ, the love that passes knowledge and fills us with the fullness of God.

Tis prayer is my prayer for you as you read this. That you will know this kind of Love and experience it.

I'm happy I found it

I know I found the greatest Love of All in Jesus Christ. And I hope you accept the invitation to be loved by God.

 

I asked an AI Tool to provide further references. Here’s what it produced.

1. John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
• This is perhaps the most well-known verse about divine love and sacrifice, emphasizing the depth of God’s love for humanity.
2. Romans 5:8 - "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
• This verse highlights the unconditional nature of God's love, showing that His love is not contingent on human action.
3. 1 John 4:8 - "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."
• This emphasizes the intrinsic nature of love as an essential aspect of God's character.
4. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 - "Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,... Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away."
• Often referred to as the "Love Chapter," it provides a profound description of what love is and is not, embodying the essence of divine love.
5. Philippians 2:5-8 - "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."
• This passage offers insight into the humility and sacrifice of Jesus, further elaborating on the theme of divine love and sacrifice.
6. Psalm 136:1 - "O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth forever."
• This verse and the entire Psalm 136 with its refrain, "for his mercy endureth forever," emphasize God's enduring love and faithfulness.

Also, the text in the main body written in italics were the rewriting of my initial text by an AI, I thought it did a better job than me and couldn’t help but add it in.

ABOUT WAITING:PART 2

 What We Wait For?

God’s word is called the word of His patience (Revelation 3:10) and He rewards our patience when we wait for it.

We are told to run with patience (Hebrews 12:1) and We inherit the Promise through Patience (Hebrews 6:12, 10:32) because all of God’s work is done in Patience and this patience kindles hope (Romans 5:3,4)

The Bible says that the whole of creation waits for the manifestation of the sons of God (Roman 8:19). We are waiting for our manifestation as Sons of God. We are waiting for the fulfillment of His Promises, every word that He has spoken to us through His word and through His Spirit.

Jesus reminds us to wait for the Power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4)

We are waiting for the Kingdom of God. We are to wait for God Himself, repeatedly. Waiting on God is what waiting is all about. We are told to be patient till He comes (James 5:7). Luke 21:19 – In patience possess your souls.

The Lord is good to them that wait for Him, to the soul that seeks Him (Lamentations 3:25)

Luke 8:15 – Patience is how we bring forth fruit.

We wait for His Voice to direct us on what to do next.

We wait for the fulfillment of His Prophecy

We wait for rain, the showers of His Blessing.

We wait to be sent.

We wait to be empowered and strengthened.

The Action of Waiting

We tend to be impatient because sometimes we think we need to act, other times it is because we think we do not have enough time, at other times we feel the urgency from the external factors that cause us to act. The mistake we often make is that we forget that waiting is an action itself. When we wait for God, on God, through God, by God, in God, we are not passive.

The Seasons of waiting

For every one that works for God or walks with God, God will call you into seasons of waiting. In those seasons, you might wonder, it might feel like a dry patch because you have gotten used to the action and displays of power and providence. He will call you aside to a quiet place, very much like He did with Jesus; these seasons are often hard on some Christians because they do not understand the following:

The season of waiting is a time of renewal.

The season of waiting is the time to bask/enjoy God’s love.

The season of waiting is the time to Worship and Praise God for who He is.

The season of waiting is the time to trust.

The season of waiting is the time of Hope.

The season of waiting is time to be perfected.

The season of waiting is the time to watch for where God is working.

The season of waiting is the time to be empowered.

The season of waiting is a time of rest.

The season of waiting is a time of preparation.

In all these, internal action required to carry out the future external action. To give, you must receive, to work you must rest. This truth is lost to us, for some reason we refer to Christ’s words that He must work the works of Him that sent Him while it is day but forget that Christ himself rested, in the gospels, we are told that He went to a quiet place to rest, He was asleep on the boat during the storm. We paint a picture that we must work all the time but forget the God of the Sabbath; forgetting that resting and being still is a major part of Christianity and we must learn to do this. Yes, we are told to occupy till He comes but He will be happy if when He comes, He finds us waiting on Him, Resting in Him because we rested in the season the rest, He called us to.

