On Justice & the Kind of Life God Wants.

I recently found this gem the other day and thought to share. While it's particularly important for Christians, I also think it's something everyone should consider. So it is from the book of Isaiah in the Bible. Basically, God told the prophet Isaiah to pass on a message to the Israelites. The Israelites always acted very pious, God said. They would go the Temple every day and even seem happy to learn about God. They carried themselves as though they would never abandon God and like they wanted to be near Him. And when there was silence from him, they would protest:
we have fasted!
we have been really hard on ourselves; denied ourselves of life's pleasures just to please you!
why are you NOT impressed, huh?!
why do you act like you don't notice?

Sounds familiar? I bet it does. You are fasting and praying. You serve in Church. You can quote the Bible from Genesis to Revelations. You can preach the devil back to hell. So what's up? Why does God not notice it?
Well that's because while you are fasting, you are exploiting and oppressing your workers. While you are fasting, you are fighting with the whole world, and keeping malice. So you do the rites, and fast for 150 of the 365 days in the year. But God is like, nah, that kind of fasting will get you nowhere. That kind of lifestyle really doesn't please him. What kind of fasting does he want, you ask.
"No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you. Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help." -  Isaiah 58: 6-7.
If you go on in that passage, it continues to say "THEN..." meaning after you do all of the above, will you experience true healing; will your godliness lead you forward; will the glory of God protect you. It is THEN that the Lord will quickly (it specifies) answer your call.  When you feed the hungry, and help those in trouble, your light will shine out.
In other words, less of you and more of others. We can see that justice, mercy, and compassion matter to God a lot. And again, we see that hypocrisy really irritates God. I'll give another instance; this time in the new testament. Jesus was dragging the Pharisees and calling them hypocrites and stuff. And then he mentioned how they do everything right, they were careful to tick all the boxes. They would even tithe the tiniest income they earned. BUT, they would ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. I'm not even kidding, Jesus called those the MORE IMPORTANT [THAN TITHE] aspects of the law. He then reiterated that while tithing was and would always be important, justice, mercy, and faith were more important.
Coincidentally, I was just joking with my dad and sister recently that while no one person can be angry about all injustices, it's important and dare I say, it's our responsibility to care about justice. There has to be something; one thing you care about. Pick that one thing and run with it, in whatever capacity you can. Is it giving the less privileged? Maybe this year instead of another useless birthday photo-shoot, you can instead ask your friends to give on your behalf? Someone on Twitter once suggested calling your local school (board) and asking to offset some lunch debt for kids. Maybe it's your time you can give: to your own family, your friends. Something...just remember God really cares about it.  Also remember you can't just consistently live for yourself and yourself alone.

At the end of the day, you're just one Person Tola Adeniyi.

Has it ever occurred to you that you are after all just one person? As the great humorist and philanthropist extra-ordinary MKO Abiola used to say: “No one is a ‘four-man” [foreman]. “It is sheer flattery to call a man ‘four man’” he used to quip.

And really and truly, no one is ever more than one. People who hold offices and find themselves surrounded by retinue of servants and hangers- on get so carried away that they hardly ever have time to reflect on their positions in life. When a man gets down from his car and about a dozen people jostle to carry his handbag, he thinks that he is greater than the rest of the world put together. He gets so swollen headed and gets himself puffed up like a balloon. In that circumstance, he imagines himself to be more than what he really is: one person!

This piece has become necessary in view of the nauseating display of opulence by the privileged few in the society, who believe, wrongly though, that life is a straight line and there would never be fluctuations in their life situation. People elected into offices or appointed into positions get so carried away that in their daily dealings with their subordinates they exhibit an air of ‘I know it all’. In discussions on any subject under the sun, they parade themselves as if they are masters of all disciplines. A governor, who was a school drop-out a few years back, would be talking about aviation as if he was professor of aeronautical engineering.

A governor would be talking down members of his cabinet which may include professors and Senior Advocates as if he was an authority on electricity, engineering, medicine, hydro-dynamics and even molecular science. At that point in time, the governor sees himself as a compound of all those disciplines. He no longer sees himself as one person limited by the natural matter of being just a human being. One person! 