Spend time waiting, don’t be in a rush. While you wait Love Him like a Bride waiting for her groom.

Our victory is not won when we are doing, our victory is won when we are waiting.

Waiting is the fuel to do.

Build your muscles when you wait, so that when it is time to go, you would not fall short or be found wanting like the virgins without oil in their lamp. Waiting fills our lamps with the oil we need to go the distance.

So, what do you have to wait for or What is calling you to act?

Wait I say. Wait on the Lord.

How we wait for God

God is always working. The evidence is all around us but sometimes we are blind to see it or feel it in any of our senses. He never stops, the Bible tells us that He never sleeps or slumbers, He is always working to bring His word and promise to us to pass, our work is to wait for Him.

Jesus said, my father works, and I work, He was saying that He see what the father does, and He joins God the Father in that work, not the other way round. The problem in today’s church is that we go to work, then call God in to join what we started. We forget that all of creation is God’s work and our ministries, careers, family life, body, soul and spirit are a part of God’s work and we must bring them all to Him, so that He can show us His purpose for it all, after which we proceed in line with what He has shown us.

The church was built on waiting, they waited in the upper room and received the power that started this never dying kingdom, Paul was hasty to bring the word of God to certain places and the Holy Spirit prevented Him. Waiting is a not negotiable, and we must only act in God’s time, and He is never too late.

Wait daily – Spend time with God in Secret, Wait in His Word, Wait in Prayer, Wait till the vision is conceived of what you ought to do, Wait at every step of the way for guidance, Wait in a fast to receive those things that only come by prayer and fasting.

Let waiting become the habit, the heart that has learnt to wait for God will move mountains and do the impossible.

Wait to see where God is working and follow Him there. Wait when it is hard, and you are itching to go.

As I mentioned earlier, it will not be easy, sometimes you will wonder where God is, sometimes you will falter. sometimes you will make the mistake of going without Him but when you have realised your foolishness, I hope that you wait.

Let your faith rest in Him, so that nothing will be able to pull you away from Him.

Waiting requires absolute trust in Him.

As I write, I am reminded about the armies of Israel long ago, who would wait while the enemies where at their doorstep, God will often say don’t do anything, be still and know that I am God. Those stories are pointer to the truth that we achieve nothing by our own selves but by God alone.

I will finish with the words of one of my favourite songs.

What my eyes can't see I still believe
Everything spoken to me
There's no word that can come back void
I will trust the report of the Lord

God is not a man that He should lie
Every need He will supply
So I will wait, I will not be moved
I believe, I believe, I will trust in You.

While I'm waiting, I'm getting stronger
My faith is rising, and I will run on
While I'm waiting, I'm lifting up on wings as eagles
I believe, I will trust in You.

ABOUT WAITING:PART 1

 Isaiah 40:31

³¹ But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

James 1:4-8

⁴ But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

Waiting. It is an antithesis to this generation. In our world of fast food, fast internet, fast gratification with credit cards, orders with the click of a button, fast money, fast cars, fast planes and so on. Patience is not regarded as a virtue, instead speed is considered to be much more important. We also see it with lists like Forbes 40 under 40, the obsession with youth and lack of reverence for age, the obsession with the new etc.

But the Bible tells us opposite.

Waiting is the virtue. Patience is the virtue. Patience is how we achieve perfection.

We are in a world, where acting on our impulses, being men and women of action is considered the virtue, doing is the verb every one regards as the high value, no one asks, how do you wait for a living, instead the questions are what do you do for a living, what are you going to do; when you answer, I’m going to wait, you are looked at as if you were an alien. It is believed that waiting is some form of passiveness, but the wisdom of God is different.

The initial text at the beginning of this article says that waiting on God is the path to strength renewed, it is the way to fly like an eagle, it is the way to running and walking without being tired.

The question is why wait? Why wait when I can go out there and get all I want and need, why should I wait on the Lord?

Waiting has been, is and will always be the Plan.

The Bible makes it clear that God is always at work and has been at work since creation, even in the books of Esther and Ruth, where the activity of God is little mentioned, we have the benefit of hindsight and we see God working, weaving His fingers and His hand through time from eternity to accomplish His purpose and plans for all His creation. He has, He is and will always be in-control.

And we are His creation. Though we lost something at the Fall, we recover it when we find Jesus. We lost our purpose which was to rule over the earth, in Jesus, we have recovered that purpose, but we must be careful not to make the same mistake that Adam made; we must wait on God. At creation, God instructed Adam that He could eat everything except the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, the interesting thing is that He was not previously barred from the Tree of Life, but Adam impatiently ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and evil; he was seeking to be like God, to know good and evil. The temptation to be like God is so great, there are several men who overtime have fallen to this temptation; Adam had spoken to God, He had seen the splendour, the majesty, the glory, the greatness, and He could not wait to be like Him, this was His error. God always intended to make us like Him and not Him, Adam and Eve, only needed to be patient and they would have become like Him, they could not wait.

Waiting is the Plan, there is no other plan.

To be like Him, we must wait. We will never be God, He only is God, and we are His children, gods, sons of God, which is what we are and created to be but we must wait.

Jesus’s Example of Waiting

Jesus understood this when He came to earth.

When He was tempted in the desert, He waited before He ate to regain strength in His body, turning stone to bread would have been easy but that was against God’s word, hence He waited till He found bread to eat; He could have jumped and landed on His feet, but He knew that this was against God’s plan for the season, He could have bowed to the devil and received all the kingdoms of the world at that moment, but He knew, that was not the time and He had to wait more than 2000 years when the kingdoms of earth and heaven will become the Kingdom of our God. He knew that waiting was God’s way. God created time for us to wait. Time is his instrument to accomplish His purpose, so that we may become all that He has purposed. Time is an instrument of perfection.

Even God the Father waits, He waited before Jesus came down, He did not send Him immediately, He is waiting to vanquish the devil, He waited for the salvation of every man who is saved and continues to wait for everyone who will be saved, He waits to see His will on the earth. Waiting cannot be removed from the order or things. Jesus waits to rule the earth.

The Holy Spirits waits for us. He waited for us to receive Him and His Power, He waited for us to be convicted of our sin and turn to Him for grace. He waits for many today and continues to wait according to the will of God.

God is a God of Patience (Romans 15:5)

We must wait, learning to wait is hard but we do well if we wait.

The times of waiting are peculiar, they may seem like nothing is being accomplished but only if we could see with our spiritual eyes what waiting accomplishes. The spiritual controls the physical and we need our spiritual eyes to see what waiting does for us. Isaiah does an outstanding job of describing what waiting does for us. Paul comes second in describing it as what perfects us.

THE NEW MAN, TO BE LOVED AND BE REBORN

Therefore, if any man/woman be in Christ, He/She is a new creature, old things are passed away behold all things have become new (2 CORINTHIANS 5:17)

It’s the second quarter of the year already and for many of us we had resolutions at the beginning of the year. For most people, those resolutions will be dropped by now for some reason or the other, whether or genuine or not, for others, its not quite there yet, for others its work in progress.

I have pointed this out to lead us to a point made by a man named C.S. Lewis. He said that “No one knows how bad they are until they have tried very hard to be good”. This is very true, like our resolutions, we try very hard to do right only to end up in the wrong always. It’s almost as if we are tied or tethered to something that will not let us be good or let us do the resolutions that we have set. We see the good we are trying to do but somehow it is an impossible task to achieve. The best person to explain this concept is Paul in Romans 7:5-25. If you have the time, please go through it and you will see yourself in the same mirror Paul was looking at.

Now sometimes we are able to achieve some resolutions by shear will, or be good in some way but fail in some other ways, the case remains that we are unable to be all that we want to be. The reason is that we were never created to be all we want to be. We were created to be what our creator wanted us to be.

This brings me to the new creature.