Traditional rulers who see themselves as representatives of Deities on earth really behave as if they are individually more than just one individual. No single person is 2 persons whatever the enormity and scope of the powers possessed by that individual. The case of traditional rulers is very peculiar in the sense that but for a serious misdemeanour, a King knows that he may hold his inherited position for life. And because he is blind to a consideration that his exalted position may change, he continues to behave as if he is more than one person. In fact, because he is addressed in the third person, he himself is deluded to the extent that he uses the plural noun or pronoun for himself. In speeches he talks of himself as ‘We’.

I believe it is important for every mortal to carry out the following simple exercise every morning: Go into your bathroom and strip yourself naked. Look around you. What do you see? If there is a giant mirror in your bathroom, for those who worship vanity, look at every anatomical detail in your physique. Look at your belly. Look at your buttocks. Look at your legs that are either swollen or are like the legs of mosquito. Look at the structure of those legs. Now you know you are alone with your two eyes and two lobes of ears. See how lonesome you are. See how much alone you are. In that moment, you are stripped of power and importance. You are just a lump of flesh mounted on a collection of bones architecturally put together by the Almighty Supreme Intelligence. It is just you. The lone you. Let your mind quickly race through what you have done in the last 24 hours and what you intend to do in the next 24 hours. Remember how you came into the world stark naked. Remember how you are pulled out of the womb or got pushed out by your mother’s powerful breath. What do you see?

At the end of the day, that is all you are. One person in his natural ordinariness. Nothing brings forth the reality of just being one person than the situation a 4-star General in the Military finds himself when he is retired or retires from active service. A once dreaded, heavily moustached fire-spitting top Military officer is now a powerless individual queuing up in the bank or at a gas station like every other common individual. At the time he was in service, he saw himself as a battalion. In fact if he was a General Officer commanding a Division, he might equate his power and his person to the entire officers and men of the Division.

It was like the situation of some Emperors of old who considered themselves to be the State. To them, they were the State, and the State was them. But this was a false and self-serving idea. And by the time such Emperors crashed, it was too late for them to come to terms with the reality of their absurdity. Either they got their heads chopped off or got seriously disgraced and humiliated as they were cut to size. There is eternal wisdom and attendant joy in realizing that we are actually not more than what Nature meant us to be. Power, position, influence and affluence are mere decorations to the body. They are all temporary acquisitions that are not skin deep. They do not make a person to grow into two persons, left alone to make he feel that he is bigger than a whole city, community or country.

All those parading the corridors of power and those who actually occupy the bed-room of power should bear in mind at all times that the power they hold and wield is a mere gown which can be removed from their bodies by the same process that put the garment on them. And when the garment is removed, it is the naked lonesome man in the bathroom that you are. This reality may even be made more pungent when you pay a visit to the mortuary. It is in the mortuary that you are confronted with the sight of great men and women of yesterday being tossed up and down in the frozen cubicles they are confined to in their lockers. Alone. Dead alone.

Now, the breath of life is still going in and out of your nostrils. You think you are god. You think the whole world is at your feet. And you behave as if you are a million persons rolled into one. When power leaves you, and position relocates to the man next door, you will discover to your chagrin that the multitude milling round you, and which made you think that you were more than what you were, would disappear. Have you seen some former Presidents lately? Have you seen some once powerful boxing world champions? Have you lately run into some former Military Governors? Have you run into some past richest men in their communities?

What did you see? One man or ‘four man’?

Building Churches in Africa at the Expense of Economic Growth.

China is currently the world's leading economic power. Yet, in China, there is a zero tolerance for church existence. Finland has the most stable economy in the world today. Yet, there are less than twenty churches in the entire Finland. Switzerland has the second most stable economy in the world. In spite of that, Switzerland has fewer than thirty churches. Denmark is the third most stable economy in the world. But there are about 23 churches in Denmark. These countries are considered to have the highest number of atheists, but they are blessed.



Now, let's go to Africa. Over there are more than 10,000 churches  per region. There are 4,000 churches in the city of Yaoundé (Cameroon) alone. 4100 churches in the city of Abidjan (Ivory Coast). 7000 churches in the city of Kinshasa (Congo). 10,000 churches in the city of Lagos (Nigeria). Please note that Lagos City is four hundred and thirty times more numerous than the whole of Switzerland. In Africa, we have more churches than schools and hospitals combined. There are more pastors than doctors. Almost every Christian is a bishop, pastor, deacon, deaconess or evangelist. Almost everyone in Africa is "born again". Even, the Moslems have their own version of "born again" among them. Almost every Christian is covered with "the blood of Jesus". Jesus is actually considered as the "husband" of all single women (according to them) in "revival" churches. 

Almost every Christian is filled with the "Holy Spirit". Even, a con artist will start his/her "business" with a prospective victim by solemnly saying, "Let us pray". And the churches? Some of them are richer than some local governments and states combined. Yet, they neither pay taxes nor contribute to the growth of their communities besides the presence of their monstrous edifices. However, none of these claims is reflected in the moral elevation that is expected in such an environment. We are among the laziest, the most deceiving, the most corrupt, the most hypocritical, the most hateful on the planet today, with all our religious posturing!

Capitalism and the Church – The Way Forward.

There is a work side to prosperity. It is the works of your hand God blesses. People are in farms planting yams and you are busy sitting in church, when it is harvesting time; don't expect yams to fall from heaven. When it is eating time; people are eating and you are "believing" God for yams. Faith without work is dead. There should be a corresponding action in line of faith.

When the gospel came to Africa, the missionaries saw two vital areas of deficiencies; hospital and school. They filled these gaps. Today, directly or indirectly, we have all benefited from it. Today, we have a major problem; unemployment. Instead of filling this gap we are taking advantage of it.

We gather the unemployed and "prophesy" jobs to them. We give them stickers, sell "holy water", tell them to sow and expect harvest, convincing them to "work" for the Lord, that breakthrough is coming... All these we do to exploit and explore the vulnerable.

We travel abroad. We have gone to Isreal and see the agricultural exploits there. But we are not willing to bring them home. When we sow, instead of our money to be invested into ventures like agriculture that would alleviate the sufferings of the weak ones among us, we channel the money to an atheist in Germany who designed MOG's customized car. We channel the money to Buddhists in China where we bought our building materials. We channel the money to a gay in America who produces the sound system and lighting system.

We channel the money to a Muslim in Dubai who did the interior decoration of our " magnificent " building...what a Capital Flight! Why are we crying of poverty and for breakthrough? The God that I know respond to work wherever he sees man doing something to advance humanity, be it a Hindu, Gay, Buddhist, atheist etc. 

I don't want to start mentioning names, neither do I want to indict any person. But just imagine Living Faith going to rice production, RCCG going into Cassava production, Christ Embassy into Maize, God's Chosen into Yams, Catholics into millets etc. The land is there, the man power is there, the money is there, like the missionaries, who saw a problem and filled it, we can also fill this problem of unemployment and food security.

Just imagine a church sending hundreds of trailer-loads of food to evangelize the north. No man can resist love. Feed them in love and watch how their hearts change. That was how the missionaries changed the hearts of our forebears. The missionaries have tried for us, and instead of us to keep pressing northwards, we have resulted in building empires. We have commercialized the gospel. It is all about breakthrough, money and less Jesus, His Person, His Sacrifice and Finished works. 

We have the manpower to feed Nigeria and Africa, generate employment by adding values to farm produce and exporting them. We have traveled abroad and have seen great agricultural exploits, it is time to bring these inventions home. 

It is time we convert our exotic cars in our garages to tractors and other mechanised and modern agricultural tools. Doing what government cannot do, by do doing this; "THE GOVERNMENT SHALL BE UPON HIS SHOULDER ". When we roar, the government is supposed to quiver, not because of our large bank accounts, but because of our intimidating exploits.

It is time to wake-up... I see a day when we shall be holding our numerous church services in farms and factories. It is time to take the government upon His shoulder. It is action time!

Courtesy: Enenche, a Nigerian comedian.

On Justice and the Kind of Life God Wants.

I recently found this gem the other day and thought to share. While it's particularly important for Christians, I also think it's something everyone should consider. So it is from the book of Isaiah in the Bible. Basically, God told the prophet Isaiah to pass on a message to the Israelites. The Israelites always acted very pious, God said. They would go the Temple every day and even seem happy to learn about God. They carried themselves as though they would never abandon God and like they wanted to be near Him. And when there was silence from him, they would protest: 

we have fasted! 

we have been really hard on ourselves; denied ourselves of life's pleasures just to please you! 

why are you NOT impressed, huh? 

why do you act like you don't notice? 