When Paul completed Romans 7, He ended with a statement like this

I am a wretched man, who will deliver me from this “burden” (body of death)? –(Romans 7:24)

Then He declares, I thank God that in Jesus I have been delivered. (Romans 7:25)

The first step to being all that you ought to be is to realise that you do not know what you ought to be because you did not create yourself, but God created you. God is the Author of your story and your creator. Yes you might know some things but most times you will be wrong.

He wrote your story way before you were born. Jeremiah 1:5 says

Before I formed thee, I knew thee.

More like saying I knew what you are and will become before you became it, even before you became a person.

In another part Jeremiah 29:11 God said, I know the thoughts I have towards you, thoughts of peace(not of evil), to bring you to an expected end (a future and a hope).

Once we realise this, the next step is to pursue the One who created you.

Here’s the interesting part here. God has been pursuing you way before you start to pursue Him. And He has made your acceptance your choice.

The verse after the text(2 CORINTHIANS 5:19)  says that God has been working since His day of rest reconciling the world back to Himself. He works tirelessly to reconcile you back to Him. Why? You might ask. The answer is Love.

Yes Love. What kind of Lovesickness will make God go through (birth, death and crucifixion) just for you.

This Lovesickness is expressed in the message of the Season(Easter) that just passed.

John 3:16 says:

For God So loved the world that He gave His only begotten son. That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

Yes, that is right, God has been on your case way before you realised it. He’s been weaving and working through time so that you can be reconciled to Him.

But to experience God and His love for us, We must believe in Jesus. This is Salvation, the new birth, being born gain, being reborn, becoming the new man; Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life, No one finds the Creator or comes to Him but by me (John 14:16)

In Conclusion, to be all that your creator wants you to be (THE NEW MAN, BORN AGAIN, LOVED), start by believing in Jesus.

We started with saying that if any man is in Jesus, He is a new creature.

Believing in Jesus is becoming a new man. What Jesus does when we believe in Him is that we stop being the old person that we were, we are infused with new life (everlasting life, abundant life, I hope to write about this life in the future).

He becomes our Lord and Saviour, saving us from the wretchedness Paul talked about and giving our life the true meaning God intended.

I invite you to become a new man today. Your creator is waiting for you so He can “love on you”.

He is waiting to make you all He wanted you to be. THE NEW MAN.

Come and Discover this NEW MAN AND WOMAN.

Come and Discover what it is TO BE LOVED

Come and Discover what it is TO BE BORN AGAIN (REBORN)

 

 

LETTER TO THE NIGERIAN DIASPORAS: A CALL TO ACTION

This will be a long one, so forgive me. But please give me a few minutes of your time.

First of all, I must say that I am a Nigerian Diaspora and this letter is in many ways to myself as well.

I am a Nigerian, Born to Parents from Ekiti State, Nigeria and lived the first 26 years of my life in Gbagada, Lagos, Nigeria. My siblings and parents live in Nigeria as well as several extended family members and friends who I care about deeply.

I have always loved my home country, What Nigeria is and being Nigerian is both my blessing and my curse; for example, being resilient,driven; and being subject of searching at every international airport because of my green passport at the same time.

I am one of those who believed for a long time that I will live and die in Nigeria and conquer the world from Nigeria, much of that has changed now because I now live “down under” in Australia. It took a long time to make the decision to move because in many ways I believed and still do that I am one of those called to change Nigeria and solve its problems, I believe I belong to “a new generation of leaders” made to serve that great country called Nigeria and people called Nigerians.

I have said the above to give some context to the following words that I have written.

It’s election season and in some ways, many of us feel that we are spectators to the event which is choosing Nigeria’s leaders for the next 4 years. In 3 weeks, our Tribe (being Nigerian is a Tribe) at home will go the polls. In the following words I will speak of some of the ways in which we have a role to play in making Nigeria better, but that does not take away that Nigeria’s number one problem remains leadership. If we get leadership right, it will definitely give us an edge. I have often surmised that Nigeria’s problem can be summed up in the words in Ecclesiastes 10:7 “Servants riding on horses and Princes walking on the ground like servants”. Somewhere along the line, I don’t know where, we handed over the leadership of our great country to those who shouldn’t be near government in any way, charlatans, whose God is their bellies, those whose end is doomed.