Sounds familiar? I bet it does. You are fasting and praying. You serve in Church. You can quote the Bible from Genesis to Revelations. You can preach the devil back to hell. So what's up? Why does God not notice it?  

Well that's because while you are fasting, you are exploiting and oppressing your workers. While you are fasting, you are fighting with the whole world, and keeping malice. So you do the rites, and fast for 150 of the 365 days in the year. But God is like, nah, that kind of fasting will get you nowhere. That kind of lifestyle really doesn't please him. What kind of fasting does he want, you ask. 

"No, this is the kind of fasting I want:

Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you.

Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people.

Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless.

Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help." -  Isaiah 58: 6-7. 

If you go on in that passage, it continues to say "THEN..." meaning after you do all of the above, will you experience true healing;

will your godliness lead you forward;

will the glory of God protect you. It is THEN that the Lord will quickly (it specifies) answer your call. 

When you feed the hungry, and help those in trouble, your light will shine out. 

In other words, less of you and more of others. We can see that justice, mercy, and compassion matter to God a lot. And again, we see that hypocrisy really irritates God. I'll give another instance; this time in the new testament. Jesus was dragging the Pharisees and calling them hypocrites and stuff. And then he mentioned how they do everything right, they were careful to tick all the boxes. They would even tithe the tiniest income they earned. BUT, they would ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. I'm not even kidding, Jesus called those the MORE IMPORTANT [THAN TITHE] aspects of the law. He then reiterated that while tithing was and would always be important, justice, mercy, and faith were more important. 

Coincidentally, I was just joking with my dad and sister recently that while no one person can be angry about all injustices, it's important and dare I say, it's our responsibility to care about justice. There has to be something; one thing you care about. Pick that one thing and run with it, in whatever capacity you can.

Is it giving the less privileged? Maybe this year instead of another useless birthday photo-shoot, you can instead ask your friends to give on your behalf?

Someone on Twitter once suggested calling your local school (board) and asking to offset some lunch debt for kids.

Maybe it's your time you can give: to your own family, your friends. Something...just remember God really cares about it.  Also remember you can't just consistently live for yourself and yourself alone. 

Courtesy: Ifeoluwa Olawole.

Tithing and Today’s Christendom.

I’m a Christian. I accept that tithing is encouraged by both the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Bible. And I believe in tithing. I however don’t believe in the interpretations given to tithing in today’s Christendom. It’s not written anywhere that tithing must be performed before God can answer prayers. And neither is it written anywhere that the only way to enter the kingdom of God is through tithing. It is an expression of gratitude to God but definitely not the only way to thank God for His blessings, protection and grace. Therefore, there is no reason for pastors to turn it into a decree that must be obeyed by their congregations. God actually prefers and indeed, encourages us to give whatever we can afford and, in a cheerful manner too. These days however, many of the so-called new generation pastors have turned tithing into a compulsion. They make it look like God has a bank account that must be filled with money at every turn. The fact however remains that the pastors are more interested in piling a lot of cash into their churches’ coffers for their own personal purposes.  

The urge to tithe needs to come from the heart of the giver, and not by coercion or some subtle emotional blackmail as is being practiced by many pastors in the modern-day Christendom. As if he already knew what those “Pentecostal” pastors would do after he must have departed the sinful earth, Jesus Christ is known to have denounced the Pharisees not really for tithing but for not observing and practicing the principle of justice, fairness and mercy while tithing. Jesus admonished them thus: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law; justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.” Matthew 23:23 (ESV). 

These days, the scribes and Pharisees of old have been replaced by scam artists, corrupt politicians, drug dealers, thieves and sundry criminals whose sources of wealth are filled with dirt. And unlike Jesus, today’s “new generation” pastor is only interested in having his church’s bank account filled with money so that his personal desires can be taken care of with such money. They don’t care about the behaviors or the givers’ sources of money. The so-called men of God are always being presented with cash, expensive gifts of cars and air planes while turning a blind eye to the atrocities of the givers. And, in turn, the pastors pay and bless their benefactors unashamedly while completely ignoring the poor people who sincerely give their “widow’s mite”. Fortunately, it’s God that decides who gets blessed, not some mere mortals that parade themselves as “men of God”.

Religious Posturing.

"Not everyone who says, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father" (Matthew 7:21).