However, solving Nigeria’s problem requires both a bottom-up approach and a top-down approach. Which brings me to what we should and need to be doing as diasporans.

Being Diaspora, gives us some form of advantage and at the same time a disadvantage. An advantage we have is that we have seen and can understand better, how a system can be made to work for its people, a disadvantage is that sometimes we can be out of touch with the core issues that Nigeria and Nigerians face. Another advantage is that we don’t have to deal with some of the third world problems we face such as lack of electricity, water and other social amenities (something the west fails to appreciate; as they say, you don’t know what you have till it’s gone); while another disadvantage is that we might loose the sense of urgency required to solve the issues that plague our nation.

When I spent a few months in Nigeria’s civil service before moving to Australia, it gave me perspective to the fact that solving Nigeria’s problems requires some external influence, in many ways, we cannot ask the system to reform itself; it is not designed to do that. A simple analogy is the civil service and its inefficiency, it is known that the best reformers in the civil service have always come from outside of it; it needs some external force to set it on the trajectory needed to reform it and make it work for the people it was created for. The current civil service is not designed to serve Nigerians but those in government and itself. I did not see that the diaspora was a part of the external influence it needed when I was in the civil service, but I understood clearly that Nigeria cannot by itself with the current kind of leadership cleanse itself.

This is where You and I come in. This letter goes to all diasporas, including students studying abroad, first, second or third generation diaspora and as many that know that they are connected to Nigeria in some way and are passionate about seeing it achieve its potential.

Nigeria needs all the help it can get in solving the myriads of problems.

Many diaspora do an “unthankable” job with remittances with family members and friends in Nigeria, imagine a Nigeria without those remittances. Keep remitting, the effect of the remittances is that it reduces the suffering of not just family members and friends that we send them to, but also helps the economy of the country through the many businesses that benefit from the money spent by family and friends; we must go a step further.

The student in diaspora and the academic in diaspora needs to turn their attention to solving the problems that Nigeria has through research. Some of the challenges we face are peculiar to us and solving them requires that we must ourselves pay attention to them and pour ourselves into solving them. We must take advantage of the systems that work around us to develop solutions to the challenges that our people face. There are examples of people who do this already but we need to scale up and be much more intentional. For example, when you do your research in academia, think about that applies o Nigeria, let your problem statements be also focused on Nigeria. We must do this while solving first world problems in our respective domains.

Every diaspora has a sphere of influence, in our sphere of influence we thrive and prosper, that spare of influence is connected to Nigeria in some way. As professionals, as blue collar or white-collar workers, as doctors, engineers, nurses, social workers etc. We must leverage the experience and knowledge we have, to tackle Nigeria’s problems. The fact that we thrive in every nation abroad is a pointer to the enormous potentials and possibilities within our reach.

We can only do this collectively and not in silos. We must engage each other; one shall chase 1000 but 2 shall chase 10,000. The scale required for us affect Nigeria is such that we must bind together. We are over 200,000,000 (although not all of them need our help, but you get the gist), to understand the scale of impact required that is more 3,300 Abuja National Stadiums; to impact that many people we must form the partnerships required. Our partnerships must include those who are like-minded at home who see the enormous potentials and are willing to put in the work/sacrifice not for selfish gain but for the common good of our people.

We must move past the survival mentality that our circumstances and situations have bequeathed on us to an abundance mentality. We must build ecosystems that ensures that every Nigerian wins and thrives. We must move past the divisiveness of nepotism and understand our Unity; despite being a construct of colonialism, we must understand that we are better together than we will ever be as individual nations.

I said I was once one of those who thought my whole life will be in Nigeria, but with my exposure that has changed. My stance on “Japa” has changed from “ki le n wa n ta” to “welcum to the habrod”, it is an advantage, take it as a privilege that you must make use of, to improve the quality of life of not just yourself but those of those around you.

In a sense, I feel that we have a privilege to live in nations not faced with the third world problems we have. This privilege given to us frees us to be able to tackle certain issues and problems with resources not available to some of our colleagues at home.

While we are at different stages in our journey, some of us are still finding our feet abroad, some of us are just adapting/adjusting to the new challenges that living abroad gives you, some of us are still working through our finances, some of us are still settling down, some of us are still trying to lay the foundation that we need to be able to thrive, we must do this this things with a wise saying in mind.

"Home is always Home. There is no place as Home”.

“Ile l’abo wa”

Now I understand that Nigeria might have taken from some of us, our loved ones and many other things like our dignity, justice etc., but we must forgive it. First, because God forgave us first; second for the sake of the people whom we love so much, and for our own peace as well. We cannot throw the baby away with the bath water.

The Bible talks about how God gave earth to man by blessing Him and saying to Him, Be fruitful and multiply, have dominion over the fish of the sea and every living thing.

In a similar way, we have a charge which goes to us all wherever we find ourselves, we must not only thrive and prosper in the diaspora but in some way be a part of the change that Nigeria will experience by God’s grace. We must strive to make Nigeria the great nation it should be.

God Bless You and God Bless The Federal Republic of Nigeria.

THE BLOOD OF JESUS

 

THE BLOOD OF JESUS

For this is My blood of the [new and better] covenant, which [ratifies the agreement and] is being poured out for many [as a substitutionary atonement] for the forgiveness of sins .

Matthew 26:28 AMP

 And they overcame and conquered him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, for they did not love their life and renounce their faith even when faced with death.

Revelation 12:11 AMP

 

Precious, that is what the blood of Jesus is.

In a world that is filled with all sorts of problems, the blood of Jesus is our only plea.

The Bible tells the story of how Satan goes before God as an accuser (Revelation 12:10) and does the same even now, He is the accuser of the brethren. Sometimes, He will accuse us to our face, sometimes before others, through the mouth of others, in our absence or presence, sometimes before God; Sometimes, He will bring our past sins, our present failures, or the sins of our forefathers/ancestors, all as a ploy to prevent us from getting the blessings God has for us. As our only shield against these, I bring you the Blood of Jesus.

The Blood of Abel the first man whose blood was shed cried for revenge, the sin of Cain, needed to be paid for. But the Blood of Jesus? the Bible says it speaks better things than that of Abel(Hebrews 12:24). When we are accused by the Devil or any man, the blood of Jesus speaks on our behalf, saying there is no accusation against us. The Blood has paid every debt; every wage of sin, paid by the Blood.

The blood of Jesus, How Marvelous it is and Wonder Working it is. There is Wonder Working Power in the Blood.

When we are plagued by sin and its guilt or under the siege of a besetting sin, the blood of Jesus washes us, cleanses us, makes us white as snow even in the midst of that battle. The Blood says I have cleansed you, Be Clean, the Be free of your guilt and Shame, The Blood calls out to the Holiness within us put in there by God, It pulls us out of the darkness into Light. A miracle that cannot be explained. We just know that the Blood does Wonders in us.

The Blood is for our Healing, When we partake of the communion, The Blood reminds our bodies of the sacrifice made on our behalf several years ago and renews us through Faith in His Blood. When we are sick or weary, we plea the Blood over our bodies, and the Blood that has never lost its power shows up and gives us strength in ways we cannot explain.

The Blood invites us to the Table to partake of all that we seemed to have lost. It speaks the purpose(goodness) of God into every part of our being(Spirit, Soul and Body), it cries mercy over us, it defends us against evil, it is the signpost in our houses, in the car when we drive, on the road we walk, the blood covers us all.

Where would I be without the Blood of Jesus?

All that my Heart can say is Thank You Jesus for the Blood

Maybe the Blood is all you need today.

To call forth what you are waiting, the stream still flows and it still makes whole, It will never lose its power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l01xJg3LiqI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avA6g_JjHis